resentments

the artist thing is not an excuse, but it is a personality trait. When I am doing something my entire being is involved and the next thing I know… LATE AGAIN .

There is so much to be done during a convention and timing is most important! So I put on the most valuable piece of jewelry I own; a Elgin Railroad watch circa 1935.I look at the watch on my wrist and 58 years of memories flood over me in one minute and I’ve been around long enough to know that everything on the outside is a metaphor for my insides. Then BAMMO!! White out, a second of shere rage. I am reminded of why I do not wear it anymore and the biggest resentment of my sober, adult life.

I gave the watch to my jeweler in 1999 to be cleaned and have the insides fixed so that it would work. I just wanted the insides fixed so that it was functional, nothing else. I knew the approximate cost because once every 5 years it needed to be done. No more than 200.00 bucks . At the time that was a lot of money, since I had a little girl in daycare and had just finished college. But I knew that the guy who owned the fine jewelry store was in the program and hoped I would get a good deal and he said he would take payments.

When he called two months later to let me know that it was completed I ran over from work to give him his first payment. I took one look at the pristine perfect watch and the tears steamed from my eyes. He was speechless as I asked for the old face and the crystal. His response was well he probably threw them away. To add insult to injury he handed me a bill for $800.00 dollars.

Needless to say that was only the first time the man fooled me and stole from me. My part in all of this was I wanted to believe he was a good person and that it was an isolated incident. The truth is I am a fool. I have allowed this to happen many times in my sobriety to prove to myself that I am not worth anything nice or good. Or yea it is ok to use me because all I want is a little kindness. Sobriety is not a hard thing for me, I just don’t drink one day at a time. It is the rest of the stuff I have a hard time with. I have such strong values of what should be right and wrong or at least I did. Anymore I get lost in the grey fog of life and lately I do not even know what the next right thing to do is. I say this all under the influence of resentment, of someone who has inflicted injury that I once called friend.

The resentment has spoiled the fact that my Husband, who at the time was my boyfriend, paid for the watch repair and I should look at the watch as a reminder of his gift to me. His love for me; my grandmothers’and Gods Love for me.

The gold double faced engineers watch has a second face on the bottom so that my grandma could take vitals. She wore it until her death because like me for some uncanny reason we both tend to suck the energy out of battery operated watches, this is a wind up. I loved it not because of its monetary value (as my brother and mom accused me of.) The value for me was that it was given to my Grandmother when she graduated from The Portland nursing school in 1935 during the depression by her father. In my mind’s eye he must have loved her very much to have given such a present. He was an Irish warrior, poet railroad man who valued the educated mind and his family.

The cracked crystal, water damaged face was indeed what I loved, the imperfections gave it character and mystery. It was used to help save lives until she had to leave nursing in 1959.

The gift is I have realized the beauty of imperfection or maybe the truth is EVERYTHING IS PERFECT IN GODS WORLD.

Resentment #739

I am an artist. Time is constantly getting away with me