Author: She Says
And I’ll be your cryin’ shoulder
As I take one day at a time, over and over again, I create mixed tapes in my head to her. I have been singing many of these songs to her long before I even knew who she was.
There was a point in time that I thought every song on this list was ridiculous, I couldn’t understand a few lines here or there. The lines that sound like exaggeration feel all too real now.
Here are the 90s pop songs playing on my radio. A few may drift from that decade and genre but they fit there to me.
This is just a darling way to bounce back from all of those emotions:
This might be the sound track to my life. I remember the moment and action that go with a few of these lines. When I just wanted her to know who I was – I started writing and never stopped.
Let me tell you about middle school dances… life was never pleasant for me but I don’t talk about that.
That’s god with a lowercase g, the concept.
We are going to continue down R&B lane for a moment so forgive me for that. I have been singing the next two songs a lot but I go got the John Michael Montgomery version as it is much easier for me to achieve. Well, I only sing it when I am alone, no one would want to hear all that.
All-4-One was one of my first CDs after Tragic Kingdom and Pieces of You, which I had received as Christmas gifts that year. My older cousin traded me a very scratched up All-4-One CD for who knows what, surely I got ripped off but that is where I first heard these two songs. That same year, a country artist covered them so I would hear the same songs in a country version on the radio with my grandparents – it was a confusing time and I didn’t understand why. (The reason was $$)
I realize that this 90s mix is quite cheesy but who could expect anything else. This is about the sentiment which is lightly scattered all over the place. Without further ado:
Oh how I loved this song as a teenager with no one to directed it to.
There are a few pop songs that I thought were so ridiculous that I couldn’t even listen to them. They fell into the Aqua – Barbie Girl category in my mind. When they grace my 90s station these days, I will admit, I listen to them and my thoughts drift – once again, the odd lyrics suddenly make a little sense. Brace yourself for bubblegum pop.
One more and I will climb out of this rabbit hole.
So I guess if I could say anything to her – it would be all of that. Another song that I have caught myself listening to when it comes on is one that I felt was the most over played song of my life:
I’ll wrap this up and get back to reality. For the next and final song in this series, it will be hard to believe that I had not heard it before a few years ago after she used ‘Round here’ in a very impactful text message. It seems as though it has been around for over 30 years so I may have just over looked it but when it comes on these days – I stop – I listen and I try my hardest to come up with a plan that will work.
You’re the cutest thing that I ever did see
This blank white page leaves me wondering where to even start with this writing. Chronological usually works wall for me so I guess I will start back at Friday morning. Thursday night is a better place. My brother and I rode with my dad on a bus in a parade, he had a bad tooth ache and said he was exhausted but pushed through. Friday morning, he sends me a text while I am at work telling me that he has fainted three times and had a terrible tooth infection. My brother was off work, so I called him and asked him to go out to dad’s and see what was going on. He did and I checked on them once but didn’t hear much from them other than my dad’s occasional updates on what they were doing.
After work I found out that dad almost passed out in the dentist chair and they were able to keep him awake with oxygen and glucose packets. The dentist told him that he needed to eat and get some sleep. The tooth infection had kept him from doing both for a few days. Next they went to the grocery store to fill the prescription, my brother went inside to fill it and dad stayed in the car. When he got back to the car, dad was slumped over with his eyes rolled back. He wouldn’t wake up no matter how hard my brother tried. There was a moment when he thought he had died. Before my brother could call 911 or decide if he needed to start CPR, my dad came to. He fainted one more time when they got back to his house before he could start trying to eat something. He had 4 teeth pulled so eating wasn’t that simple.
By the time I got home to check in and see what was going on, my brother didn’t think he should be alone. We brought him back to the house once he could walk again and had him stay here to make sure he wouldn’t keep passing out. We didn’t really know what was wrong but he was out cold, now 5 times and we didn’t really know for how long. We made sure he ate as much as he could and slept as long as possible. So far he has been much better but it was quite the scare, we spent most of the weekend making sure that he was okay.
Somewhere just before that, my fear started creeping in and I was back to that spot in the cycle where I was terrified to be anywhere near her, afraid for both of us.
I’ve cried so much, nearly constantly, and it has never been about anything that I would expect. Fleeting time is on that list but grey hair isn’t. Grandma can barely talk anymore and that has been one of the hardest things to face alone. I am not really alone, my family has been putting forth maximum effort in every direction but that only leaves us worrying about each other as well.
The pain becomes so heavy and all I can do is reach for the greatest comfort in my life. I am so very lucky that it is always so well received. She probably wasn’t even that surprised when I used my classic line that left her asking. “Did you just say..” last time. Oh how parting is the most challenging The only way that I can get through it every time is by putting my complete trust and faith in that direction and believe the last few words with all of my heart.
