My Life is a Comic Strip

For years now I have been reading the comic strip “For Better or For Worse”.  Not only on Sundays.  Everyday.  Religiously.  Momma and I both read it.  And sometimes we are even dorky enough to talk about it.  (Do you think that the police officer Elly met will go track down Elizabeth?)

I relate with Elizabeth.  One she shares my name.  Also, I like the fact that she is the eldest of the Patterson daughters, a teacher, and still single.  A few years ago, momma gave me a framed copy of one of the Sunday strips.  Elizabeth was away at college and sick.  The radio was playing advertisements for cold medicines.  She kept switching the station and got more commercials:

“….cold and allergy you will be…”

static static static

“…for every symptom.  May cause drowsiness, blurred vision…”

static static static

“…under the weather?  Just call…”

click of the radio being turned off.

The final frame shows Elizabeth with the phone to her ear and she is saying, “Hey mom, I don’t feel good.”

That is so me.

But really, I didn’t think that my life would continue to parallel that of a cartoon drawing.  That is, until we moved.

Right now, one of the story lines is that Michael Patterson (the eldest of the Patterson offspring), his wife and their 2 kids are living above extremely obnoxious neighbors.

This is so us.

I don’t know a lot about our neighbors.  I don’t even know their names.  What I do know is that EVERY night, someone next door decides to play music with the bass turned all the way up.  I am beginning to think that he (or she?) might be an aspiring musician, because last night, I heard the same 8 measures of base line for about 45 minutes.  I could sing it to you right now. He would play it for a minute and a half and then there would be silence.  And then it would start again.  Over and Over and Over.

For 45 minutes at 10:30 PM.

I am not exaggerating at all when I say that at one point, with tears of frustration welling up in the corners of my eyes, I had my fingers in my ears, and my head under three pillows.  It didn’t help.  Rather, it was much like the experience of putting your head under water in the bathtub.  Some sounds are muffled, but the low tones just seem to be intensified.

And when it stops I think that if only I can fall asleep before it starts again, then I will be fine.  (Is it possible to sleep through the thumping?)  Like when someone in the room is snoring and they roll over- sweet relief as long as you can get to sleep before they start back.  Wednesday night, our neighbor decided to call it quits at about 11:30 PM.  But he must have had a moment of inspiration in the middle of the night because the continuous “THUD THUMP THUD” awakened me at 4AM (!)

They (He/She/Whoever is dwelling next door) are going to push me over the edge.

In the comic strip, Michel writes freelance for a magazine.  He wrote an article about his annoying neighbors and it got published in a magazine.  The neighbors read it and after some threats of lawsuits, it looks like the obnoxious neighbors are about to move.

Please let my life parallel that last part too.
  

communicating

Before you begin to misconstrue anything, let me point out again that I love my family.  I think that they are the greatest and I am hard pressed to find fault in any of them. (Rebecca does stuff that annoys me, but for crying out loud, how many sisters do you know that can live together in relative harmony- the usual drama is stuff of novels and movies.)

Now that we are clear, I will tell you that my family is not big on communication.   One friend just shakes her head and laughs becasue she knows that I have an amazing family and the counselor in her can't come around the fact that we don't talk about major decisions and problems. We talk, but not a lot about feelings, even when we hurt one another.  After a period of time, it is assumed that the offending party is sorry and the offended person gets over said offense.  I just don’t think that we see the need to discuss things.

I have the tendency to carry this habit of not discussing issues over into my relationships with friends.  Confrontation makes me uncomfortable.  

But this means that I also miss out on some of the middle of the night, all our defenses are down, and these are the things that really shape me conversations.  (You know the ones?)  And slowly, all of my interactions become about how our weeks are going, or weekend plans- boring stuff really.

I have a friend who I don’t see nearly enough.  And I just realized that this friend writes a blog mainly because he knows that I will read it.  And suddenly we are able to communicate in a different way.  Not really carrying on a conversation, but just sharing our thoughts confident that the other will understand.  And it reminds me of one of my favorite summers when we spent hours in the car, always looking forward and rarely face to face, but we had the best conversations.  

I need more of that.

No postings in a while

Someone recently gave me a hard time for not posting in a long while. The excuses are numerous:

1. The school year is stays too busy to accomplish much other than getting to work on time.


2. There is also a rut that some with the academic year. Nothing exciting ever happens. (With the exception of two surprise random holidays for the gas shortage.) During 8th period today, I will teach a lesson on triangle congruence. It will be the 10th time in 3 years that I have taught this lesson. I could teach congruent triangle in my sleep.


3. And then there is reason number 3. I think that part of me is afraid that I am not changing as quickly as I would like and writing about it would verify this truth. I am afraid that I am not becoming kinder, more humble, or more generous. My words are far from encouraging most of the time. And a blog documents this lack of change.

I will try to move past my excuses and start writing on a more regular basis, but I am not making any promises.