30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY TWENTY-TWO

Truth #22:  Logic and knowledge will get you from Point A to Point B and imagination will get you everywhere else. Imagination gives you wings to fly and explore. It gives you a spark to create. It gloriously colors your world and tickles your soul. Sometimes your imagination is bold and beckons loudly while other times it whispers gently while it brushes past you like a gentle breeze. The imagination is the muscle of the mind that people tend to let fade away once childhood is long gone deeming it useless and juvenile. Once adulthood is upon us many of us no longer have an active imagination. Logic and common sense have taken over and the imagination has atrophied with age. Those who have exercised their imagination are the artists, writers and great creators of the world. We the people who admire their works exercise our imagination and keep it alive by indulging ourselves in the journeys those people take. We take those journeys with them. We not only admire the art the create, but we understand it. We not only read the books they write but we become part of the story as we read them. We allow ourselves to dream and venture into the unknown. We keep our minds open and our imaginations keenly honed because we know it is a life force as important as logic where anything is possible.

YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE!

I just looked back over the things I've posted since I started blogging years ago and smiled when I realized how disjointed my posts are.  Perhaps I need to go back to the beginning and put my life's story into chronological order so it makes more sense.  Being scattered is indicative of what lurks just below the surface.  It's like a game of dodgeball.  Being scattered makes the reading more difficult and the reliving it even more difficult.  I tell one story, but I skip over the before and after...those parts are most likely more important than the story I selected to tell.  Those parts were the true catalyst for what drove me, so here's my second attempt to right a

wrong by starting my story in a better spot.  

I was born into a family with a mother who was a seamstress, a father who was a fireman and three older brothers who were jocks by the time they reached high school.  That sentence depicts a rather normal family, but the period after the word "jocks" is where the normalcy ends.  I look at photos of myself from my childhood and I never see what I would call a happy child.  I never smiled except during school photos and then it was forced.  I felt ugly and awkward growing up.  I was always the tallest in my class.  During that era it wasn't fashionable for a woman to be tall, so when I started wearing jeans I had to buy boy's jeans to get the inseam long enough.  I bought Levi's at Freese's Department Store on Main Street for $4.95 a pair. I can remember licking and sticking green stamps in books so I could buy blue jeans that fit my curveless physique.  I was so relieved when tall super models hit the scene and changed perceptions of what beautiful looked like.  Thank you Twiggy!

I don't ever remember being teased about be tall or for wearing glasses except from my brothers.  They would tell me I was going to be 6 feet tall when I finished growing.  I would cry and feel like a freak.  They made it seems like I'd never be called beautiful or looked at by a boy.  In fact, they made me feel that I looked like a boy.  I was doomed to be an old maid!  Perhaps that's a brother's job to keep their sister from getting too full of herself.  If so, mine were excellent at that job.  I do have to reveal that their prediction about my height was wrong.  At my tallest I was 5'10 and now, I've begun to shrink.  The last time I was measured I was 5'7".   By the time I'm a very old woman, I might be considered of average height.  Hooray for the golden years, but BOO for having  so many problems with my back!

In hindsight, I don't know why my mother didn't take me under her wing and show me what girls are supposed to do.  She dressed nicely and wore make-up, but by the time I reached my teenage years I wasn't interested in learning to be prissy.  I always hated make up and rarely wore any.  I hated the way it felt on my skin. My closet was full of nice clothes my mother had made, but I wasn't interested in dressing in of them.  A pair of holey jeans and a T-shirt seemed to suffice.  When mini dresses were in style I wore them, but I was never comfortable with showing off my long legs.  I never felt like I had any redeeming physical qualities because no one ever told me I did.  I just assumed when you look like me people say nothing to be polite. When you look like me, you have no reason to primp or smile.  You just learn to keep it all in and suffer in silence.  When you look like me, every other female in the world is prettier.  You envy your female friends and feel horrible because you can't hide the ugly you were given. I mentioned Twiggy earlier...well, I can't really thank her because I truly hated her because my mother had me get my hair cut short like hers. If you cut a girl's hair like that who has a shapeless body you doom her to look like a boy. You talk about having a complex! 

The same went for all my other qualities and potential talents.  I never realized I was smart and that not everyone was capable of getting A's.  I just assumed because I got A's, everyone else did too, but by the time I reached 7th grade I knew I'd never finish high school.  It was like a dark cloud hovering over me preventing me from seeing the good inside myself.  I longed for recognition, but I wasn't good at doing anything.  I was never patted on the back and told "hey kiddo, I think you have something there.  Maybe you should pursue that."  When the dark side took over completely, I discovered I was excellent at hate, discontent and sorrow.  I had a gift for getting into trouble and being outrageous.  Ah! Finally recognition!

From a very early age I loved to write and often times sat in my room writing little stories and drawing pictures.  Paper was in abundance at our house because my grandfather worked at the Eastern Papermill in Brewer and one of the perks was free paper. As I wrote and drew, I always felt as though I was just wasting paper and that it was awful being so wasteful. I tried to hide how much paper I used by stashing away everything I created under the bed, in the closet and in my drawers.  Surfacely, my room looked presentable, but like my life it was actually cluttered and disorganized. As I wrote and drew, I assumed everyone could do the same.  It wasn't until much later in life that I made a startling discovery and at that moment, I was filled with so many emotions I thought I was going to lose my mind.  I was angry because I didn't receive any encouragement when I was growing up and I was sad because I had wasted so much time living behind a wall. I made myself remember how my creations were never showcased, but thrown away each time my mother decided my room needed a thorough cleaning.  Our refrigerator door was bare except for the occasional newspaper cartoon that was taped there.  The void I grew up in wasn't loud and maddening.  It was dark and cold.  There was no praise and encouragement.  There was only waves of pain and disappointment.