How much more can I take?
On top of everything else, my father has a tooth infection. It was hurting him last night when he was driving the bus, this morning, he started passing out multiple times and waking up on the ground. He texted me at work to tell me and I called my brother to go out there. He took him to the dentist and got 4 teeth pulled but keeps passing out all the time. My brother throught that he died once and was going to pull him out of the car and start doing CPR on him. I am terrified but now my brother wants me to go out to his house to watch him because he doesn’t think he should be alone.
One year ago today, I visited my grandmother in the hospital and tried to stay strong. She was perfecting fine compared to todays standards. I am terrified to know what next year will look like.
Won’t you please come around
‘Cause I wanna share forever with you, baby
Its been a year since grandma had her first TIA, mini stroke. She can’t walk anymore or even stand up on her own to get in the wheel chair, I helped with her on Tuesday while my aunt was on vacation and I just kept breaking down into tears the whole time. I had been having trouble eating for a few days so I was really weak and could barely lift her with my other aunt. I just couldn’t believe how much changed in a year.
Tonight, my brother and I rode in the old bus in a Christmas parade with our dad. We weren’t super into it but we really wanted to spend time with him while we still have the change to. It has all been so eye opening to how fragile life is and has left me in a state of anxiety that I can’t even explain. I lost my friend suddenly to heart failure on October 22 and then they put grandma on hospice on October 25. She is still alive and they do not say she is dying but I can’t understand why she can’t talk anymore or even really move her arms and legs. I guess that’s what strokes do but it has been so very hard, I cry every day.
My former brother in law and neices’ father tragically took his life on Nov 16 and I have not really been able to come to terms with that one year.
That leaves me with the last concern that I am afraid to even write about. It had been months and then finally I had heard something promising and then nothing. If I wasn’t close enough to check on her nearly daily, I would be struggling even more. I hope that it doesn’t bother her that I just need to see her car continue to move and on my hardest days I make sure I am even more accurate than that. So I will just keep dreaming as hard as I can and sending my unwaivering support over the breeze.
I have been struggling so terribly emotionally but she did send me a picture the day after she said something to me and it has been helping me push though, oh how I love when she sends me pictures.
If I could make you stop and take a look at me
The last few months have been extremely difficult. This movie came up in conversation and of course, I needed something to do with all these emotions.
I spent the evening helping my oldest aunt take care of my grandmother. It was exremely difficult and I kept breaking down in tears. I was supposed to stay the night but had so much anxiety about it, I made myself sick.
I took for granted, all the times
This was the second time in the last few weeks or months that I have slept through my alarm at work only to wake to the second alarm that is telling me that it’s time to leave. It’s rather surprising that both times, I have woke up with a very strong feeling remembering the dream that it feels like I just woke up from.
The last time that it happened was on a Friday. In the dream, all that I remember was that she was holding me close, laying in a bed promising me that it would be alright. It has been a long time since I had heard from her, this was sometime into September. That day, she sent me a message telling me that she had accepted 2 jobs hoping to choose one of the two once she knew which one she liked more. I was driving home on my lunch break to finish my shift from home when I received that message. It may have been the last Friday in August, we were just getting approved to work from home starting in September and I let everyone leave at lunch to finish the day working from home. I was so excited upon reading that message – I don’t even know how to slow down and choose my words wisely in moments like that so I actually have no idea what it said. Those messages are gone so I may never know. I thought that it would be followed by more but within a week or two, she stopped reading my messages completely – I can only imagine that it’s for safety. I get so focused on certain things that I don’t even know if I would recognize if I was doing something wrong at this point. I have spent so many years convincing myself that it is not me or my short comings in like that when it is – I will be completely oblivious. Sadly, I have to give myself pep talks often to remind myself that I am not a worthless human riddled with mistakes.
She read my last messages when I was at six flags for my company picnic. I was a bit sad that day because I was certain that she would be here by then and was quite convinced, in my own mind, that we would get to go together. Though I didn’t even really get a chance to tell her about it and she was likely at work all the same.
The real point of this post was to document the dream from last night, I have been picturing it in graphic novel format though it was just a normal ol dream where we said a few impactful words and then it was over. In those dreams, I don’t see a thing. It is usually completely black and void of anything but voices. I can only compare it to things I have seen in movies but in this moment, nothing comes to me. Maybe a scene in the never ending story when the empress talks to him. I don’t catalogue information like that well.
