life – Page 3 of 4 – Rasmenian Detritus

You Can’t Outrun the Uncertain Future

December 7, 2016November 30, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

A few months ago, life was normal. The future was uncertain, but I slept better than I do now. My husband Olivier and I were enjoying our first year of living in England. After ten years in France, it was a welcome and exciting change. We often had conversations about what the next big leap might be. Maybe back home to the States, depending on the election. Or, maybe elsewhere in the U.K., depending on how the whole Brexit thing goes. The threat of Brexit cast a shadow over everything, but it didn't feel menacing. Hell, it probably wouldn't actually happen. That'd be crazy.Then came the morning that we woke up and found ourselves living in fucking crazytown.My husband, a European working in England, had to go to work immediately afterward, all the while wondering if everyone he looked at had just voted for him to leave. Luckily, working in an office with a colorful international mix softened the blow....

How to Find Closure When Your Bullies are Dead

June 24, 2016November 30, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I wore the dress because it was Halloween. One day where we can dress up and pretend to be something that we're not. Something we don't get to be every day. Something more wild. Cooler. Louder.My dress had a newspaper print pattern splashed with neon pink and green. My mom wasn't crazy about it, but I loved it. It was cheap, so I was allowed to buy it when we were shopping for new clothes a couple months before. However, she hardly ever let me wear it. It was too "tacky" and too "loud." But then, Halloween approached and I had a last minute idea. I was now 12 years old and adult enough to dress my own self up for Halloween, thank you very much.I put on the dress. I slipped into my neon green jelly shoes. I sprayed red and black and glitter into my hair, which I curled and teased and sprayed and poofed. I did my...

Lessons From a Dollhouse: Longing For a Smaller Life

April 12, 2016November 30, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

My grandfather gave me the dollhouse right about the time my brain began to form lasting memories. He'd built the entire thing himself, with his own two hands. My mother, the oldest of four children, was the first to give her parents a grandchild, so I was a big deal. My grandparents spoiled me in the usual ways, but the dollhouse held the most meaning. Within each piece of tiny furniture there existed a universe of adoration. Every small human figure and carefully cut piece of fabric, another echo of love from my grandfather to me.A few years later, my mother and I moved halfway across the country. I could only take with me a few things that would fit in the car. The dollhouse, with most of our other possessions, remained in my grandparents' garage."We'll come back for that stuff later," my mother said. "We'll rent a U-haul and move it all into our new house when we find...

The Trouble With Living Things

July 28, 2014July 28, 2014 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I was never allowed to have a cat. Except for one brief moment, when I was five years old. My mother and her boyfriend rented a farm house where we did not farm anything. We had a couple of dogs. One was black lab who played with me in the snow and stole my dolls to use for chew toys. I loved the dogs, but I wanted a cat so badly. I begged until Mom finally relented and let me get a kitty.Kittens play non-stop and engage in feisty kitten activities like scratching couches, pouncing at curtains and making sneak attacks at shoe laces. My mom didn't care much for that, so with each scratch or pounce, I watched in helpless horror as she shot my kitten with a pellet gun, shooting hard plastic pellets at my pet. It didn't last long. One day, the kitten was gone. I was told it had gone to live in the barn that...

People Are Full of Shit, So Don’t Let Facebook Bring You Down

May 21, 2014November 24, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I keep seeing these articles all over the place. You've probably seen them, too. Using various combinations of words and pictures, they all say the same thing: Facebook is making people feel sad. Depressed. Unsatisfied. Unhappy and lonely. The list of negative sentiments goes on and on.My knee-jerk reaction to the headline was, "Okay, this is just more whiny, paranoid bullshit about the evils of the internet." Then I decided to actually read the article. It doesn't matter which variation of this article you read - the gist is the same. Facebook makes people feel bad because of our absurd human tendency to measure our failure by our perception of other people's success.But here's the thing: we're comparing ourselves not only to everyone else's highlight reel, but to their bullshit, too. We're often looking at our real selves, our real lives and holding them up against personas that are not real. A social media profile might be a window into...

Self-Preservation Can Look the Same as Being a Dick. But It Isn’t.

October 10, 2013November 24, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

"Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are." -Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire "When you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through." -Nicholas Sparks * * * Some people think I'm mean. They don't always use that word. Sometimes they say "hardass." Other times, they say "cold," "callous" or "hard."It doesn't hurt my feelings. Not because I'm cold and unfeeling, but because they're wrong. The adjectives people use to describe us are usually inaccurate. I'll tell you a story from a few years ago about why that is.I know a couple of women. Let's call them Patty and Selma.I've known Patty and Selma for most of my life (though they aren't a part of my...