Saturday, April 15, 2006
More Changes...It Never Ends
There was nothing special about today. It was just a typical spring day here in the District as I ventured to Eastern Market with my mother. Vendors and their customers filtering around as if this was the grand opening of spring. I did manage to score a nice deal. I bought a vintage mirror in the shape of a tribal sun. I was told that originally the mirror was $100, but the lady sold it to me for $10. To be honest, the mirror is actually flawed with two small cracks near the bottom. Nevertheless I was just too in love with it to let it go. It immediately caught my eye when I walked into the art gallery part of the market. Instantly I thought it could be something to to add to my bedroom as I'm getting ready to do a complete overhaul. I have my new bed frame and a bookshelf on hold aka my wish list at Crate and Barrel's website. I'm giving myself at least three more weeks to actually dump the items in my cart to purchase.
Part of this overhaul is to dump a lot of things, starting with an old Hewlett Packard/Packard Bell computer that didn't even roll over into the new millennium when the year 2000 came in. Instead the machine reverted back to 1900?!?!?!?! Along with the computer I want to get rid of the desk that it sits on. Right now it's taking up space. I need some breathing room. A new dresser will come later. The main thing is a new bed.
As I've been making all these plans to redo my room, I have to wonder what is about change. What is it about change that makes you what to do a complete makeover of everything in and around you once one area, even the tiniest of corners, has seen a new day? I know for me I was just tired of how things were going in my life period. I figured I needed to change one thing and prayed that everything else would fall into place right after. Sure enough, once I made the biggest decision and even the most unsure decision of my life, out of nowhere I had this urge to just rid myself of a lot of things figuratively and literally.
I've seen the the progress I have made and continue to make strides to become whole or at least to place where I can breathe easy. Still, some things in my past trip me up, but at least I don't wallow in the sea of fear and unhappiness. Unfortunately, I see this happening to my grandmother. It finally hit me this week that my grandmother is utterly and frighteningly scared of change.
In recent days, my grandmother found out that her military ID has expired. She had hopes to go on Boiling AFB this weekend to renew the ID, but the reality is she really isn't entitled to having one. You see, my grandfather was the one that was the military person. He was in the navy. Being a military spouse, my grandmother was privy to a military ID. Every Saturday, for 26 years, the ritual with my grandparents was to get up early in the morning and prepare for a day on the base. They did everything on base, grocery shopping at the commissary, eating lunching at a fast food stand inside the base exchange and then more shopping at exchange.
By the time they returned home it would mostly likely be close to 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I can't even count how many times I was dragged to either Boiling or to Andrews AFB with them if I spent the weekend at their house. It was just a non-stop tradition. Even after my grandfather died, my grandmother didn't miss a beat. Every Saturday she would get up and head to the Boiling or Andrews.
However, once she remarried to Mr. D. it should have stopped. Mr. D isn't a military man and my grandmother should have notified whomever to say that she was remarried, but the thing of it is, she hardly used her new married last name. She continued to use her last known married name. It wasn't until Mr. D had his stroke and my grandmother made herself the power of attorney that she started to use her remarried last name. If she goes to Boiling to try to renew her ID, once her social security number is looked up and authorities see that she has a new last name, they will not issue her an ID. It would actually be considered a Federal offense for her to obtain an ID now, since she is remarried and no longer has ties to the military as a widowed spouse.
My father, being a military man himself, and my mother tried to warn her of this. At one point she was very adamant about renewing her ID, but I think she finally took the hint. My mother has been trying to convince her that she needs to get into her car and to other places. She told my grandmother that there is more to a Saturday than just going to the base and coming back home. However, my grandmother has been very livid throughout this whole thing. It's basically the equivalent to the end of the world...well that's how she has been responding. My grandmother's thinking is that things on the base are cheaper. However, in reality... the stuff sold in the commissary is just about the same price as groceries sold at Shopper's Food Warehouse. The merchandise sold in the exchange is just about the same if not a little higher than the merchandise sold at Wal-Mart.
Yet, my grandmother just can't get pass the whole notion that a pattern in her life is changing. It's like she is fighting so hard to keep things the way they were, before Mr. D even became sick. In a way I can understand it. This May, my grandmother will be 77. Not saying that at her age it's hard for her to change, but she has been in a comfort zone for so long that even the smallest things, such as the ID card issue, is just too traumatic for her. What's funny is, she'll try to inspire change within my aunt, my mother and me, but for herself she is too comfortable in her life to even want change.
I just wish that she understood that you can never be too old to change and that all change is not bad. Sometimes it is for the better. When it's for the worse you have to pray yourself through it. With all change you have to adjust and eventually move on. Eventually in the end, you will be a stronger person.
Posted by KomplexPhemale ::
11:24 PM ::
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