Popeye

Spent the afternoon today with my sister's good buddies.  We shared photos (the actual purpose of getting together), but best of all we shared stories.  Everyone there had experienced serious loss of someone well loved and important.  We all had memories, good and bad, of my sister and the shenanigans of youth.

You name it, it was on the discussion board.  The girls had gone away yearly for years, to New Hampshire, Vermont and other places.  Long weekends as well were part of the plan.  Their memories are sweet, haunting, and funny.  I didn't hear a sad memory from those times - not one.  What I heard were the tales of friendship and memories of love.  Don't mean to get maudlin here, but it had an element of that, this afternoon did.  But just a little bit.

Maudlin has its place in our world, although sometimes I think we try to do away with it.  We should keep it as an emotion, a feeling, a reaction.  It reminds us of where we came from, and where we are going.  It's the bittersweet part of life that we often try to jam between the mattress and box spring,  hoping it stays there for a good long while.  Because when we do shift the mattress of our memories a bit, like the dust that's under the box spring, it flies up in our brains.  Cloudy, and sweet, with a hint of hot peppers and maybe some bitterness too, the maudlin in our memories when voiced, may make us seem a bit drunk, or tearful.  We aren't supposed to cry, or get overly sentimental anymore.  There's pills for that, after all.  We apologise when we cry or widen our eyes in disbelief over someone's stupidity.  A flat effect is preferable so often that it is sometimes even required.

Some years ago, I was told by my boss that I was too full of expressions at meetings.  I needed to keep emotions off my face, and be silent.  There was no room in the meetings for reality.  I worked, by the way, at a small college, and interacted with students for most of my hours on campus (between meetings, of course!).  Yet, in these daily meetings, I was to put away all that made me successful in my position with students and become another person entirely.

Let me just say those were among the worst few months of my work life.  I was sick to my stomach daily, angry for at least an hour after each meeting, and all around a total bitch.  On the good side, I learned how to use modeling clay and make little animals, doodle and use other strategies to enable my facial muscles and body language to remain still as possible.  All those around me felt my pain, and eventually went to the boss and pled my case.  He was making me do something, they told him, that removed what made me me, even for that short time.  The edict/order was unreasonable and mean spirited.  Eventually, he told me he was wrong for this (really?????) and came close to an apology.  I never ever got an apology from any of my "higher ups" at that job...and believe you me, I earned several over the years.

This afternoon of emotion and memories, and feeling sad and happy, and maudlin as well made me think of how much we put into ourselves to keep the world from knowing how we feel and sometimes even who we are.  I spend time with my Dad - who is a Popeye man, "I y'am who I y'am", spent lots of time with Mom, who was always who she was, except for the last years , and even then for most of that time, her clear shining sense of humor shone through the fog of dementia.

Be who you are. Cry, laugh, chuckle, sob, shrug, scream, stamp your feet.  Remember well, with sentimental feelings, and sadness, with laughter and smiles.  Be with people who help you be who you really are.  When you can't be with that person, find those you can be with.  Above all, Be a Popeye.