Yesterday, I cleaned house. Husband and his son walk throught he door
from hunting. Within 15 minutes, there are wet, smelly socks on the
couch, shoes are thrown wherever and the kitchen has turkey, noodles,
salt and pepper all over the stove, counter and floor, and the sink is
piled high with dishes. Then the boy
riles up the dog and has him running through the house ninety miles an
hour. I said not a word. I left, went to a movie and then I went
grocery shopping. I knew I'd be the one to clean it all up-always am.
Getting all bent out of shape at them would have ruined my mood and I'm
tired of pissing into the wind.

I went and saw a movie I knew nothing about- 'The Weatherman'. I got there at 7:13 and it started at 7:15 and the next movies didn't start until 7:30 and 7:45. I didn't want to wait.

Ironically, I picked a movie about a man who ignores his family. (Sometimes, I think God just loves to fuck with me personally.) It was an okay movie-part of me wished my husband would have come but then, he never would have made the connection. Just like the character in the movie-he doesn't pay that much attention. The main character is named Dave Spritz (played by Nicolas Cage and I dislike Nicolas Cage-except in Raising Arizona) who's separated from his family. His daughter is overweight and unhappy, his teenage son just finishing rehab. No one around him is really happy. It's a meandering story-but the best part is that the guy is always getting fast food thrown at him. Which is central to the story but even more, it's really great to see Nicolas Cage get hit with Frosties and hot apple pies-and even falafel at one point.

And because movies are supposed to have happy endings, one day he's sitting in a food court watching a bunch of unhappy people mindlessly nosh on fast food. He realizes that the fast food is easy to throw and throw out, even when people are not done eating it; that it is food, the fast and easy type, but not the nourishing type-just like himself as a person, he was not the nourishing type. And then it dawns on him what his father (Michael Caine-fabulous in this movie) has said to him before-that "nothing worth it is easy". So of course he sees the error of his ways and makes amends. The end. (Did I ruin the movie for you? Sorry- you should have told me to stop...)

Nothing worth it is easy. It floated around in my head as I shopped for groceries afterward. Nothing worth it is easy. Nothing. I thought of things that were not easy in my life. Giving birth. Easy? No. Worth it? Yeah. My marriage has not been easy lately. Does that mean if I stick with it, it will be worth it? How do I do that with someone who doesn't like anything that isn't easy? To me, certain things are worth fighting and fighting for. But fighting other people is a waste of energy. My life hasn't been easy but maybe that will mean in the end, I will have led a worthwhile life. I'm not in the habit of taking the easy way out-and I find people will get extremely perturbed at you for it. "Why can't you just settle?" is a phrase I can remember hearing early in life starting with my mother. But I don't settle and in then in the end, it always works out beautifully. I did this even in just getting a dog. I visited the kennel for weeks, every other day almost. If I had picked the first cute puppy I came across, we would have missed out on HenryDog. And just where would we be without HenryDog? I do not even dare to think about it...

But always in the meanwhile of 'holding out' you're bombarded with challenges from people to just 'take what's there'. To do what's necessary and get on with life. Get on to what? If it's just a series of 'easy outs' what are you moving on to? You're not. You're floating around like a piece of lint, bumping into whatever gets in your path, ricocheting off of it and bumping into something else-something you may have never, ever wanted to bump into to.

After my son graduates, I am leaving this place and it has been on my mind, since we will visit New Zealand, to move there, if we like it, if only for a while. I've been wondering if I will be able to-physically, mentally, emotionally, financially. I love my country but I do not know what direction it is headed and I feel like I am swimming against the tide when I am surrounded by those who are making "fast food" their lifestyle. I feel that I would like to be in a place where I am not always on the defense. And maybe being in a country that has more sheep than people could do that. I would never abandon my country-just because it has problems now, doesn't mean it will always be that way. But perhaps after a break and a chance to focus and get perspective, I (and my sons), could be of more help to it. I've been wondering to myself if I should really do this-or if I should just stay in the states. My gut says says leave but I wonder- how the hell am I going to pull this off?

Ok, God-I get ya. Nothing worth it is easy.