Cat Stevens was singing about me

bykathrynluisa

105 followers

4 years ago

While responding to comments here on WA I commented back on how stubborn I am and I was reminded of my favorite Cat Stevens song, Hard Headed Woman because it sounds like he's singing about me for all the people who ever wanted a woman like me. The first piece of the lyrics is:

"I'm looking for hard headed woman
One who'll take me for myself
And if I find my hard headed woman
I won't need nobody else, no no no"

Seriously if you don't know the song I'm referring to, go look it up and have a listen.

My heart is the paper and my soul is the ink

Writing has always been cathartic for me. I used to write stories and poetry as a kid and as an adult, in my early twenties, I was an online diary writer (opendiary, does anybody remember that site anymore?)

When I stopped writing for several years I lost myself and ended up on a very bad path in my life. It wasn't until I stepped off that path and ran in a completely different direction as hard and as fast I could that I found myself again.

And where did I find myself? In my writing of course. My cats helped too, but it was mostly the writing.

By stubbornly pursuing my writing in whatever fashion I could I have become more stable mentally and emotionally than I ever was without it. When before putting up boundaries was a problem, now I easily say, no to everything else if it means it interrupts my writing time.

I don't need glasses, but I wear them anyway

My favorite outfit accessory is my computer glasses.

Most people in my family have terrible vision and are embarrassed at having to wear glasses. I on the other hand have perfect vision and plan to keep it that way. I proudly wear my computer glasses anytime I'm looking at a screen and at night wear my blue-blocking glasses. Personally, I think it makes me look (and feel) smarter.

Maybe they do make me smarter?

Well, let's not go on that tangent because I'm already a know-it-all. Haha.

My poor boyfriend gets the pleasure of listening to my rambling lectures and speeches about this or that and yet he still asks me questions on everything. I think on some level he secretly enjoys hearing my voice as much as my cats do.

Hi Nana

Earlier I received a call from my oldest cousin.

She is truly the awkward cousin in every possible way. She snorts when she laughs, and not in a cute charming way, she makes odd jokes that aren't even relatively funny, and don't let me forget, she calls my grandmother Mom, even though she's the firstborn of my Aunt Allison, because she was adopted at birth by my grandparents.

Poor girl must have had it rough growing up when trying to make friends. She was all pimples, braces, and coke bottle glasses. Even now in her 40's she hasn't outgrown much of that.

Other than the braces coming off and having slightly less acne the only things that have changed is she has become the willing lapdog of my grandmother doing whatever she says at every turn as well as gaining a good deal of weight.

The call was a courtesy call to let me know she and my grandmother just settled into a hotel a few hours away and they will be in my neck of the woods tomorrow. I wasn't expecting them until mid-October, but OK, let me contact my clients for tomorrow and see if they're OK with rescheduling.

I will still likely get an earful from my grandmother for scheduling clients the same day she was supposed to drive through my area. She's only coming to see me for an hour or two on her way to see other much more important relatives and more likely so she can get on my case about cutting off contact with my older brother.

Can you tell I'm really looking forward to this brief visit?

Dear brother

My older brother, Nicholas, is the opposite of me in every way. I love him and hope one day he picks himself up and improves his life, but from what I've seen that is not likely to happen any time soon, if ever.

He's a drug addict who's often homeless. He uses people then accuses them of being bad people because they eventually put their foot down. Who do those people turn to vent to and help clean up the mess he's made? The same person who as a child used to follow him around to figure out how to put toys back together that Nicholas had torn apart trying to figure out how they work.

That person is me.

On top of being stubborn, I have an almost obsessive need to have things in order. I am like the systems in the body that are constantly driving to keep it in homeostasis. While my brother was like a hurricane tearing apart a seafront town, I was like the first responders and volunteers who go in to rebuild people's homes.

I don't often give myself much credit when it comes to what I do or how much of it I do. My boyfriend often points this out. But, when it comes to my brother and fixing his messes I'm not shy about taking the credit.

It's part of being human

My grandmother doesn't see what I see. I don't see it as my job to make her understand my perspective when it comes to my older brother or any of my choices for that matter. I've accepted this. I have also accepted her labeling me as being judgmental when it comes to Nicholas. In one of her last letters to me, she wrote in regards to him, "We all make mistakes, Katie. It's part of being human."

That's true, however, let me throw this quote out there:

A mistake repeated more than once is a decision. – Paulo Coelho

I may be hard head and stubborn, but I rarely repeat mistakes more than once or twice. Especially mistakes that hurt others like my brother does over and over.