TwinMosaic

Oh, the Memories

2008-10-03T16:46:00.001-07:00

I was watching Arthur tonight (don’t look at me that way) with my kids and it was an episode about when Arthur and the Gang decided to all dare each other to skip school. They were in 3rd grade in this episode I think (don’t look at me that way). As the episode went on, my inner mother voice kicked into overdrive as I started thinking about what I would do if one of my own kids ever tried something like that at that young age.

But then just as I was getting all worked up (as if they had already done it), I remembered one sunny fall afternoon when I was in 2nd grade. The catholic school I was going to at the time had very lax rules about allowing kids off school grounds while playing kickball. My best friend at that time, Mandy, and I always went off the playground down to where the street was. It was the perfect hiding spot because not only was it downhill a bit from the playground, but the fence was thickly covered with ivy so you couldn’t see through to our hiding spot.

One day as we were waiting for the perfect chance to make a run for the ball, Mandy looked at me and said “Do you want to run away with me?” I chuckled at first, and then I realized that she was serious and my chuckle turned into one of discomfort. She was my best friend. If she was going to run away, I couldn’t possibly let her do it by herself. So after a few moments of indecision I said as nonchalantly as I could, “Sure.” And off we went.

We spent the majority of the rest of the day walking to downtown Denver. Which in and of itself is not all that extraordinary except that I was 7 at the time and the distance from our school to downtown was easily over 10 miles. But the sheer thrill of what we were doing was enough to keep us going for those many miles. When we finally made it to downtown, we realized how very, very hungry we were and being 7 years old, how we had absolutely no money to speak of (except for the dime I kept in my shoe for emergency phone calls).

So we went into a White Spot (remember those? I have very fond childhood memories of them because of my dad, but that’s a whole other post), hoping that perhaps someone would take pity on us. But while I was in the bathroom, Mandy took it upon herself to liberate a couple of tables of their tip money. Just another level of danger to our afternoon.

So we hot-footed it over to McDonald’s and loaded up on fries and water. Then we cruised the 16th Street Mall, which at the time was a skateboarder haven, and walked all over downtown to all the places we had heard of and never been. I was still having a grand time when Mandy turned to me and said, “I’m ready to go home.” Honestly, I was a little disappointed. I was ready to keep this up at least until it got dark (which admittedly was only a couple of hours away). But we went to the nearest pay phone and she called her dad who came to pick us up at our chosen destination.

When her dad took us back to the school we were greeted by several police officers. Very mean, very angry police officers. Who took us back into the principal’s office giggling and let us out 30 minutes later crying for our mommies.

I remember my dad being out of town at the time and when my mom and I got home, she called him immediately to let him know I was found and ok. I was expecting yet another tongue lashing from him, but instead all he did was laugh. My mom was sobbing near uncontrollably and my dad was giggling. It was the strangest thing. I probably should have reminded him of that giggle fit when he almost disowned me 9 years later for taking off with my new driver’s license and driving for 2 days straight to Georgia.

But that’s another post.

Hopeless Romantic

2008-09-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

So I’ve come to discover that a lot of little girls spend a lot of time fantasizing about their weddings throughout their years growing up. This is actually a fairly recent discovery for me. And shocking at that. I had never really thought about weddings until my best friend got married while I was still in college. I was thrown into a total tailspin by all the stuff that goes along with weddings. I truly had no clue about all the schmutz that goes into “the happiest day of a woman’s life.”

What I spent my daydreams on was fantasizing about love. The things that the love of my life would say and do. I even spent hours making “Someone who would…” lists. You know, “Someone who would dance in the rain with me.” “Someone who would surprise me.” “Someone who would catch fireflies with me.”

I never focused on what we would do or what this person would look like and certainly not the details of a wedding. I focused on how it would feel. How it would feel to be adored. How it would feel to just totally give myself over to another human being for safekeeping. How it would be that no matter what day of the week it was, there would always be someone happy to have me come home.

The details never really mattered all that much to me. Because at the very core of who I am, lies a hopeless, unabashed romantic. Even when cynicism drips from every word out of my mouth there is a part of me that it literally screaming for someone or something to prove me wrong.

This integral romanticism has come to be one of my biggest attributes as well as one of my biggest downfalls. While it instills in me this never-failing hope which keeps me going even when I’m at or near bottom, it also opens me up to all kinds of hurt. Because I don’t close myself off to people. I have a hard time establishing boundaries. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I will do just about anything for someone I love. But I’ve learned the hard way that hard core romantics like me are few and far between these days. So I wind up getting my heart broken. And I cry. A lot. But then that eternal fountain of hope rises again and I pick myself back up and go back to the dreaming and wishing.

And at the end of the day, I guess I’m grateful for my romantic nature. Because heaven knows that in today’s world, an endless supply of hope is hard to find. So I’ll hold onto it. Even if it makes me a silly girl. I prefer the fairytales and maybe, just maybe, if I believe in them long enough, one will come true.

What's there to be written

2008-09-03T12:53:00.001-07:00

Have you ever given something to someone and then wished more than anything you could have it back? Because even though you gave it from the heart and it was honest you just feel like such an idiot.

Because it was honest and because it was from the heart should be enough to make such a gesture ok, but you just want it back to try to preserve some semblance of dignity. Because you thought that the not giving was worse than what the giving could ever feel like, but you were wrong because you just want to go crawl in a hole now.

When that thing was given the recipient was thankful and appeared to appreciate the gravity of the gift. But then they just disappeared. Because they don’t have room for you in their lives. Because you thought they were here to bring that one thing that has been missing for so long back to you, but instead just showed up to remind you of what was and then leave again. And during that moment of reverie, you trusted those feelings and decided to take a risk and be honest and act from the heart. But instead of feeling fulfilled and empowered by that risk, you instead feel embarrassed and mistaken. And you wish more than anything that you could be mean and angry, because that would at least be rational. Instead however, all you feel is empty.

But there I go babbling on again about nothing in particular. Just typing out the silliness in my head, knowing that it doesn’t make any sense but writing it anyway, because it’s there to be written.

That's what a 6'7" wingspan will get you!

2008-08-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

Michael Phelps is made of awesome!!!

I just had to say it.

Ruminations

2008-08-08T21:21:00.000-07:00

Here are a few little ditties that have floated up through the dark, sticky morass that is my brain right now...

The wind brushes the shingles of civilization and the water grows louder. And she takes a breath as if a life once foregone flickers back into flame. A first and last breath as old life dies and new life takes hold.

A decisive moment as she brushes the fingers of old love tracing scars left before her time made soft around the edges by wisdom and imagination.

There is great beauty beneath this madness she whispers to the breeze tracing the bars surrounding her soul.

And there is pain as her face blanches with the realization that her knight in shining armor is not only not coming, but never existed.

Ripping herself out of reverie she gazed upon the pale dawn and sees in it no more new futures. Only the burning clarity of another day demanding to be walked through.

I keep seeing these incorporated somehow into pieces of art. But I am so not an artist, so I'm not sure how to make that happen. But it sounds cool doesn't it?

Balancing Deja Vu

2008-07-29T09:03:00.001-07:00

I scoffed at things like MySpace and Facebook for quite a while. I thought it was something for my single friends, but certainly not something for me – married with two kids. But then one of my old friends from college sent me an invite for it right when I had a bunch of time of my hands so I started playing with it. And now I check it several times a day and have reconnected with most of my high school class and many friends from college that I had fallen out of touch with.

While it’s fun to compare pictures of our kids and catch up, it’s also brought a strange sense of déjà vu. It’s taken me to long buried memories and old forgotten feelings. It’s fun and sad and weird all at once. I am so different now than I was then.

I’m happier, more stable now. But I’m also so much tamer. I was adventurous and daring and often, shocking in my audacity. I’m domesticated now. Which is mostly ok. I adore my children and I’ve found a level of contentment and peace being a mother that I had always dreamed of but couldn’t realize. But I miss the drive to be different. And I miss the escapades that come floating back to me as I reminisce with these people who were once such intimate parts of my life.

My life is in a crazy state of upheaval right now. There is a distinct possibility that we will be filing for bankruptcy before year’s end. I still have no idea what is happening with my son as his headaches continue and the emotional outbursts plague us all. I take each day as it comes and try to stay as present with myself and my family as I possibly can. But I find myself stuck in a memory slideshow in my brain as I cling to some of the emotions I had then and the people who inspired them.

One friend in particular inspired a feeling of absolute trust and safety and I find myself thinking about him every day. Wishing for that feeling again and trying to figure out how to re-create within myself and for my children. Another always made me feel absolutely adored and ravishingly beautiful. Which is not something I’ve felt since my wedding day just about. I miss the confidence being looked at like that inspires.

It’s interesting to compare the reflection in the mirror of who I am now with who I was then. And I guess the real trick is to superimpose the me of now with the me of then and with any luck, I’ll get a glimpse of balance, which would be such a lovely change of pace.

A Rant for the Sake of Nostalgia

2008-07-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Summer time with the kids usually means that I might as well live under a rock when it comes to news and current events. So you can imagine my surprise when I was watching the MLB All Star Home Run Derby last night to learn that they were going to TEAR DOWN Yankee Stadium!!

Shock is an understatement. I was so upset I wanted to cry and throw things all at once. How could anyone possibly think that was a good idea?