I do not know the quote word for word but she said something along the lines of ‘consider the pattern, J.’ The word choice in my dreams has been quite peculiar in recent years. My dreams must be bored with my typical southern accent and mild vocabulary. I responded with a puzzled look. She followed up with asking, ‘What do you think we are waiting for?’ I answered without hesitation with a questioning inflection: “For him to calm down?” Just like that, there was a micro expression telling me that she knew that I would be able to get through these moments but before I could even confirm anything. She dissipated and blew away with the breeze. My dream can’t be completely black because I could see her face, her eyes, her smile and expression. I could see it change when she saw that I was starting to understand. We didn’t get to say anything else.
I suppose it was much like the first dream that I had, on Halloween night or more likely the early hours of November 1st, 2014. That dream pulled me out of a dark place that I can’t even fully remember. My compartmentalization likes to delete the boxes I don’t like often so that’s weird but I was really struggling with whatever was going on – the farther that I have made it in life, I realize that whatever was going on then is the same thing going on now but I fear it has gotten much worse. That is not suitable for this medium though.
That 1st dream continued day after day – maybe until my immature self would start taking it seriously. It was so real and I remember thinking that what I was “seeing’ in my dream replicated an old 80s style baby portrait where you would have the normal photo and then the ghost image floating over in the back. I had a baby photo like that and in my dream, she was the floating head most of the time. It later grew, got longer and then there were other floating heads, higher up looking down on us. I don’t know if I have ever written about that part of the dream but it came weeks later.
She was one of the heads and the other one was someone she was talking to, seemed to be an older black woman. When I reflect upon it now, I feel like it was my current boss but that is just so weird to even think or say, I had the dream nearly 10 years ago, repeatedly.
They are looking down on her and I having the original conversation in the dream. Its short, she tells me that she loves me, that she truly down but now is not the time. I looked back at her like I was about to cry and she looked back at me like ‘its not the time for that either.’
Once the other two heads make it to this they are looking down on us talking or well, I guess she was the only one talking here. As the above described happens, she is confused and asks why I am so sad and doesn’t understand what is going on at all. M replies saying, “This is before she knows that I am going to take perfect care of her.”
The unknown woman responds back with a facial expression, when I think about these dreams, I realize that there really is not many words at all in any of them but they are the most powerful dreams that I have ever had. Its hard to even describe and makes me think about the tiny book and cards she got me for my birthday last year because, my dreams are images, emotions, expressions but there aren’t many words so it is hard for me to write it out. It was a heart felt reaction that – I do not have words for, ask me in person and I will fill in the gap.
That was the first strange word choice that I laughed to myself about for years to come:
“perfect care” I am not sure if that is even a phrase that anyone would use but I welcome finding out what it means.
I am sure there are so many more but what about “in two months’ time”
When I watched the pilot of that one British TV show that one of my favorite songs came from, I heard them say “one weeks’ time” or something like that and was so thrilled that I had originally guessed right when I questioned that dream word choice.
Ill have to add, “Consider the pattern” to the list.
One more thing, before I end this with the song of the day.
My grandmother has been in bad shape for the last 9 months or so. Its hard to even think about and I already miss her dearly even though I can still go hold her hand. Nearly every weekend, I go over to her house just to sit next to her. When I am lucky, she is awake and can smile at me. Though they say she has a form of dementia, vascular dementia, she always knows who I am and she is always very happy to see me but I’d be lying if I said that by the 10 year mark of my dream, I will certainly need someone to take perfect care of me. It pains me so bad to desire that so badly because I know very deeply that no one was there when she needed the same.
I remember her every word when it comes to her pain though I never know the right thing to say, so I hold it as close as I can and cry when I type way too many words.
What I was going to say about Grandma is that she doesn’t walk anymore, she can’t even use the walker at this point from what I understand. She can stand and turn to get in the wheelchair and she can kind of do the same to go to the bathroom. The other night, my aunt T was on baby monitor duty and sleeping in the middle bedroom. She received a call in the morning around 7:30 AM from a contact in her phone that had been deceased for a few years. She didn’t answer it because she knew that it wasn’t that person but once she was awake she heard my grandmother calling for help through the baby monitor. She ran to check on her and somehow grandma had managed to stand up and was hanging on to the edge of her door so she must have made it a few steps.
Many things have been happening over the last few months and I have both of my aunts quite convinced that my grandfather finds ways to watch over her and communicate with us. My aunt eventually called the number back and she said the guy that answered said yeah he called her, he wasn’t sure who that number was. That didn’t make much sense to me but whatever happened, T woke up just in time to save grandma yet again.
Now for the song of the day or month.
And I would be the last to know
This song is off of one of my favorite albums, though I have never heard it before. Likely it wasn’t on my burned copy. Like with many songs, I don’t completely know what it means, but I know what I hear.
The album I listened to was from 2002, it looks like this was added to a later album from the same live show.
She would know what I mean if I told her that I was having a very Sarah McLachlan kinda day.