Ahhhhh Christmas...

Hello Stephen,

I hope you had a very excellent Christmas weekend!  Did you get any good gifts from the lady in red??  I hope so!! You're probably a lot like Pete, though---hard to buy stuff for.  I mean, Pete just goes and buys whatever he wants, whenever he wants...so it's rather difficult to find something he doesn't already have, or isn't already on his way to get for himself.

But, I managed to get him some pretty decent stuff I think, and he seemed happy.  He likes to do canning (something I've never done before), so I got him a canning set, with a huge metal pot and tools and all the stuff he'll need, except the food and the jars.

Of course, I got YOU for Christmas...yes, you read that right.  I got photos of YOU, to hang on my walls. Pete got me a gorgeous plaque that has the gold 45 record from Street Talk, with only 500 made I guess, which is so very awesome!  Then he got me the Revelation autographed gold record plaque, too!  These are all quite large, so I'm going to have to make some wall space somewhere...all my life, I've wanted a "Journey shrine," so now I guess I've got one! hehehehehe  Better late than never, I suppose.

I posted photos of the stuff on Facebook, and this one guy I don't even know wrote----perhaps NOT to ME personally, but I took it that way----"do us all a favor and instead of posting stupid pictures of the useless stupid SHIT that your spoiled rotten ass got for Xmas, just jam it all up your ass and light it on fire as a Yule log so we can at least ENJOY reading your posts for once."  Now, this guy probably wasn't writing it to me, like I said, but I read it and thought, "Hmmm....he's my step-daughter's husband's brother, I've never met him, so I don't THINK he's writing that to ME personally...but I don't know, maybe that's what OTHER people are thinking too...."   So, I unfriended this particular bloke, just in case, because frankly I don't like to read or be around such nasty negativity.

That made me think about how spoiled rotten I truly am, though, so I guess it helped me to read it.  Pete adores me.  He absolutely adores me.  He loves me, no matter what I look like, with makeup or without, messed up hair or not, hairy legs and all.....he loves my imperfections.  He loves my tiny toes, my knobby knees, my chubby self...he loves it all.  I don't have the FAINTEST idea WHY, but he does.  I've never been adored before, by anybody, in my whole life.  It feels uncomfortable.

Is that how it makes you feel too??  Knowing your face is on my wall, doesn't that feel weirdly icky?? I mean, that's how it would make ME feel, knowing MY face is on some total strangers wall.  I mean, I am 43 years old, a grown woman, who doesn't NEED to have your face plastered all over my walls anymore, ya know??  It's rather immature and juvenile, and I know it.  I guess I've just spent so many years wanting a "shrine" like that, but never being able to have one, that it just somehow makes me feel good.  It's one of those "I wish I could afford to buy a computer" kinda wants...it sticks in your craw for years, until you finally have a little extra money to save up and get one...but by then, that particular computer isn't even MADE anymore, and now they cost even MORE, and you gotta keep waiting to save up MORE money over the next 6 months, in order to get it.  By then, it's obsolete and needs upgrading.  It can really drive a person batty.

I wanted a shrine of Journey junk---a whole room of it---kinda like Elvis and Michael Jackson had specific rooms of themed stuff, but I never had the time or the money---or the space for that matter----to really do it.  I did go to record shows, and I did sometimes find really cool stuff, but I never had the money to get things framed and hung on the walls.  Instead, it all just sat in a large plastic tub...which it is all still sitting in today.  Thousands of dollars I've spent on this junk, over the years....but no way to really display it anywhere.  It's always bugged me, but I just didn't really have any way to do it.  Then, when I started making pretty decent money on my own, you guys broke up and it was just Raised on Radio with you and Jonathan and Neal...1986...October 8th, at Joe Lewis Arena. That was my very first concert EVER.  I cried like a baby through the whole thing, because suddenly you were in 3D....not just a flat, lifeless poster on my wall.  And as I started making more money, I had to work more hours at two jobs, so then I had no TIME to do it....and then you guys REALLY broke up, and there was no point in doing it at all anymore.

But, NOW I've got stuff that can hang on my walls.  I've got a whole HOUSE to hang stuff on the walls.  I've got plenty of space, time, and enough money to make it happen.  However, the stupid thing is, I've grown up.....I don't feel the NEED or the WANT to have a Journey shrine as much as I used to.  Don't get me wrong, people in Pittsburgh have shrines to football players in their homes, Steelers stuff everywhere, Penguins hockey stuff all over, etc., so it's not unusual for somebody to have shrines to the things they love most.  But......I feel kinda like I'm not that same person anymore, that I used to be, and really, truly, do I NEED to have a wall full of Journey stuff?? Do I really NEED a shrine??

The answer is no.  I really don't.  The love I feel for you, and the boys of Journey, is deep in my heart and my soul, and has been for 30 years of my life.  Nobody can take it away, nobody can break it, nobody can steal it, so that's the safest place to keep it in my opinion.  I don't go to record shows anymore.  I don't buy Journey junk anymore.  But I do see it on Ebay from time to time, I do get emails about it here and there, and I sometimes look at the merchandise on the official Journey web site.  But nothing grabs me, nothing jumps out at me and says, "I MUST HAVE THAT!"  So, I rarely ever buy any of it anymore.