I mean there is no love lost between me and the Yanks. I’m a Red Sox fan in honor of Brian, so the assumption that there exists a grave dislike between me and the Yankees is a good one. But Yankee Stadium is hallowed ground and exists outside of any team rivalry, ego or Steinbrenner. Almost all of baseball’s greatest moments have happened in Yankee Stadium, or had some connection with it. It is the pinnacle of baseball history.

And that is what makes me so angry. The absolute disregard of that history, which is in and of itself a grand reflection of our own American history. Discovering a place of hope during war. The people finding a forum where they could put down their racist tendencies and acknowledge greatness in a man regardless of color. Or, last night, a man overcoming three years of heroin addiction to come to the Homerun Derby and hit 28 homeruns in the first round.

Baseball is the great American pastime because it allows us to celebrate and hope and cheer as if time has stood still. Walking into a baseball game gives you permission to make each at bat, each play and each out your number one priority regardless of what the stock market or the politicians are doing.

Ultimately, I can get as mad as I want, but it’s going to happen. They are going to tear it down. So I guess in the end, it’s really the inevitability of it all that makes me so sad. That we can devote a season and an All Star game to remembering the history this stadium has seen and tell ourselves that it’s enough. That because we remembered it all for a few months, that gives us permission to do away with it and build something new and shiny in its place.

I guess I just want to hold onto the comfort that comes in knowing that a place exists that bore witness to so many of America’s best and most hopeful moments. Because I think we all could use a little inspiration right about now.

The Thrill of Discovery

2008-07-09T08:50:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. Finally. It only took me several years to pick it up. And holy cow am I glad that I did! I spent the first quarter of the book just reading a few chapters at a time before slipping into sleep. But then a couple of days ago, I had the chance to read for a solid 90 minutes or so and it was over. I was completely, totally and utterly sucked in and the chance of return was nil. It’s a good thing that my husband was home because I went AWOL into this book and didn’t come up for air until after midnight.

Every time I pick up one of these books – the kind that suck you in and become an obsession – I’m reminded of why I love these escapist stories. Of course I admire the years of research that go into writing such an amazing tale and the author’s craft of writing is also a thrill. But ultimately what sucks me in the most is the fleeting chance to pretend I’m someone else for 400 pages. Whether that be a brilliant symbologist in search of the Holy Grail, an artist with an amazing ability to paint an alternate reality, Christ’s bodyguard or so many others it’s the chance to live through another character’s eyes, to walk in someone else’s shoes.

Ten years ago my path was laid out before me, ripe for the taking. I was going to be a constitutional scholar after getting a PhD in Political Philosophy and a JD in Constitutional Law. I had great dreams of bringing the glory of the constitution back, renewing its relevance to everyday life. I had dreams of being an expert in something that mattered. Not realizing that has haunted me for years now. Falling by accident into an 8-year long career of nonprofit fundraising and grant writing made me an expert in that field and has been alternately rewarding and failure-ridden.

But there is still a part of me that longs to be an expert in something that is valued and thought of highly. Perhaps that is my ulterior motive for writing. Because, especially while writing on a blog, there is no counterpoint. I get to be the one and only expert on whatever topic I’m babbling on about at any given time.

I think mostly though what really reels me in is the adventure of it all. Not that I’m hungering to be chased by the police or assassins, but the thrill of discovery through thought and detection totally gets my blood pumping. I’m such a research nerd at heart. That’s why grant writing was so attractive to me, it’s just writing research papers that you get paid for.

The other side of the coin however, and it’s the same question I asked of all my academic friends wondering when I was going to go back to my passions after I was the first of them to have children – why isn’t being a mom worthy enough to satisfy that need? Isn’t being an expert in my children more worthwhile in the long run than pulling down a paycheck I only sort of care about?

After all, everyday truly is an adventure full of my thrill at their discoveries.

Everything I've learned, I learned while hopelessly crazy

2008-07-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

I seem to be having an onslaught of epiphanies as of late. Some of them come as welcome awakenings and some are hard to swallow, but regardless I thought I’d write them down before they get lost in the morass that is my brain as of late.

1. My egoic attachment is to people not things (see New Earth by Tolle). This is one point that I’ve always had a hard time with integrating into my Buddhist upbringing. The whole idea that suffering originates in attachment to the material. But I’ve always just translated that into stuff, i.e. cars, clothes, jewelry etc. But I’ve not ever really had that sort of attachment to stuff, I always tried as I saw my friends getting attached to things and thought it was the right thing to do, but it never really took. But people? That’s a whole other story. I get completely attached to people and that attachment always brings me pain. Mostly I think because once I let myself get attached to someone, that person becomes a part of my heart for always. Regardless of what happens with our friendship or overall relationship, I will always hold that person dear, unable to let them go.

2. Apparently I have abandonment issues and because of those issues, I’ve essentially been waiting for my husband to leave me for the last 10 years. This has stopped me from letting him completely into my life and heart and soul, which makes me so completely sad I can’t quite express it.

3. I haven’t the faintest idea how to be kind and compassionate towards myself. And this lack of knowledge and ability is what makes it so hard for me when people in my life do things like blowing off my birthday or not staying in touch. Because I don’t know how to be nice to myself, I look to the people in my life to make up for that in whatever way possible. So when my birthday goes by without notice it just compounds my feeling that I don’t really deserve to have it acknowledged in the first place.

4. If I keep asking for the same thing long enough, I will eventually find a way to realize it in my life. For years I’ve been saying that all I really wanted to do was stay home with the kids and write. And because of my son’s health issues, here I am this summer, staying home with the kids and trying to write. The biggest realization here is that even though we may be facing bankruptcy before year’s end, my life is truly a string of choices. I chose to put our financial health first over the last few years and have been working for the entirety of my kids’ lives and we have all suffered for that choice in one way or another, but we’ve been relatively financially stable. Now I am making a choice to put myself and my family first in front of money and my children are thriving and I actually don’t dread waking up in the morning. So the pendulum is swinging back and forth from one extreme to another, hopefully my next step will be to be able to recognize balance enough to swing reasonably close to it.

5. Throughout all of the adversity and successes in my life, I’ve tried to learn something from every experience. The knowledge (or lack thereof) that I’ve gleaned from each experience is what I try so very hard to pass on to others in my life. My passion for knowledge and the passing along of that knowledge can be off-putting and I think can make people feel judged or feel that I think they are weak for doing things differently or for not taking my advice. But in reality, the sheer act of passing on what I’ve learned is enough for me. The opportunity to share my compassion, intelligence, experience and passion with others is enough to fulfill me entirely. Ultimately I think my aim in life is to gather knowledge and share it through compassion. That is what makes me truly feel alive.

In the end, I think all of this just allows me to recognize that when I allow myself to be utterly and authentically true to who I am, without self-censorship; I am closest to living the life I dream. Now if I could just figure out how to not let the daily grind addle my brain into forgetting all of this, I might actually accomplish something.

And more with the next...

2008-06-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

The CT results were totally normal. YEA!!

But because his emotional stuff is getting worse by the day and now he's started having pain and some loss of muscle control in his leg, the doc recommended an EEG followed by a consult with a pediatric neurologist.

The EEG is scheduled for two weeks from now. The consult is the next week after that.

So here I am, still not knowing much other than something is wrong with my boy because he's just not him. He has amazing moments where he's there, beautiful and perfect and so totally him. And just as quickly, he can be gone into anger or tears. An example? He smacked his sister for following him around. He hasn't intentionally hit someone for more than a year now.

So here I am. Worried. Trying not to think about it. Tired of talking about it. Wishing that there was something I could do for all of us to lessen the anxiety and increase the distraction. Wishing that I didn't feel quite so isolated, but at the same time knowing that is mostly of my own doing.

And at the same time, I am counting down the days until my two children go visit my parents for five days. Because I haven't had a break of more than an hour or two for almost 10 months. Because the past 6 months have been some of the hardest of my life and I just don't know how much longer I can do this daily grind. Not like I have a choice. And I don't really want one, because even if I had one, I wouldn't opt out of this life and everything that goes with it. I just need a break.

Anyway...just thought I'd update and get some of this out of my head stream of consciousness style. I'll be back soon, hopefully with something a bit more upbeat and fancy.

Now I know what's next

2008-05-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

My son had a CT scan yesterday. He started having migraines a couple of months ago out of nowhere. Some are so bad they make him throw up. And then all of his coping skills (even 4 ½ year olds have at least a modicum of coping skills) went totally out the window and his emotions just went off the charts all the time. So the pediatrician thought it was a good idea for him to have a CT to rule out anything scary.

And I wasn’t even all that freaked out. Because you know, things like my son having a brain tumor don’t happen to me. I live in this safe little mind-world where bad things don’t happen to me and they certainly don’t happen to my children. Although admittedly, this year has been a bit of challenge to that made up belief system what with the quarter incident and the pneumonia and now the migraines.

But still, I’ve been very proud of myself for not really freaking out that much. But this week has been really hard. His emotional stuff is getting worse and yesterday we were out to lunch at one of his favorite places (just one of the bribery cards I had to pull out in order for him to lay still for the CT) and he just collapsed and started crying saying his leg hurt and he couldn’t move it. All of a sudden. Without anything actually happening to his leg. And when I got him calm enough to tell me what happened he said, “Nothing happened; it just felt like someone took my muscle away.”

So now? Now I’m freaking right the fuck out. There it is. I’m totally freaking out. Because that happening is almost verbatim what our pediatrician said was a key neurological symptom. And most likely I’m going to have to wait through the weekend to hear back on the CT results.