As I got older and could no longer avoid making certain realizations, I felt worse the more potential I discovered I had.  You would think a healthy person making those types of discoveries would feel elated.  They would open their wings and soar amongst the clouds.  Not I!  I stopped writing and drawing about the same time I stopped doing drugs around age 30 and didn't start again for almost 15 years. I had this overwhelming need to punish myself, to stifle myself and to deny myself any recognition for a job well done.  I called myself stupid for not seeing obvious things and for allowing my inner demons to run amok.  I hated being weak and I hated me!  I still struggle with those demons, but I'm able to comfort that little girl inside myself and tell her that she's the bright spot in my life.  Mildred, you are my sunshine!

*reposted from 10/26/2019

MY SQUEAKY WHEEL

My mother always told me that the squeaky wheel gets oiled. I tested her theory recently to see if my wheel would get lubed sufficiently. After all, we all know that squeak can be pretty annoying at times...

Throughout her golden years, my mother has always written poems...hundreds and hundreds of them. You name the subject and I'm sure she wrote something about it. Several years ago, my daughter put together a book of my mother's poetry. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my mother and I'm glad the aliens brought her back (discussed in earlier posts), but sometimes I feel like her focus is on everyone and everything, but me. Several years ago I read through ALL her poems...not one was about me. I could have let that slide, but she screwed up by writing poems about my brothers. Yes, I can be petty when I feel it's needed.

I occasionally print out things I write and let her read them. When she suggested that I post one of her poems on my blog, I jumped at the opportunity to be petty. I told her I would, but nothing she's ever written was about me. Do you hear my squeaky wheel turning? It really needs some oil! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!! Of course, she disagreed with me and said she had, but I told her I've read all her poetry and never came across anything about me. I knew her next step would be to go out in her art studio and go through everything she's ever written just to prove me wrong.

Yesterday afternoon, she handed me a poem hot off the presses. Keep in mind, this poem was hand-written by a 90 year old. My pettiness was quickly replaced by feeling flattered and impressed when I read the poem she had just written. I'm always trying to get her to use her mind to figure out things like simple math. BUT my mother is stubborn and bristles up whenever I challenge her or want her to do something that'll keep the cobwebs out of her head. Most of the time she fails to see that my attempts are not for my own sake, but for hers. Naturally, when she presented me with the poem, I thanked her and praised her for it. Most likely, I'll frame it and hang it in my bedroom on "my wall of shame."

Posted are the poem she wrote and also a painting she did of me about 20 years ago with my baby, Chewy. SQUEAK! SQUEAK!! Don't you think she should do a more recent portrait of me?

I LOVE MY MIDDLE FINGER

I've recently returned to writing and painting. I think both things are positive outlets for all this pent up anxiety I'm feeling and it sure beats pacing and doing tedious housework all the time.  I can't say I'm a master at either craft, but I guess I do well enough to form a sentence or two in order to construct an idea to elaborate on or as I like to call it, rambling... My skill at painting is acceptable and I have to admit I'm my own worse critic.  The following is the piece I finished today. I never name my pieces because I like for them to be whatever the viewer wants them to be, thus no name, just a number. My signature, Van Goggins was given to me by my closest friend.  She named me after Van Gogh. Van is not my first name, but Goggins is my maiden name I don't know what Van Gogh's diagnosis was, but I rather like the fact that he was "special" and special people need to stick together!

When I started painting this picture I wanted to include the cancer I have on my middle finger, but figured that might be a little over the top.  Besides how does one abstractly depict cancer? Of all places to have cancer, I have to have it on my middle finger.  While they tell me it's not a terminal type of cancer, it's cancer and no cancer is good. And yes, it makes me anxious especially since I have to wait another month to get in to see a specialist to have it removed. 

I keep envisioning my middle finger rotting off and the thought of that doesn't bring me joy.  I'm partial to my middle finger...some of my best angry moments involved using it to signal to someone that they had gotten under my skin. Now, it seems the only thing under my skin is cancer.  I've been fighting the urge to do my own surgery, but I have a feeling that would only make it worse.  When this first appeared on my finger over 12 weeks ago, I assumed it was a possible spider bite. 


I tried on three separate occasions to get my primary care doctor to look at it, but she wouldn't even come near it. WTF? I know it's not pretty, but put some latex gloves on and come over here and look at it. NOPE! She blew my mind by how she acted.  I know we all have bad days, but when a doctor has a bad day that means mistakes are going to be made! What I finally ended up doing was getting a new primary care who solved the problem in a matter of minutes. He nixed the notion that it was a spider/insect bite because there was no drainage or infection associated with it. I know it looks sore and it is sore,when I bump it. The question of the day is how many times do I bump it in a 24 hour period and how many shining expletives do I say per bump? 

P.S. I noticed a few days ago it's starting to grow hair from it.  Great! A hairy cancerous finger! What more can one ask for?