This Old Box

                The story of my mother and I living together has been an on-again off-again tale with unconditional love and a lot of laughter.  This last time my mother and I moved back into the home in which my brother and I were raised; the magnificent structure that stands as a piece of history in our college town; the contemporary-for-its-time house that broke rules to make a memorable place for a family to grow.  Back once again, we were attempting to stage it to sell as we had been enlightened by the ever-addictive station HGTV that makes every viewer feel as if they can capitalize on their weekend, put on a pair of work gloves and move mountains (or walls)!  She claimed the downstairs as hers, and I made the upstairs my own. 

                Lately, we have become creatures of new habits in this home.  After a hard day's work, we prop up our bare feet on the sectional sofa and engulf ourselves in conversation atop whatever TV show has half our interest and, in turn, decompress.  On this particular evening, the digital signals sent up to the Heavens and back down to Earth got lost among the stars for a half a second; the crystal clear picture hitched, which drew our attention to the cubed pixels that broke the image and made the sound glitch.  We laughed over our dramatic reactions to this very relative problem, and we were instantly taken back to a much simpler time. 

                We became reminiscent of the days of the wooden panel TV that my parents bought for next to nothing just so their daughter and son could enjoy Sesame Street from time to time.  The old box, that could have killed us both with its weight had it fallen, presented us with four channels.  You read it right, FOUR channels.  My brother and I learned to enjoy the outdoors by playing Star Wars with sticks and indulging in a little Jurassic Park in our seemingly endless jungle-yard.  But don't be fooled; the moment we were allowed to sit in front of a friend's TV and watch Nickelodeon, we were glued. 

                They say the grass is always greener on the other side, and it's true.  I was constantly wanting to go to the homes that provided cartoons and Pop-Tarts, and they were always wanting to come to mine for the swimming pool and popsicles.  It wasn't unusual for us kids to make our way into the kitchen of my house and ask my mom if we could watch TV while we ate lunch.  With her permission, we sat on the floor with our heads tilted all the way up to watch the big bubble that portrayed color from the front and black and white from the side.  Frequently, the picture would turn to speckled static that ran from the bottom to the top of the screen, ruining what little time we had in front of the TV.  However, it didn't take us long to learn the routine; a good whack on the side always did the trick!  After a few times of sprinting into the kitchen to ask my mom to come fix the TV, we felt that we were competent enough to do it ourselves.  Not a second after the screen blurred, I was up smacking the TV until it corrected its behavior.  Soon enough, my friends were asking if they could partake in the fixing.  And not long after that we were arguing over who got to put the old TV in its place.  

                The flat screens we have now have no side to smack and the cable guy is just a phone call away; but that massive box of a TV, though I wouldn't take it back for the world, made for a pretty entertaining memory in this old house.  Here's to moving onward; to smaller, smarter, and simplified! 

Love's Limbo

As the flower petals fell from the spring trees like the snow had a only months ago, a lonely little girl sat in a woman's body in her bed reflecting upon the past ten years of relationships she had collected upon which to base her thoughts.

A pride came over her ego when she decided six months ago to put her dating life on halt in order to rediscover herself without a counterpart.  Relief came when she realized she was content on her own, not having to confront anyone else's monstrosities built of insecurities.  Happiness followed when she was able to rekindle lost relationships with old friends that had been discarded by reason of her energy being poured into the old days.  But then the boredom set in.  And if she should fear any one thing, it should have been boredom.  For when things become monotonous, tedious, or tired...the gears in her brain shifted to things that could have been - a frightening and dangerous subject to land upon.  There was no stopping those wheels from going down that road.  It happened only ever so quickly.

It jaded her to think of her childhood and how that caused her to grow into a woman with insecurities specific to the what-if's.  Although she forced positive thought upon every past relationship, today was the day she let all that was ever negative about those relationships come flooding into her mind and her heart like a dam had broken loose.

Those that she was truly attracted to were intimidated by her and steered in the direction of women with deficient compassion, reduced aptitude, and counterfeit confidence.  Those men that jumped at the chance to call her their own feared she would leave them for someone other than themselves, and thus treated her as if she had already done so...with volatility, resentment, hostility, and demise.  There were the ones that were missing something in their life, and they took from her in order to fill their void.  The halves that have you in half.

Somehow after every thought, she landed on her feet thankful for the experiences that had taught her what love wasn't.  She was forever grateful for her own company.   

And so she was there...stuck in love's limbo.