In an effort to try to curb the freaking out, I’m trying to keep us busy. And I’m writing. Because writing always keeps me sane, even when I’m clearly not. But I’m having a really hard time reaching out to anyone. Because I can’t stand one more person telling me that he’s fine and I shouldn’t worry. Because I can’t stand feeling like a hypochondriac (even if it is only self-imposed). And because I’m just not quite ready to let anyone in to this space of absolute fear.

Because I’m the one who is always strong and can get through anything. At least that’s how it looks on the outside. But I know, as do all of those people who have known me for more than 5 years, that the only reason I get through stuff is because of the people in my life reminding me of my own inherent strength and bringing me back to it. Because my first instinct is to crawl into a little ball with a stiff drink and cry.

That’s where I want to go right now. But instead I have to figure out what to do with my children for the next week until they go to my parents’ house for a week. And I get to stuff all of my fear down deep so that my children can’t see it and can’t feel it. And I get to “put on a brave face” and play the waiting game until I find out what’s next.

And quite honestly I don’t know what I’m hoping for more. A clean CT scan or one with something on it that we can fix. Because if it’s clean, we still don’t know why he’s going through all of this stuff. And I hate not knowing.

So yeah…now I know what’s next. And I told you I didn’t want to know.

I don't want to know what's next...

2008-04-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

My daughter put an airplane propeller up her nose.

Where it got stuck and was, as expected, painful.

So we went back to the doctor. Where in one gigantic sneeze, it came out.

Oy vay.

Crisis of Faith

2008-04-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

I think I’m having a crisis of faith. At least that is as close as I can come to describing it. I don’t really have any faith. Faith has always been something that’s eluded me. I’ve grilled friends, professors and ministers into the ground trying to get some sort of empirical understanding of faith and I just can’t wrap my brain around it.

There are moments that I’ve glimpsed it I think. Moments of absolute peace where I just know that everything will work out or that everything is just as it should be. But they are fleeting at best and I’ve never been able to figure out how to translate those moments into everyday life.

My life currently is very quickly spiraling out of control. I’ve spent more time in the doctor’s office with my daughter the past three months than I have the entirety of her life. We are in a real financial crisis that is not going to be solved without some really pain and hardship. I am at a crossroads professionally and I’m trying to figure out which way to go. I’ve come to a place socially where I have the friends who have been with me for over half of my life that know and love me regardless of situation or environment and I have new friends who I am still trying to get to know, but am having a really hard time building history with.

And I don’t know what to do.

That’s the crux of it all. I don’t know what to do. I can’t research this. I can’t talk this through. I can’t make a plan and follow it. There are no clear answers and for the life of me I cannot see a path that makes any sense.

And right now, I wish more than anything, that I could find some faith. Some deep and unrelenting knowledge that I am indeed being taken care of. And that I am a good person doing the best she can to do right by her family and by herself. I need that unquestionable knowledge that faith brings. Because right now, I don’t believe any of that. I won’t go into the self-berating things that I think I know right now because I’m trying to not give that inherent negativity any credence.

But it’s hard.

This is hard.

And I don’t know what to do.

Introspective Thievery

2008-04-16T10:25:00.001-07:00

I had barely turned the corner when I could see the flags whipping in the wind. I was still several blocks away when I saw the bright yellow triangle signs of the Patriot Guard setting up a red, white and blue perimeter around the temple.

My breath had started to come faster the moment I saw the flags, but now as I was getting ready to turn into the alley to get to the parking lot, I was starting to panic. The tears came suddenly and violently and I knew that I would not be able to stay for the funeral.

I felt awful and relieved all at once. I felt like I should just suck it up and this wasn’t about me, so I needed to be there to support her as her highly decorated husband was brought into their place of worship in a box. But I also felt like I had figured out how to let myself off the hook. I was not grieving for her husband. I was grieving for my friend who had been killed the same way going on three years ago.

And despite my best efforts, I could not get my grief to fit into this particular situation or box. It was unwieldy and uncertain. Like a horse that has been cooped up for days. The first few steps out of the stall are awkward and tentative. Testing the earth beneath making sure everything still works. But then there is a tensing of the muscles and a relaxation into expectation as his speed explodes from within.

I’m trying to steal a moment of introspection in the midst of all. A moment to help sort out the mish-mash of craziness and emotion and sadness that is my being right now. But introspection and soccer games and 2 year olds and grocery shopping just don’t mix.

So I’m holding on. By the skin of my teeth. Trying to find solace in the daily routine, but mostly feeling suffocated by it. Trying to just be and feel without being consumed. Trying to stay connected to my world and the responsibilities within it. But mostly just wanting to run away to a place where laundry doesn’t matter and insurance companies actually pay the doctor bills, where I actually want my children to crawl all over me and where things make sense and parents don’t die because of a modern day crusade.

Spring Fever

2008-04-07T15:17:00.000-07:00

I should be working right now. I’m on a deadline and I have tons of work to do, but my brain is all wishy washy and crazy. So instead of working, I’m going to thrill you with plans for what we’re going to do with our back yard this summer.

Our house is on a pretty big lot, almost a quarter of an acre. That’s one of the reasons why we bought this house. We loved the space and the huge back yard. But for the past 6 years that we’ve lived here, it’s essentially just been the dog’s domain. Not really family friendly except for the area we carved out for our garden. The rest is just sort of a vast sea of mostly growing grass and the paths the dogs have created as they trace their daily circuits.

But this year, since the kids are getting older, we’ve decided to finally tackle the back yard and make it a place we all want to hang out. The one hurdle we probably won’t find a way around this year (or maybe ever) is that the stairs leading down into the yard from the deck are really steep and a bit treacherous. I don’t even like to walk down them, let alone me send the kids down them by themselves. But we’ll just have to figure out a way around that. Let me know if you have any ideas…

So the first thing we’re going to do is create an area of the yard dedicated just to the kids and the myriad assortment of outdoor play stuff we’ve accumulated. I think we’ve decided to carve out the section of yard right at the bottom of the yard for this purpose. We’ll block it out with railroad ties and then mulch it all in. We may even be able to get free mulch through the city’s xeroscape program. The only other thing we’ll do is add a trampoline to the mix and that should give the kids a really fun place to be.

We have two large and completely unattractive meters in our back yard that I think we’ve decided to finally camouflage with some sort of flowering bush or shrub. I need to do more research on that piece as I’m not entirely sure which ones we’ll pick. But in the 10 or so feet in between the meters and the play area, we’re going to create a little patio seating area so that we can all hang out down in the yard while the kids play. I think we’ll put some pavers down in a fun pattern and then put some comfy deck furniture and an umbrella down there. My husband also wants to add an outdoor fireplace or chiminea to that area, but the jury is still out on that.

The other pieces will be just doing an overall brightening and livening up to the yard in general. We’re going to put four hanging flower boxes on the deck, fix the lattice work on the deck to disguise the beams, put more rock under the deck to create more of a storage area under there instead of the mud pit it is now, plant a tree or two (my vote is for fruit trees or a couple of maples) and some more flowers around the edges.

Pretty simple plan all in all. Nothing too fancy or over the top. Just enough to make it an outdoor living space and fun for the kids so that we have more options for entertaining and play time. Plus it will add some nice resale value to the property when the market finally turns around and we can sell this place.

I’m excited about it. Of course, I’m more excited at the thought of it just being done than I am the thought of the actual work to get it there. But the work will do us all good too. Work out the cabin fever we’ve all got in spades and give the kids projects to focus on.

We’ll have a yard warming party when we’re done. I’ll post pictures.

Putting off Monday

2008-02-17T21:26:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting here avoiding sleep. Because if I go to sleep, then when I wake up it will be Monday morning and I will have to face this week with no job. And I’m just not ready to do that yet. More accurately, I’m not ready to face the ramifications of that yet.

The friend that I was doing contract work for took me out to dinner on Friday night and told me that while I was amazing and doing a wonderful job, they just really needed someone with more flexibility. The flexibility that comes from not having any children. The flexibility that comes from not having little dictators rule your life when you have no childcare and no means with which to obtain childcare.

And while I am angry, I am not angry with her. From a business perspective, I completely understand her point. And she’s right. But I am angry at the situation. Because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. And that is not a position that I am very good at. The position to accept defeat and move on. And I’m particularly tired of feeling it and being forced to accept it time and time again.

I’m just so tired of the constant struggle. And of course some of that struggle is because of bad financial choices that we’ve made and some of it is completely out of my hands. But it’s still a struggle and I’m still tired and I still don’t have any answers.

Because logic dictates that I just find a “real” job to get us caught up and back on track financially. But it’s completely illogical to get a job just to pay for daycare.

The part that sucks the most I think is that I know exactly what I want to do, but I have no idea how to make money at it and I have no idea where to even start to learn. I just want to write. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. But I’ve always talked myself out of it or allowed others to do the same in favor of something more practical. Because let’s face it, I know I have a voice and quite a lot to say with that voice, but who really knows if anyone will find any of it even remotely interesting or worthy of publication.

So here I am, avoiding sleep so I can put off Monday for a while longer, hoping that some grand idea will come to me as I sit here and I can wake in the morning and present it to my husband so neither of us has to worry about the fact that we have $400 in our savings account and have more debt than we ever intended. Because I finally have it figured out and we’ll finally figure out how to relax and enjoy our lives instead of always struggling. And we’ll look back at these past few years and tell our children when they are struggling how everyone struggles and its part of life and it just makes you stronger. And I’ll actually be able to believe it.

