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Sunday, September 4, 2011

The fine line between happy and sad.

Today is sort of a strange one for me. Later this evening I will be going out with friends and family to celebrate my cousins birthday. She will be toasted over a few glasses of wine, some good food and close friends. I thoroughly enjoy these kind of evenings so I am really looking forward to going. Today also marks what would of been my mother in-laws seventy fourth birthday. This was a woman that I loved dearly and had known since I was sixteen. We lost her to a car accident much too early, she was only forty-nine. I can't help from feeling a mix of sadness , joy and bewilderment. For those of you who know me then you also know that my marriage of thirty one years is unraveling before me and I am not the one holding the string. It has been a year and half of many peaks and valleys and it seems the valley is where I will be residing from here on out. Today when I think of my mother in-law I wonder how she could have made me feel better through all of this. Although she was my husbands mother, she never turned from me when I needed her. Even when he and I had a silly break up when I was just sixteen. She would spend many patient hours with me on the phone advising me and comforting me. I try to imagine what she might have said to me, but I can't seem to muster up the same wisdom she once bestowed on me with such ease.
I've also been a little down about my book rankings on Amazon. They've plummeted lately and I know it is primarily due to the lack of marketing. I try every day to utilize the tools that I am told are out there, but when it comes to self promoting I feel like a new born. Writing is my element. I feel whole, smart, funny, talented and confident. But promoting is a foreign concept to me and I am drowning. I do devote time everyday, but I feel I am just repeating the same mundane cycle over and over again. Last night my daughter Christie called me with an idea she had for marketing my books. It's exciting, different and something I never would of thought of. Sometimes those around you know what you need better than you do. A glimmer of light through the muck of the darkness and how quickly you can have a spark of renewed self. All these doubts, losses, celebrations and adventures are running through me today. They're leaving a tornado of emotions from happy to sad, regret, renewal, hope, defeat and from moment to moment seem to change. I feel like someone keeps repeatedly slapping me in the face from side to side. My head is dizzy and I'm not sure if I'm taking a step forward or two backward.So what I've decided, for today anyway, is that I will accept the fact that it's okay  not to know. I will let myself feel whatever emotion decides to take me and I will go out tonight and have good food, a few glasses of wine and blanket myself in the comfort of good friends, family and the memory of a mother in-law I was lucky to have to have known.

1 comment:

  1. I really felt what you were writing with this column. So tender, so real. My life has been really difficult for me lately, and I am very familiar with the feeling of being slapped in the face repeatedly, from side to side. The feeling of that, the sense of it, comes to me when I am feeling really down. I was surprised to hear you use those words. Foolishly I thought I was the only one who experienced that.

    I never got to meet my mother in law. She died long before I met my husband. Her name was Caesaria. The female version of "Caesar." I understand that she was one hell of a woman. She would have loved Stevie, Olive and Pavel.

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