blogger profile

Mercedes Draffin

IT Project Manager

A little about me... I'm a recently divorced, IT professional, with 5 children.. Yes, 5 (all mine, all the result of a college sweetheart marriage of 14 years). I live in the Atlanta 'burbs, but I grew up in South Georgia. I'm learning to be me again, 'living my unused life', and attempting to rai...

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Being buffeted...

So, here I sit, on thanksgiving day, in a hotel room, alone.

And I’m farging thrilled about it.

No, really I am.

I just needed to get away from the noise that is Atlanta and give myself some space in which to just be. I mean really just be. No noise, no distractions, no worries.

Just me and 2 really big bags of books, and a ton of crocheting and my camera.

And the sound of the surf.I’ve had the balcony door open since I got here, just listening to the surf pound against the beach.I swear to gawd that there is isn’t a more peaceful, soothing sound to me on the planet. I’m a little bit surprised that just the sound hasn’t put me to sleep yet.

Yes, yes, I brought my laptop too, but only at Renee’s insistence.She said, rationalizing this for me, how will you ever be able to upload all the pictures you’re gonna take if you don’t take your camera?(Insinuating, of course, that if I don’t do it while I’m on vacation, it sure as hell won’t get done when I get back from vacation). Point to Renee, so I sit here on my laptop, typing away, praying that the WiFi connection doesn’t drop out again.I’m on the 4^th floor and I think that the IT person mebbe didn’t put a wireless hub on every floor… which would explain why I have one connectivity bar instead of the five I should have, and also explains why the connection drops every time I breathe hard in the direction of the laptop.

::sigh::

This was such a random trip.I barely planned it at all.I had had one of those weeks where nothing seemingly goes right, and adding it to the year of not everything going the way that I really needed it to, and adding it even further to the fact that the Herd (my nickname for the kids) was going to be with Dad thanksgiving day and weekend, I said screw it, and mentally checked out.

I spent Wednesday night and most of the day today with my mom and my family and it actually wasn’t too bad.Wednesday was the anniversary of my father’s death, and while it’s been seven years, it’s still tender enough that we all acknowledge it without ever mentioning it. (He left a monumental, gaping whole in all of our hearts).So I cuddled my niece and nephew, crocheted and watched mom and sister-in-law cook.My niece is autistic, but what they label as highly functioning.We spent a long time last night sitting on the living room floor, with me trying to teach her to crochet.My nephew is a defiant little snot, and while loveable, he’s two handfuls worth of kid.But when the mischievous grin peeks out from behind mom’s piano, and wants aunt merci to play, c’mon, how do you say no to that?

Today (being Thanksgiving, but I’m realizing as I write this at near midnight, today is quickly becoming tomorrow, so I felt I needed a qualifier), I was wrangled into going to my sister-in-law’s brother’s house for thanksgiving dinner, prior to taking my trip.I love her, but her family is a little circus-like, so I was hesitant. But as I sat on their back deck, in the most super comfortable patio furniture, the balmy November south Georgia weather was almost lulling me to sleep. They live in the neighborhood I grew up in, and since it’s on a golf course, the air always smells of freshly cut grass.Add the crisp fall smell in the air, and the wafting of fried chicken and Virginia baked ham, along with the smell of all the other kitchen goodies coming from the kitchen, well, I’m fairly sure that I came very close to declaring myself dead and having arrived in heaven.

I arrived tonight and it was nearly dark.I’d wanted to be here in time to catch the sunset, but I missed it by a half hour, at least.Well, I consider it a small solace to know that I get to watch 2 sunsets before I go home.

It’s a new moon tonight, which means the sky is black… blacker than black.Were it not for the light from the rooms here, facing out to the see, you’d not be able to see anything of the surf or the shore.You’d just hear the crashing of wave after wave as the tide comes in.the water, buffeting the sand, only you can’t see it, just hear it.. feel it reverberate in your sternum as you stand close to the water’s edge.

I sat on the beach for a long time this evening, in the dark. I was attempting to let go of the pain and worry and stress and angst and all the shit that I’ve just been holding onto for way too long.

I let the water lap at my feet, imaging that at every wave recession, the water was taking away a little of those stresses; taking them away, out to sea, as an offering to the Goddess.Not all of my burdens were carried away yet, but I got cold, so I came back upstairs to the room, pondering the burdens that were left to me.

What else do I have to learn from you, I thought.What other lesson is there in the pain you bring, or the distraction or worry that you exemplify?I think that is my task while I’m here, to find the lesson, and let go of the teacher.(the teacher being the negative stressor).Find the lesson, learn it, and let it go.

I could ramble on for hours, but I think I’ve doddered about in these pages for enough tonight.

In love and in light…