Thar be Dragons There

2008-01-28T08:01:00.001-08:00

Inside of me, there is a deep and dark fear that I will lose my children. To sickness or accident or to my own carelessness or to someone else’s. I guess maybe for most moms that fear is not quite so deep. But for me I’ve held it deep and far away because I cannot handle the idea of it actually happening. The thought of it makes me want to curl up in a ball and disappear. I’ve always said that whatever the situation, I would figure out how to get through it and go on living life to the best of my ability. But I am not at all confident that I could just move on and get through losing a child. That’s why I’ve so vigilantly kept it buried deep where it couldn’t get at me.

But it surged to the surface this past Friday. My daughter got a quarter stuck in her esophagus. And a pediatric surgeon had to remove it via a surgical procedure. During which I was not allowed to stay in there with my screaming, choking baby girl. During which one of the nurses started screaming “Oh shit! Oh shit, she’s not breathing!” During which I alternately felt like I wanted to sit down in the hall outside the procedure room and give up and feeling like I could claw my way through the heavy wood door to get to her, to save her where this incompetent and insolent surgeon could not.

About 3 minutes after that declaration, they opened the door and handed her to me. Completely traumatized, covered in tears and snot and terror and I held her so tightly I was sure I would damage. While said arrogant surgeon made jokes about saving the quarter for our baby book to my husband. I wanted to thank him for saving our girl and then I wanted to punch him right in the nose so that he could remember for just a minute that he was actually human too.

I took her back to her room and nursed her immediately and she fell asleep almost as quickly. I just stared at her for about an hour until they discharged us. That night it took me forever to fall asleep because all I could hear when I closed my eyes was the “She’s not breathing!” part. So I retreated into a weepy chick flick and a fantasy book with the hope that I could just forget it since she was fine and healthy once again, sleeping soundly in her crib.

But I can’t quite get rid of it. Even now, 4 days later. It’s still with me and part of me is glad for it, because I don’t want to forget how fragile we all are and how vigilant I have to be as a mother. But part of me wants to bury that fear down deep again. Because it has a crippling effect, this fear. And I can’t live my life crippled in this way.

At the same time, this experience has really shown me how utterly and completely burnt out I am. I am just so very tired of everything. I’m tired of being a mom. I’m tired of working. I’m tired of taking care of the house. I’m tired of giving my all everyday and giving so much of myself to everyone I love and care about. I’m just tired. But I wouldn’t choose to live my life any other way. I just need a break. Some time to re-group and re-energize. And I don’t know how to do that. And it’s becoming clear that the hour here at the gym or the two hours there with friends for dinner is only serving to stave off the madness. That is what it feels like just under my surface. Utter and complete madness. Like I am going to scream at any time. Without warning and then it will be clear just how utterly crazy I’ve gone.

I’m taking all the action I can possibly muster in my life right now. I’m making changes to several integral parts of my life so that they become supportive and nurturing instead of energy sucking. I’m committing to regaining my physical healthy and feeling comfortable in my own skin again. I’m focusing on each task as it comes; when I am working, I am really working. When I am with my kids, I am really with my kids. But the madness is still there and getting louder all the time.

This brush with fear caused me to stop and take myself out of all my good intentions and changes for a day or two. And I’m realizing that the changes and the effort I’m making to lessen the madness have only served to bring my attention to how deeply the madness goes. How much work I have to do.

Maybe this kind of madness in endemic to being a mother. Perhaps the fear and the madness are tied to each other somehow. That motherhood ties them together as a coping mechanism of sorts. They keep each other in check so that we can actually have some semblance of functionality on a day to day basis. But if one rises then the other follows suit and we’re done for. That’s what I feel like right now. Done for. Like there is no end to the madness and there never will be and I better set to just sucking it up and getting over it.

Because the other option is to deal with it. And that is uncharted territory. Thar be dragons there. And I’m not feeling equipped to deal with dragons presently. Perhaps I’ll just stick to making it through the day first.

Juno

2008-01-15T21:39:00.001-08:00

I just went to go see the movie Juno with a couple of girlfriends and now I’m feeling all wistful and weepy and weird. First of all, it’s ohmygod good and you should totally believe all the hype and go see it right now. Drop everything and go see it right now. I’m not kidding.

Second, it’s got me all flip floppy inside. Part of it could be my overall mental state these days which is going back and forth between totally determined and totally defeated. Part of it could be a serious lack of exposure to any kind of culture as of late and thus tonight’s exposure has caused some dust to be blown off of my intellect thus confusing the everyday, run haggard by life part of me. Part of it could be that I’m pretty flip floppy most days and I’m just really paying attention to it right now.

There’s one line when she says, “I don’t know what kind of girl I am.” And she’s 16, so of course she doesn’t really know who she is. But I’m 31 and still trying to figure out what kind of girl I am. I mean I started off in Catholic school with uniforms that so severely androgonized the entire student body you couldn’t always tell where the boys stopped and the girls began. Then moved into middle school when the big bangs were so in and discovered punk. Then high school brought me the epiphany of goth and granola and college encouraged me to find a mix of everything to suit any given day. But nowhere in any of that did I really figure out how to be a girl.

I mean I know how to flaunt my assets with the best of them. I know how to obsess about looks and weight. I know how to worship chocolate and dream about cute boys. But what kind of girl am I? I bought my first real tube of lipstick just about 10 days ago. I started caring what my brows looked like about 6 months ago. I started looking at the women who I’ve surrounded myself with and wondering how they do that. How do they always have pretty hair and makeup? How do they look put together when they are chasing a half naked screaming toddler through the park? Do they know what kind of girl they are? Or are they figuring it out as they go just like me?

I think the real problem is that I don’t even really know what kind of girl I want to be. I know what kind of model I want to show my children. I know what I want to teach my son – absolute respect under all circumstances. I know what I want my daughter to see as the most important feminine traits – absolute strength through nurturing. But what does that mean for my everyday life?

I think I’ve learned to focus on the tangible aspects of being a girl because those are the easiest things to see and change. Waxing your brows, dying your hair, getting a new pair of shoes are all things that I can wrap my head around. Defining my own femininity is just something that escapes me for some reason. Always has. I’ve never known how to just be a girl. I know it must sound strange. But I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s another element of my rebellion. Like there’s a subconscious part of me that sees being a girl as being strapped in by rules and expectations. So by not embracing being a girl, I’m somehow rebelling against those rules and expectations. But like a lot of my rebellion, it hasn’t gotten me anywhere profound. It’s just got me all flip floppy.

I know, I know. Modern women make up their own rules and be who they want to be. But I’m not at all sure I want to be a modern woman. I just want my children to be proud of me, my husband to adore me and my friends to respect me. Well, and being a smoking hot MILF wouldn’t hurt either.

It's Bragging Time!

2007-12-31T09:23:00.000-08:00

Last week, everything just sort of fell into place. It was Christmas, which is the holiday I wait all year for. My parents were here and my children ADORE them. I got to have a day date with my husband. I won my fantasy football league’s superbowl my rookie year. And I got totally spoiled by my family for Christmas.

I love Christmas. I love everything that goes along with it. I love buying presents for the people I love. I love buying my children presents most of all. I love the cooking and the baking. I love picking out a perfect tree and then decorating it as a family. I love the anticipation of Christmas Eve and playing Santa. I love opening presents on Christmas morning and seeing the kids’ faces when they see what Santa brought. I love baking my Grandmother’s cinnamon rolls every year for Christmas breakfast.

The kids loved everything they got this year, and they got spoiled rotten as usual. My parents and husband loved everything I got them. And I got all sorts of fun new toys. My darling hubby got me a Nintendo DS (mostly because I love the brain teaser puzzle games they have, but also because it’s just really fun). My mom got me an iPod Touch, which just blew me away, and she had said darling hubby load it with all of my favorite music and pictures. My in-laws gave us money, which is always welcome and most needed right about now. It was just a really surprising and wonderful day for gifts.

As cheesy as it sounds, I just kept thinking the whole day that all I had to do was live the best life I could and it would all eventually come back to me. And it wasn’t even about the tangible gifts. It was more about the fact that the people who gave them to me did so because they knew that I would genuinely love them. That they would make me laugh and give me moments of fun when the days fell into drudgery. It was just such a thoughtful Christmas and it was amazing. And to top it all off, I absolutely and completely nailed my Grandmother’s cinnamon rolls! I’ve been working with a pinch of this, pinch of that recipe for three years trying to piece them together and I finally nailed them!

It’s been such a wonderful experience for me to be able to see my parents through my children’s eyes. Because the vision is so similar to how I used to see them when I was young. And I miss that vision. The ability to see your parents as kin to superheroes, able to answer any question and conquer any boo-boo. Because it’s been too easy as of late to look at them through the jaded, in need of some therapy eyes that I’ve developed. My parents are good people. And they tried really hard to raise me well and with love. Most of the time they succeeded, but time has allowed those times when they allowed their humanness to creep in and sully that well to grow and be lit from behind so that I can see them all too well. And it is such a gift to get a bit of that child vision back when playing on the floor or being shown new things is enough for hero status.

My parents also gave my husband and me a day date!! And it was awesome to sit in a restaurant during the day and actually be able to read the entire menu instead of ordering the first thing that looked like it might taste good. And to be able to have a real conversation instead of stilted sentences punctuated with “Don’t eat the crayons!” or “No you may not dump that glass of water out to water the plants!” And to be able to see a movie! I miss movies. It was lovely and gave us a chance to reconnect, even if for but a few hours.