But Pete, who adores me, knows how much I adore YOU, and so he bought me some stuff for Xmas. I love him ferociously for that.  It's kinda WEIRD though, ya know?  Hey, I love her, and she loves HIM, so I'll buy her something with HIS face on it....then she'll love ME more....that makes me feel all ookey.

It reminds me of a boyfriend I had once, a bipolar pain-in-my-ass who needed a mama, not a girlfriend, and when I told him I was going to move in with my OTHER boyfriend-----(yeah, I had 2 boyfriends at one time once, and we all agreed it was fine, we shook hands on it, one guy was in the Navy and gone a lot, the other guy was around all the time, so they shared me)----but when I told the bipolar guy who was always around (and who adored me but drove me crazy), that I wanted to go shack up with the Navy guy down to Virginia Beach------Mr. Bipolar just nodded, he said he understood, he cried a little, but then he said he would drive me down there, and help me find an apartment.  I thought that was friggin' WEIRD AS HELL, but that's what we did.  He said to me, "Well, I love you, but if you love him, I guess he can't be all THAT bad...and I want YOU to be happy, even if it's not with me."

However, I never made it down to VA Beach, because once I set foot in the Holocaust Museum in DC, that's where I had this huge epiphany hit me like a bolt of lightening, and decided right then that I had to work there.  So I disappointed the Navy boyfriend, who then dumped me for someone else, and I told the other bipolar guy who adored me that I was leaving Michigan to work at this Museum.  He said he understood again, and we drove back to Michigan to get me packed and ready to make an exciting life change.  I told both men to bite a rock, in essence, and did my own thing without either one of them bogging me down.  Does that seem harsh? Selfish? Or does that sound like the best decision I ever made?

Now I look back on it, and realize, it was really the best decision I ever made.  But at the time, I had no clue.  I didn't KNOW I would be hired at the Museum, I just went for it, and hoped that it would happen. I didn't KNOW that it would be harder, I didn't KNOW that it would eventually become my everything, and take over my entire life for 6 years....but, in hindsight, I'm glad it did.

So....what I'm saying is, (in a round-about-girly-way), I still love ya, always have and always will, and even though I have these wonderful photos of you now, these very LARGE photos to hang on the wall, I may just keep them in another large plastic tub instead.  Oh sure, to make Pete happy, I will display them for a short time...but I think eventually, they will be relegated to the plastic tub and stored away.  That doesn't mean a rejection of you....it just means a growing up of ME.  Silly to have a 43 year old grown woman plastering her walls with a singer who no longer sings, that nobody who was born after 1980 even KNOWS anymore, right??

Does that seem harsh? Selfish? Or is it the best decision??

Well, in any event, I love Pete for getting me those things....he also bought me a beautiful diamond heart-shaped necklace with a sterling silver chain.  He said it was to replace the OTHER necklace from the OTHER Peter in DC.  I never wanted to take off the necklace my ex-boyfriend gave to me, because in a symbolic way, it was my COLLAR, which was like a promise ring, or even just a declaration of love.  I'd never had that from anybody before, and by God I was going to cling to that and fight anybody who tried to take it from me.  Pete kept trying to take it from me, without first showing me he would replace what I THOUGHT was love, with something more REAL, and substantial.  I didn't know him very well when he was telling me I shouldn't wear that necklace anymore.  I didn't trust him one bit either.  So I wore that necklace for the first year I knew Pete, and it bugged him a lot.

Eventually I took it off.  I still have it in my jewelry box though. I'll never get rid of it.  I love it, and I love the good memories that came with it.  I still miss Peter sometimes, even now.  But, I've learned that what Peter gave me was really not what I truly needed.  I thought it WAS at the time.  But, again, hindsight really does open one's eyes a lot as you get older.

So now I will wear this wonderful, gorgeous heart-shaped diamond necklace from Pete, until I die.

I truly am spoiled rotten, and blessed, and I never EVER want to take that for granted. I'm a very lucky woman, to have had at least 3 men adore me.....I even had 4 marriage proposals before I met Pete....so I guess that's not too shabby.  I never intended to get married, never had any interest in it, and certainly had very little domesticity to offer anybody.  I was a Mary Tyler Moore, tossing my hat up in the air, living on my own, not depending on a man for anything, and I guess the one thing I always believed and thought was the WORST POSSIBLE SCENARIO EVER, turns out years later, to be probably the best thing for me and the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life.

Weird how life works.

I got the Journey shrine I've always wanted....but now, it's not really all that important to me as it once was.  It's like you with all your Grammy's and awards and stuff....do you display those in a cabinet with a fancy light and mirrors and stuff, or do you just keep them in a dusty dark closet??  I guess people change perspectives and priorities as they grow older...the only sure thing in life is change, right???

Well Stephen, I love ya, I am glad to have you as a Christmas gift, and I'll continue to write to ya anyway, even though I know you never read this silly blog.  It does help ME, though, to have a journal. So you've become my journal, really....a former Journey member, as a journal.  Weird, but it works.

Bye for now.

Love, Rebecca the spoiled rotten Pittsburgh chick who still oves a dinosaur band and a singer who doesn't even want to sing anymore.  SIGH.