Late to a tagging meme…

A while back I was tagged with a meme by both Julie at Happy Catholic and Amy Welborn and I didn’t get around to it because it seemed like more energy than I could muster, and a little too self-revealing, too. But I’m feeling pretty peppy today, so I will finally answer it! Sorry I’m late, gals – I wasn’t ignoring you, really!

I CONFESS!

I confess… that my dream in life is to live somewhere near the water. Actually, I would like to live on the water, in a houseboat. I would love a houseboat. But a house within hearing distance of the water would be nice, too. For as long as I can still hear.

I confess… that will all the medical situations going on in my life, the one that is still troubling me the most is the hearing loss. I don’t much care if they have to cut off my breasts…I mean, yeah, that would be an unhappy circumstance, but if it meant I would live, well, I can do without my breasts. They’re getting troublesome these days, anyway, what will my having to kick them outta the way as I walk and sling them over my shoulder to pick up a bag of groceries. Beyond nursing and having some youthful fun, who needs breasts you can trip over when you get older? It seems to me that once you have moved from this part of your life:

Child: Whaaaa, whaaaaaa!

Mother: Aw, my baby is hungry…

to THIS part of your life:

Mother: Whaaa, Whaaaaa!

Child: Ma, why are you crying?

Mother: You just stepped on my nipple!

…then I think it’s time to stop clinging helplessly to the mammaries and just kiss ’em up to God.

I confess… I once wrote a one-act play about an Italian Mama with a large family who demanded meatballs and wine and who kept stepping on her own breasts. Her family would step on her breasts, too, or set things down upon them, and she would cry and cry, and they never knew why! One day her most beautiful daughter returned home with three bambinos and no husband, and the mama cried again…and the daughter said, “Mama, why-a you cry? Is-a because I’m a putana?” and the mother said, “No, I no cry-a becausa you-a putana! I’ma cry because-a I know thatta soma-day you, too, willa finda youself putting downa the chairs upona you breasts, anda havin-a you nipples a-pinched underfoot! One-a day you too willa be able to plowa the gardena simply by-a bendin’ downa!”

Don’t tell me there’s no such thing as Karma!

I confess… I love my sons to distraction. I drive them crazy. I don’t mean to nag, but I know they feel nagged. I don’t mean to act like Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond (except I’m not as good at housecleaning as she) but I find that as I get older, I get more like her!

I confess… My house is clean enough to live in, but don’t eat off my floors until Wednesday, when I wash them.

I confess… I already think of my Elder Son’s girlfriend as my daughter. She’s a great kid. Very strong and very brave, and she loves my son, and he loves her. I hope if they get married, she wears my Mother-in-law’s vintage 1957 big-skirted, short-trained, cowl-collared chantilly lace wedding gown. It’s a drop-dead gorgeous classic!

I confess… that last confession was just me living vicariously through my son’s girlfriend. I wish “I” had worn my Mother-in-Law’s wedding gown, but I was too shy to ask if I could, back then. Mom recently told me she would have loved it. Dammit. But my son’s g/f would look stunning in it!

I confess… I hated my own wedding gown, and only wore it because it was what I could afford.

I confess… I once took a test asking what was the biggest regret of my life…and that stupid wedding gown was it. And I’m not a superficial sort of person. I don’t really care about clothes. I confess I only have three pair of shoes! But I hated that dress. CLARIFICATION EDIT: At the time I took the test, the gown was my big regret. I have since screwed up enough to have other regrets…but I’m not telling you about them because they scald!

I confess… I hate being shy. And I am very, very shy. Had I not been shy, well…I wouldn’t have wasted all of those confessions on a wedding dress. Maybe I’d be confessing to big fat scandalous things!

I confess… I love and value my friends more than I can ever tell them. Both my “in person” friends and my “longtime emailing cyber friends” whom I have never met. But no matter how much I love them and care about them, there is a part of me that can never fully open up. I function better with a slight detachment and the world at arm’s length. I am both warm and gushy, and completely stand-offish.

I confess… that I suspect the reason I keep the arm’s length is because if I did not, I would destroy myself or my friends with the unending hugs I would give them.

I confess… one does not withdraw from the world because one hates it, but because one loves it so very much. It’s a paradox.

I confess… I have done a bad job with my husband. He started out as a guy who couldn’t sit still and was always working on a project. Then I convinced him that all work and no snuggling sucked. Now we snuggle…but the bedroom needs painting.

I confess… I have gained and lost the same 50 lbs over and over again since Buster was born. Over and over.

I confess… I am a terrible co-worker. My desk is usually kind of sloppy because I like all of my projects out in front of my eyes. I have a good telephone voice, but I take screwed up messages, and I can’t abide office gossip, so I’m no fun to sit near. Also I sigh a lot. This once caused a boss of mine (with whom I got along with swimmingly) to take off his shoe and throw it at me. He missed. Then he felt bad, so he bought me lunch.

I confess… that I “got” Catholicism better at age 6 than at age 26, and I “get” it better now at 47. Finally. It is a religion for the very young and the finally grown up. Little kids “get” mysticism and wonder. When you grow up, you seek it out. It is only when you are an adolescent, or a young adult that you are convinced that YOU are the wonder, and then you miss it.

I confess… I have one finished and two unfinished books in my desk that will never get published. I’m a good editor…but not of my own work.

I confess… that I go to confession perhaps 8 times a year, and every single time I go I love it – I have always loved the sacrament – and I promise myself that I’ll go again “next month” but I never make it. I do NOT go to “open” or face-to-face confession which I think is an abomination – all the non-verbal face ticks and the body language gets in the way. Give me the dark booth and the anonymous voice…I’m happy.

I confess… I love to sit quietly before the Blessed Sacrament in Adoration. Just to sit or kneel there in the Presence. Later I pray – for others and in thanksgiving – but the best part of that is simply sitting there in silence, watching the Master…who watches me.

I confess… I talk to my Guardian Angel every day, particularly when I am anxious about the safety of someone I love. Doing so has made me aware of gratitude – how necessary gratitude is in order to have the experience of joy. You cannot really be joyful if you have no sense of the good things in your life, if you have no sense of just how grateful you are. Joy and Thanksgiving go hand in hand.

I confess… I am very, very thankful. For so many things.

Now, I believe the way these memes work, I’m supposed to tag someone else with it. I’m sure they won’t appreciate it, but here goes – I’ll tag Patrick O’ Hannigan and Jimmie Bise, and Sensible Mom and Don Singleton and Joseph and Lisa, and Jeanette and Newton. Christians, and non, mem and women, liberals and conservatives! How’s that for inclusive? :-)