And I freaking won my fantasy football league’s Superbowl!!! I still can’t believe it. I totally came back from certain 5th place and won the whole thing. As a rookie. It was just so much fun to get back into football that way and with that level of passion. My dad raised me on football and I used to really love sitting with him while he explained the game to me. So it was a chance to get some of that feeling back and it gave me something to focus on that had absolutely nothing to do with my children! And I was good at it and that was a gift in and of itself these days when I find myself feeling not so very good at very much.

It was just really a wonderful week. It was a week to brag about.

Wanting What I Can Handle

2007-12-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

As you know, I’m an only child. So I’ve been a bit of a wanter most of my life. When I was pretty young, I was totally altruistic and only asked for what I needed. It wasn’t until later, until I entered school really, that I really got into wanting things. That was when I realized that the things I wanted said a lot about me and who I am.

As I’ve grown up, those definitive things have ebbed and flowed between the dreams and fantasies and material things. Everything from habitually wishing on the first star every night to thinking about what I was going to wish for when I blew out my birthday candles, from making the annual Santa wish list to carefully dividing that wish list into needs and wants.

When I was four, I asked my parents for a big brother for Christmas. When I was 12 and my parents were temporarily separated, I made a huge wish list and at the top was that my mom move back in, which she did on Christmas day. When I was about to turn 16 and wishing against all hope for a car. When I was 20 and getting ready to spend 6 months in Germany, wishing that I had the strength to handle it all. When I was 23 and had just had an abortion and was begging for forgiveness. When I was 25 and a week away from my wedding and wishing that we had eloped. When I was 29 and a good friend was killed in Iraq and I was, again, begging for it to not be true.

And now, my wish list seems to grow longer by the day. Everything from the 42” Sony Bravia HDTV that I’ve been drooling over for months now, to a new car that would get better gas mileage and give me the room I need day to day, to financial stability, to more time with my family, to having the ability to move more into town to cut down on our daily commutes, to having another baby, to getting new carpet in our house. The list just seems to grow on its own these days.

But I was thinking this morning as I was lying in bed enjoying a rare few minutes of quiet before I got up and joined the Sunday morning family fray, that I wonder if I could handle everything I want. I was thinking particularly about the wanting another baby part. That’s been at the forefront of my mind lately, has been actually since my daughter was about 2 months old. Yes, I know I’m crazy. Moving on.

When I was a teenager desperately wishing on that star to find my one true love, I look back at that girl I was and there was no way that I could have handled my one true love at that time. I was a mess. I probably would have taken one look at him and run away screaming. Or I would have ignored him completely, not able to recognize him for what he was.

When I was a complete mess after having an abortion just out of college and wishing with my whole being to take back that decision, I wonder if I could have handled being a mother at that time in my life. When I thought I had my entire future not only mapped out, but figured out.

When I was laying on our kitchen floor sobbing after hearing that Brian had been killed in Iraq, begging for it to not be true, I wonder if I would still have the same compassion for the men and women in the military that I do now after having known him and lost him.

Everything I ask for, wish for, are things that I think will make my life easier, more comfortable, more interesting, just more. And I wonder if the real lesson that I’m supposed to be learning is that I am given everything not only for a reason, but when I can handle it and stand to learn the most from it. Even if it hurts and even if it’s hard.

Maybe it’s not about getting what I wish for. Maybe it’s about getting what I can handle.

And more with the wanting...

2007-12-03T17:16:00.000-08:00

Holy crap have I had a bad day.

My son got sick Thanksgiving week and just as he got better, my daughter got sick and then since I’ve taught them such good sharing skills, they gave it to me. Can I just tell you that there is very little that is worse than being a mother and sick at the same time? Especially when one of your children is sick too and your husband has no time left to take off to help you out so that you can dissolve into the bacterial puddle into which you desperately want to collapse.

I essentially lost 10 days of work between the kids getting sick and me being sick. And when one is only about 8 weeks into a new job, missing 10 days doesn’t make anyone happy. I am now so totally behind that I’ve forgotten half of the stuff I needed to get done. And my employers are irritated that I had to check out on them as well, and rightfully so. And I feel like a schmuck and a failure and like I am not even remotely equipped to be a success at anything right now.

Part of it I’m sure is that I’m feeling sorry for myself, there are so many who have it so much worse than I do. I just felt so completely overwhelmed by my own lack of success and feelings of failure that I just lost it. I locked myself in my bedroom, away from the children and away from everything else. Except for one fabulous, amazing (and of course very pretty) girlfriend that called me back at the exact right moment. She let me cry and told me as many times as she could fit in between my blubbering that I am in fact not a failure and am in fact a wonderful person and mother. It‘s just hard right now. But it’s doable. I can do this.

And she’s right. I can do this. I’m just really tired of doing this. I want financial stability. I want to wake up in the morning and be excited about my day instead of waking up with thinly veiled dread because I either don’t know what I’m going to do with the kids to keep them entertained or because I’m going to feel like a failure at whatever given work task is at hand. I want to enjoy my children instead of feeling like they are just in the way. I want to spend time with my husband. I want to spend fun, quality time with my family. I want to love my work again. I want to go to grad school. I want to write. I want to feel like a good mother again. I want to feel adored and beautiful again.

I just want. And here we are back to the wanting. Aren’t you glad that I’m writing again? So much has changed evidently…oh, yeah, that’s sarcasm. That’s me gearing up for some major change in my life. Because it’s time. Because it’s become painfully obvious that significant change is warranted. It’s time for me to re-evaluate my priorities and then live those priorities.

It’s time for me to feel like an expert again instead of a novice. It’s time for me to be who I am again. I miss me. I know my husband misses me and I’m sure my kids miss me as well.

This whiny, failure feeling, pity party throwing drama queen is not me.

I’m ready to click my heels and have some magic spell take me back to who I am. But the tricky part is that I also know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Now I just have to figure out what the hell I’m doing here.

Totally Normal

2007-10-17T15:16:00.001-07:00

Got the MRI results and my brain is totally normal, at least structurally...yea!!! No brain tumor for me!

Thought I'd share this amazing sunset picture from our family vacation as a way to celebrate. It sure was pretty...

I'm ready to go back there now! And my kids and I did get our parrots and sugar cane memories and then some...

The Wants

2007-10-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve got the wants lately. I want a new washer and dryer. I want a new, pretty, flat screen TV. I want new clothes. I want a new car. I want a new computer. I just want at the moment. But at the same time I am so utterly and completely tired of being a consumer.

My husband's and my son’s birthdays are the day after one another so I just got a good dose of present buying. And it seems like everyday I’m just in total consumer mode. Whether it’s eating lunch out everyday because it’s easier than trying to pack a lunch. Or eating dinner out more than we should. Or getting one of the kids a treat because they had a really good day or to celebrate some achievement. It just feels like my days are tailored around what money I’m going to spend.

And it’s not like we have a great deal of money to spend at the moment. None in fact. I’m ramping up in a new job and it’s going a bit more slowly than I thought it would so I have very limited money coming in. Geoff is talking about getting a second job to help pay down some of our debt, which we desperately need to do, but I feel like an awful failure that he would need to get a SECOND job after he spends all day working so hard already.

I think that my wanting right now is trying to fill some hole that is in me (and no, it’s not in my head). Whether that be missing the day-to-day routine of a steady job or missing alone time or missing date time with my husband or missing dedicated time to spend with my kids or missing having the time and energy to cook every night. I mean the list is endless of the things I miss right now.

I look at my life right now and I don’t quite know what to make of it. Not that it’s all bad or totally out of control. It’s just really outside of my comfort zone. Which can be good, you know challenge my boundaries and push me to grow and such. But this is just odd. Not bad. Not good. Just odd. In any given moment I feel lost, totally grounded, lonely and surrounded by loved ones all at once. I feel totally chaotic and random, but also like I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I suppose I should gain some solace from that fact, but it is currently only serving to increase the oddity.

I never thought I would be working for a real estate investment company doing bookkeeping and project management. I never thought I would be in financial trouble at this stage of my life. I never thought I would have days where I literally have no idea what to do with my children. I never thought I would have trouble connecting with my friends. I never thought I would be here.

But here I am. So I am just trying to get my bearings on a day-to-day basis. And part of my bearings right now is that I’m totally lusting after a new washer and dryer, a totally adorable 3-button sweater coat and a very pretty 42” Sony Bravia.

Good thing Christmas is coming…

Holes in my Head

2007-10-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember, I’ve gotten headaches. I remember being a little kid and telling my mom that I had a “headick.” She never believed me because “kids don’t get headaches.” But I did. As I got older they turned into migraines. I never really thought much about them. Just hoped that they didn’t get in the way of important or fun stuff in my day to day life.

They’ve continued to get worse and more frequent as the stress of life increased. I had kids, started my own business, changed jobs, changed careers. I just chalked it up to stress mostly. But over the past few weeks, the headaches have changed. Now I get shooting pain that makes my vision go blurry. And the room starts spinning if I’m walking and look down. And I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eyes that aren’t really there. So all that along with the fact that I’ve woken up and gone to sleep with a headache for almost 2 weeks finally got me in to see my doctor.

I went in expecting him to say that it’s all stress and to go get a massage. Which he said, but he also recommended that I have an MRI. Which shocked me a bit. I mean, really? An MRI is really necessary? It’s just headaches.

Over the last couple of days of thinking though, I’ve developed two distinct theories about what they are going to find when they do the MRI (and you will notice also distinctly crazy). The first is that they are going to look at my brain and see nothing. They are going to see a perfectly normal female human brain, tell me I’m crazy and shove me out the door. Or they are going to see nothing (here’s where the real crazy comes in), like seriously, nothing. What if the super cool, high tech image pops up on their screens and they see holes. Holes that were carved out by fear and lack of self confidence and crazy. Maybe there’s nothing where there was once the ability to cure cancer or write the next great American novel. Maybe there’s nothing where there should be the intelligence to be the perfect mom or friend or wife. Or maybe there’s just nothing because nothing was ever there.

Now I know, rationally, that MRI’s actually only look at the brain itself. The blood and the structure of it. Not the emotions or aptitude or abilities. But what if? What if they look at my brain and go, well that explains why she’s 31 with no real career or direction. Why she’s crazy.

Or maybe they’ll find a brain tumor or some wires crossed and that will explain the crazy and the headaches. Bonus.

Or maybe, and more realistically, they’ll find that I’m a perfectly normal, woman with migraines. They will write me a prescription for some kind of heavy duty medication and send me home with a smile and a “see that wasn’t so bad” pat on the back.

And I will have to find another reason why I’m crazy. But at least I’ll know I don’t have holes where my potential should be.

It's a Fat Girl's Name

2007-08-31T07:59:00.000-07:00

“What kind of name is Clair?”
“It’s a family name.”
“It’s a fat girl’s name.” - The Breakfast Club

I think my name might be a fat girl’s name too. I was thin my entire life. Then I met my husband and gained some comfort weight. Not a lot, just enough to be a bit cushy. Then we moved and I quit smoking. And I gained more weight. Then I found myself miserable and with no friends and no professional life to speak of and I gained more weight. Then we had our son and I gained yet more. Then we had our daughter and well, more was gained. And then I found an amazing group of really supportive women and was well on my way to losing quite a bit of weight and then my life exploded, again, and it all came back and then some.

This subject is acutely painful for me to write about. I have internalized and emotionalized my weight and looks to the degree that it actually makes me scooch around in my seat uncomfortably. I cannot, will not, say how much I weigh or my size out loud. To anyone. Ever.

My entire life, I was almost always the thin and pretty one in whatever group of friends I was hanging out in. I at least blended in with all the other thin and pretty girls. Now I stand out as the “fluffy” woman who constantly makes fun of herself as an attempt to overcompensate for how uncomfortable I am in my own skin. This is not me. Not even necessarily how I look, but how I look at myself. I mean I’ve never been what you would call nice to myself, but now, there is some true self loathing going on. I look in the mirror every morning and cringe. Every time I eat something, even if it’s something really good for me, and think I should just stop eating entirely.

I’m starting to worry myself. I play it all off nonchalantly most of the time. But when I get honest with myself about it, this is not healthy. In any way shape or form. I haven’t been to my yearly exam yet because I don’t want to get on the scale and have my doc look at me like I’m a walking time bomb Twinkie. I’ve thought about cancelling my cardiologist appointment so that I don’t have to have him look at me with genuine concern. So I don’t have to explain. So I don’t have to have them pity me or judge me.

So I don’t have to pity or judge myself mostly I think. Because I do that every minute of every day it seems. I don’t need to set myself up for a special judgment session by going to see a doctor.

My sorority (yes I was in a sorority) turns 100 years old this year and they are having a big shindig at my college to celebrate and I so badly want to go. I’ve not been back to my school for 7 years, I would love to see old professors and see all the friends who are going to be there and who still live around there. But I probably won’t go because of how I feel that I look. The last time any of these people saw me, I was thin, confident and successful. Now I’m large and anything but confident and successful. Going to see them all and pretending like nothing has changed not only sounds painful to me, but rather impossible. And that makes me sadder than I can tell you. I never thought that I would feel so badly about myself that I would miss an opportunity to see people who are important to me.

I have to do something about this. I cannot hope to find balance and happiness in the rest of my life if I don’t change how I look at myself. I have to learn how to be nicer to myself.

So writing all of this is a big step in and of itself. I’ve never written or spoken about this topic from an objective, honest perspective. And it’s taken me a week to work up to it. So here I am laying it on the line. I don’t have any answers or any goals to speak of. I just wanted to get it out there. Take that first step towards being able to take action. To make this different. To start feeling different. To learn how to be nice to myself. To perhaps start to see myself as others see me already.

By Request

2007-08-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

I said this first sentence to a friend of mine some time ago and she asked me to turn the sentence into a blog entry...so here you go...

My parents took me to Hawaii when I was in the 6th grade. The two things I remember most about that trip were getting to chew on sugar cane every time I turned around and always having a parrot on my shoulder.

Being the sophisticated 12 year old that I was, I would always order Shirley Temples at every restaurant we ate at. Well in Hawaii instead of just a cherry on a plastic sword, they served cherries on a piece of sugar cane. I thought it was the most marvelous thing ever. Well, next to the parrots. You see one of the biggest tourist gags in Hawaii is getting your picture taken with a brightly colored parrot sitting on your shoulder or arm. The birds do really sweet things like give you “kisses” which actually translates into being alarmingly afraid that the bird is going to snip the end of your nose off or give you a new ear piercing. But I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. So I always posed for the pictures and my parents never bought even one. By the time we left I was positive that thanks to them I had racked up the worst tourist karma ever.

Twelve is an awkward time to go on vacation with one’s parents. Especially when said twelve year old has recently decided that nature is no longer even in the realm of cool. I grew up going camping and fishing, essentially being totally enthralled with all things outdoors. I loved nature, I even liked bugs. But when I hit 12, as my mom puts it, it was like some strange pre-pubescent alien took over my body and who I was pre-twelve simply ceased to exist. I started wanting to wear make-up. I asked to go bra shopping (even though I didn’t really need to wear a bra until much, much later). I started disobeying my parents both secretly and directly to their faces. I started noticing boys. I started using gel in my hair and not minding being in dresses.

I look back at that time now and it was no wonder that my parents had no clue what to do with me. And to top it all off, I did just about everything within my power to ruin that family vacation to Hawaii. I was rude and melancholy. I didn’t want to go see the frickin’ rain forest. I didn’t care if I saw one stupid waterfall the whole time I was there. All I wanted to do was lie on the beach, suck on sugar cane and if I had to go anywhere, please put a parrot on my shoulder.

I remember walking through some of the most gorgeous scenery looking at my feet. I remember my parents waking me up well before dawn to go see a sunrise on top of a volcano and I stayed in the car the whole time until they drug me out just in time to see the sun peek over the horizon. My god it was amazing, but all I was thinking about was when I got to go back to sleep. My goodness I was a brat.

So we are getting ready to go on our first family vacation in a couple of weeks and I’m so nervous. Granted my kids are only almost 4 and 15 months, but believe me when I say the 4 year old is already truly skilled in the art of attitude. I guess that I can see now that my parents’ disappointment in that vacation and me was two fold. Number one they were disappointed that their sweet little girl was such a holy terror. Number two they were disappointed that the vacation that they had so painstakingly planned turned out to be not so much fun for me.

I desperately want my family to have fun on our vacation. It’s really important to me that everyone has a blast and that fond memories are made. Even if 20 years from now my husband and I are the only ones who remember them. I want my kids to have their sugar cane and parrots.

Surely, not me?

2007-08-16T20:11:00.001-07:00

We live out in the country. Sort of. I mean we are actually only about 10 minutes from all sorts of big box civilization and mini marts galore, but there is only one row of houses between us and acres and acres of farmland. It’s one of the reasons we moved out here. Even though I knew that no one would come see us, or at least not without a lot of arm twisting and cajoling. But I love that when it rains I can smell the alfalfa fields or that I can hear the cows in the distance. I love that we can see the stars so clearly and I love that we still get that small town feel.

Mostly I love being so removed from all the ugliness of city life. There are no horns honking. There are no tires squealing. There is very little base thumping and vibrating my children across the floor as the driver slowly ambles past the house in the attempt to make sure EVERY living creature has heard the magnitude of his stereo. No crime. No accidents.

That is until tonight when we were on our way home and all of a sudden were brought to a stop just minutes from our front door because Flight for Life had landed in the middle of the country road we were on. I’ve never seen so many flashing lights in such a small space. My heart stopped and I felt the blood drain from my face as I realized what was happening. When we were allowed to pass after the helicopter had taken off we drove by a single car that had smashed into a very old and large tree. The car was almost cut in half. I almost threw up.

My husband is a claims adjuster for a large insurance company here and I’ve forbidden him from talking to me about the claims he gets everyday. My mother was in an awful car accident when I was in the 8th grade that almost killed her and since then I am the person who actually looks the other way when I have to drive by an accident. Even to know I’m driving by it makes me feel sick and like I should run home and call every single person I love to make sure they are ok. Tonight, the first thoughts in my head were “its ok, my family is in the car with me.”

I am one of those people who have chosen to live in the bliss of false belief that “things like that don’t happen to me.” My family will always be safe. My children, or anyone else I love for that matter, will never be stricken with some sort of horrible illness. My house will never burn down. And it is most definitely a choice. Because I know that things like that happen to people everyday. People I know have had these horrible things happen to them, and worse. A good friend of mine from high school just lost her mother last week to a heart attack. This was a woman who battled and beat breast cancer THREE times. And then out of the blue, she dropped to the floor and died. I KNOW these things happen. But I have to make myself believe that by living out in the country, or driving the safest car, or eating organic foods that none of them will ever happen to ME.

And tonight for a moment, that illusion was challenged. But as I sit here writing this I can feel that veil of ignorance softly dropping back over me, and I welcome it. The comfort it brings and the familiarity of denial. Because while the realist in me screams that I should prepare for the worst and always take precautions, the part of me that believes that my children will always be happy also foolishly believes that by maintaining this ignorance that that will somehow make me exempt. Exempt from the pain of fear and loss. Exempt from the loneliness of watching someone you love suffer.

And so I will go to sleep tonight secure in the knowledge that my family is safe and that surely, bad things don’t happen to me.

Double Up

2007-08-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

I can’t sleep. Well actually, I don’t know if I can sleep or not, I haven’t tried yet. Don’t want to. I feel like maybe if I stay up late enough I’ll be able to figure this out. Figure out how to make things better. How to rewind to Wednesday morning when everything seemed like it would be a good day. And then everything went to hell and a hand basket.

See here’s the thing, it appears that I’m in the process of losing another friend. Because I opened my big, fat mouth and questioned the way she treated me. The bitch of it all is that this time, this friend was also my boss. And I’ve spent the last two days in the clarity that pure anger and frustration brings. And then I woke up this morning sad and muddled. The anger is dissipating and the frustration is burning off, leaving sadness and confusion in its wake.

I don’t know what to do now. I know that I should write her back. At least to say, I don’t know what to say to you right now, but I hope to soon. I feel like I am going to throw up every time I think about it. I can’t remember a time when I literally had no clue what to say to someone who was dear to me.

I know that I should probably sever my professional relationship with her in an effort to preserve our friendship. But there is a part of me that wants to be selfish. I want to preserve it all. I want to work with a friend. I want to do THIS work. I don’t want to be left out of this business that I put my heart and soul into for the past 5 months. I may not have invested any savings or 401k’s like she did, but I put everything else I had into it.

And so now I wonder whether I am more sad to lose a friend or to lose something that I put so much of myself into. Am I more worried that I won’t be able to make ends meet without a job or that I won’t ever feel that way about work again?

Where the anger really resides is that I really didn’t do anything wrong. Not that I’m saying she did, exactly. But that the fury still burning comes from the fact that I helped to build this business and it became a part of me, and now that she has decided she doesn’t like what I said to her, she’s cutting me out of it. Entirely. Which is her right I suppose as she’s the owner and I was just hired help. But she doesn’t get that. She doesn’t get that she wasn’t the only one banking their future on the success of this business. She doesn’t get that this was important to me too.

And so it’s really a double loss for me. A friend and a purpose. And that just sucks. Really, really sucks.

Streaming Along

2007-07-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here’s a little stream of consciousness writing for you. As I can’t really make myself pick a topic and then come up with anything remotely witty or interesting to say about that topic.

I’ve had 6 days of kid hell. My youngest has been bending over backwards the past 6 days to put us both through the ringer. Between a nasty bout of the stomach flu, falling and putting her teeth through her lip (yep, all the way through) and finding, opening and ingesting half a tube of hydrocortisone anti-itch cream, I’m tired. And spent. And pretty incapable of anything but stream of consciousness right now.

Oh and the lovely fact that at the ripe age of 31 my credit card company just called to “remind” me about being late with my payment. Even though I haven’t received the statement yet. Even though I work my ass off everyday without the benefit of consistent childcare or a living wage. Even though I consider myself to be a responsible adult capable of being said adult in the phrase “use only with adult supervision.”

More and more lately I’ve looked at my life and been astounded by how young and inexperienced I feel. I remember when I was a teenager feeling so ahead of the game and feeling so much older than my peers. Now I just feel like I’m never really going to feel grown up. How would that feel I wonder? Would I feel in control of my life? Would I be able to pay all my bills and take my family out to dinner comfortably without having to put one or the other on a credit card? Would I go to bed earlier? Would I finally be what I want to be when I grow up? Will I actually get all the laundry done every week? I mean what are the defining factors of feeling like an adult?

I’m totally just living by the seat of my pants right now. I’ve decided that I will NEVER work in nonprofit again. It’s toxic and unhealthy for me and I cannot ever consciously put myself back in that environment. So I’m working with a friend on her business and it’s going really well and I really like it, but it’s no where near what I thought I would ever be doing. And that’s ok. But it pays less than what I was making in nonprofit, which seems a bit backasswards to me. I mean, how is it that being happy in my professional life means making less than being miserable? What’s up with that?

I want so badly to go to grad school and start work on my MFA in writing. But I have to put together a 25 page manuscript for the application alone. Let alone the 20 hours a week minimum that the program would take. How do I work 30 hours a week, take care of my family and do a 20 hour a week grad program? For two years. I just don’t know how to make that happen. And that’s just the first hurdle, not to mention the whole tuition thing. When we have pennies more than a mortgage payment in our savings account and are living paycheck to paycheck. All I want to do is write. Why is that so impractical?

So the level of frustration is high. But I adore my friends and sometimes I think they even like me a little. And I adore my children, no matter how hard they are on me. And I adore my husband, even though I don’t get to see him much right now. And I adore my work even though the pay sucks.

So that evens out a bit I guess. Right?

Way of the Chameleon

2007-06-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

I’m an only child. When I was 4 years old, I asked my parents for a big brother for Christmas. I never really wanted to be an only child. I always really wanted siblings, or a big family. Some way or another to get lots of people around me. Instead, I’m an only child. I grew up with my parents, my grandfather and my great aunt. That’s about it.

So I looked for lots of people elsewhere. In friends. At school. As I got older, at work. But the real bitch of it is that I’ve no real clue how to be social. I’m really shy and not very good at the whole get to know you game. I watch my husband chat up total strangers with such ease and confidence. Makes me want to deck him. How does he DO that?!?! My mom and dad are the same way. They can all start and maintain totally normal and entertaining conversations with random people. Then walk away knowing someone new.

I, on the other hand, have to literally gear myself up for going into groups of people. Even people I already know. For some reason, around every corner in my brain is the thought that not only will these people not remember me when I show up, they will have certainly decided that they no longer want to share breathing space with me. I’ve had this social paralysis since I was a kid. So I learned to be a chameleon. I learned to change shape, color and tone to match whatever environment I walked into. So that I would fit in but still be memorable. So that I could construct some sort of social script for myself as I went along, shape shifting my way from one conversation to another.

It was exhausting. Utterly and completely exhausting. Still is.

And today, I saw my son doing it too. He is very possibly one of the sweetest, most intelligent and kind children I’ve ever met. Today at play date I watched him go from fighting and playing rough with one friend, to playing in the sand so sweetly with another, younger friend to playing by himself. Morphing his way across the playground.

And I burst into tears. Am still bursting as I write this as a matter of fact.

I so desperately want my children to have an easier childhood than I did. But I don’t know how to give that to them. Do I shelter them? Do I fling them into the fray? Do I do a mix of both? Do I let them find their own way but always be there to either pick up the pieces or celebrate or both?

I just want him to feel like he fits. Somewhere. Anywhere. I want him to know the comfort of being loved and appreciated. I want him to be secure in his friendships and life. I want him to not be afraid of people.

I want him to step out of his chameleon skin and into his own.

Dreams of Forgetting

2007-05-20T21:41:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid, I had a dream (or at least I’m pretty sure it was a dream) that my parents forgot me outside and I spent the night on the back porch with the dogs. This was one of those dreams that you are certain actually happened. Even in the face of all contrary evidence, I was completely sure that I had actually slept curled up with our dogs on the concrete in the back of my childhood home.

I can still to this day remember the most vivid details of this dream. We had just gotten home from a trip to Target and I was dawdling on my way into the house from the car. My parents went in before me. When they were both in the house, they simply closed the door and locked it. They then proceeded to unpack what we had bought at the store, get themselves something to drink and go into the living room to watch TV. I started just by knocking at the door, confused and even mildly amused that they weren’t listening. That progressed into loud pounding at the door and yelling to let me in. After doing this for about 15 minutes or so, I remember the knowledge sinking in that they had simply forgotten me. They weren’t being mean or intentionally ignoring me, they had simply forgotten my very existence.

I resigned myself to sleeping outside with the dogs, Winnie and Lorien. I even remember asking them if they would share their food with me, I remember the taste of dog food and the way it crunched in my mouth. I remember the door mat we had then. It was one of those mats that looks like someone cut up a tire and then strung it together with pieces of metal to form an almost chain mail pattern. I remember it being softer than the concrete.

It wasn’t too cold that night, but cool enough that I had to cuddle in between the two dogs to stay warm. I slept fitfully, thinking that my parents would surely come look for me. Morning came and my dad came out the back door to let the dogs in, looked at me and said “What are you doing out here?” I came back in the house and that was it. No one ever talked about how I had just slept outside with the dogs.
I remember being a kid and not ever telling my parents of this dream because I truly did not know if it was real or not. It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I finally told my mom about it. She was completely aghast. Mortified even. I was embarrassed and taken right back to being about 8 years old, totally mystified at why my parents would forget about me. I asked her in a very small voice if it had actually happened or if it was just a dream and she almost yelled back that it was just a dream.

The perfect detail still makes me wonder sometimes though. Even though I know it’s ridiculous.

But to this day, I am still afraid that those closest to me will simply forget me. That we won’t talk for awhile and I will call or email them to check in and they won’t answer. Not because they don’t have time or don’t have anything to say, but because they’ve simply forgotten who I am.

Then this afternoon, I walk upstairs and look outside onto our deck and there is my son. Curled up in a little ball, not moving. I rush outside thinking something has happened to him, and he was sound asleep. On the deck. By himself. With his little blue and yellow gardening gloves still on his hands.

I picked him up and took him into his bed to continue sleeping. The whole time fighting tears because in my mind, I was once again on that concrete porch in the back yard, completely confused at why I had been forgotten. I noticed I was whispering under my breath, “I’m so sorry sweet boy.”

I fully expected him to wake up and be really upset. When I asked him what happened he said that he was just waiting for Dada to finish mowing the yard and he was tired. So he wasn’t forgotten. He was simply tired and fell asleep. But I just can’t shake the feeling now. That black, completely still feeling of being forgotten. Of being stood up. It’s a cross between being embarrassed and angry and sad, all at the same time. And I’m terrified that for just a moment, my boy, my beautiful boy, had that feeling.

But he woke up and was greeted by his baby sister trying to poke him in the eye. He awoke with a smile. Knowing he was loved and taken care of. And I am left with the greatest hope of any mother, that my fears do not become my children’s fears.

The Definition of Mother's Day

2007-05-14T21:14:00.000-07:00

Mother’s Day was yesterday. I’ve spent most of today talking with all of my other mother friends about how our days were. How sweet hubbies and kids were or what utter slackers husbands turned out to be. Got me to thinking how strange Mother’s Day has become.

In theory, it’s a day to celebrate mothers for everything they do for each and every one of us. What it winds up being though is a test. A test for husbands and fathers and children to see what spectacularly wonderful thing they can concoct to lavish the mother/wife in their lives. A test for mother’s to see how we’ll react to whatever is presented to us.

My first instinct when thinking about what I want from Mother’s Day is a break. I want a quiet house with no children, no husband. I want to recapture a bit of the freedom I had before I became a mother. What strikes me is how strange it is that on the day created to honor mothers, I (and most of the other women I know) strive to forget for the day that we are mothers. We want a day that takes us back to our before motherhood being. We want to sleep in. We want breakfast in bed. We want quiet and freedom and simplicity.

How strange is that? So I wind up feeling like I should instead spend the day with my family being the best mother I can be. That in order to celebrate my being as a mother, I need to be actively mothering. In every minute of the day. And so wind up at the end of the day very tired and moderately resentful that I didn’t get a day off. What is it about mothers, and women in general, that we spend all day asking for, and fully expecting to receive, what we want and need of our children, husbands, friends, coworkers and bosses, but even if we are know what we want and need for ourselves, we are completely unable to ask for it. Let alone expect to receive it.

When I was younger I was so full of expectations for myself, and was utterly unafraid to demand that those expectations be met. While I am still unabashed in my expectations of others and when it comes to responsibility and being a mother, myself as well, I find that I no longer expect myself to be happy, beautiful or excited about any of it. There was a time when I expected myself to not only succeed in everything I did to the highest extent, but to do it with style. Now I just try to get my teeth brushed everyday.

When did the ideas of mother and beautiful become mutually exclusive in my mind? Why I can’t I celebrate my happiness in being a mother on Mother’s Day instead of only that which I’ve sacrificed and/or worked myself to the bone for? Mother’s Day has almost turned into a day to glorify the martyrs of motherhood instead of truly a day to celebrate the being of mother.

I want to celebrate my ability to grow, carry and birth a new life. I want to celebrate my ability to soothe with song and breast in the middle of the night. I want to celebrate my ability to guide with strong voice and body. I want to celebrate the gift of my children and what they’ve given me.

I want to look in the mirror on Mother’s Day and think, celebrate yourself you beautiful mama. And then I want to believe it.

What Mistake?

2007-04-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

So I read this article this morning in our newspaper about a new book called The Feminine Mistake and for some reason it just really raised my hackles. The author, Leslie Bennetts, is a journalist. And essentially what she does is boil the entire subject of whether to stay home with your kids or not down to economics. Which, in my opinion, is not only incredibly short-sighted, but ultimately, trivial in the larger scheme of things.

I know there are some who would read this and say, “How can you say that family and personal economics are trivial?!?” I can say that because it’s about choices. We all make choices based on what we want or need our lives to look like. If you want or need your life to be about spending the money you make, you make choices to support that. Bennetts' assertion is that everyone should make the choice to make their lives about economics because that is the safe way to live. What my problem is is that she equates familial safety with money. Not with quality of parenting. Not with emotions. Not with happiness on any level. Just money. It all boils down to the economics of life.

And while I am not so naïve as to say that she’s completely wrong, I would say that that is so very irresponsible on several levels. First, her assertion ultimately would lead a woman to believe that choosing to live in a one-income family puts herself and her children in danger. Second, her assertion implies that without a career and an income independent of her husband’s, that her life is not only unsafe and unstable, but also somehow less worth living. Third, she terms choosing to stay home with your children, “a willfully retrograde choice,” as if that choice warps a woman back to when she had no voice, choice or will. I deeply resent all of these implications.

Not only because I am essentially a stay at home mom. But because I am woman, who chose to become a mother, who chose to put my children before my career, who would not have it any other way.

I have been working the entirety of my motherhood. But by my rules the majority of the time. Even when I had an office to go to and a boss to report to, I always made it clear to that workplace (and myself) that my family was my top priority, in all cases, without doubt. And the career I chose made it financially impossible to send my children to full or part-time daycare. So they were with me most of the time. The challenge I would offer to Bennetts is to try to do both. Be a stay at home mother and have a career at the same time. With little to no support. I don’t know anyone who could have done it better than I have.

What I know is that I have done right by myself, my children and my husband by making conscious choices about the priorities in my life and what I need and want my life to look like. Bennetts' assertions are irresponsible because it, once again, puts the entire onus of familial success on the woman instead of spreading it out to all parties who are invested in the success of all American families.

Instead of fueling the mother-guilt fire, what her time would have been more productively spent on would have been an in-depth look at how we as a society must do more to enable familial success. By offering more affordable childcare. By offering mothers and fathers more opportunities to makes choices that feed and nurture their lives instead of sucking them dry. By offering less myopic educational choices so that children are encouraged to learn in the way that ensures their success instead of force feeding students and then banking their entire academic self-esteem on their ability to regurgitate. By demanding that we as a society do more to take care of each other.

The Angel and The Auditor

2007-03-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have two beings sitting on my shoulders. Each telling me what to do, what not to do, what to think, what to absolutely the hell not think. But instead of them being the typical angle/devil duo, it’s almost like I’ve got an angel on one shoulder and a tax auditor on the other.

The angel is full of “It’ll be alright dear”isms and hope and trust and other such comforting, but ultimately fruitless words of advice and action. The auditor is full of “What do you mean you have to put groceries on the credit card this week?!?”-isms in light of me not having a job yet. The angel just wants me to be happy and follow my dreams. The auditor wants to get bills paid and have a savings account.

The bitch of it is that they both are speaking the truth. Getting the bills paid is a necessary and vital dot on the to-do list. But being happy and following my dreams is becoming equally as important as I get older and watch my kids get older.

I think back to when I was a kid and my dad wasn’t around much. When he was around he was very quiet and totally disengaged. All in the name of getting the bills paid and saving for me for college. Now all of that hard work and some unfortunate circumstances have made him bitter, close to physically disabled and pouring scotch at EXACTLY 5pm. I don’t want that. I would rather have my family have NO creature comforts above the essentials and no social life than reenact my father’s misery.

So, here I am 8 years into a career that I hit the top rung of before turning 30 and realizing that this career makes me miserable. That I really don’t like what I do. That it’s toxic and causes me to make bad choices. I may be good at it, but I don’t think that’s worth it anymore.

So here I am almost 31 trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And the angel is saying, “That’s right dear, you just take your time, what do your dreams tell you?” And the auditor is saying “Who cares? Where’s the paycheck?!”

Guess that will teach me to listen to voices.

Taking it all in stride...

2007-02-19T10:48:00.000-08:00

So, there is life after (insert name of totally damaging and toxic former work place here). I realized today that there was definitely life before and there is increasingly life after, it was the in between that was in question. It was the soul sucking tenure I had there that made me question everything.

Now, I get to see and talk to my friends. Now, I get to hang out with my kids. Now, I get to have free time to devote to thinking about what’s for dinner. Now, I get to be me. With no ridicule or mitigation. No explanation needed.

Of course who that is morphs on a daily basis, I’m worse than my kids most days. ‘Tis the gift of a Gemini I suppose.

I have this new found sense of freedom that is actually quite lovely. I’ve never just let myself be in this way, professionally that is. I’ve always been thinking about what’s next. What job, what client, what project, what’s next. But I’m making myself slow down and really take inventory and figure out what’s REALLY next. What do I WANT to be next? There’s a big difference for me between what comes next and what I want to be next. For the last 12 years I’ve just been doing what comes next. Go to college. Go to class. Put on large overachiever hat. Graduate college. Go to grad school. Go to work. Work way up career ladder. Hit top rung before turning 30. Have top rung break and stab you in back on way down. Hit ground, get up, dust off and start again.

I must sound bitter. I guess I am to some extent. But mostly, I’m trying to look at all of this through my lens of sarcasm on my way to learning whatever it is I’m supposed to be learning. It’s this lens that keeps me sane most days. Or at least allows me to take it in stride.

Right now my stride includes hopefully being the next food critic for our newspaper, continuing to get ready to start applying for grad schools, spending time with my family, trying to figure out how to travel more this year while not plunging my family into financial dire straits, reconnecting with friends, reconnecting with music and other things that feed my soul, and getting more physically healthy.

Not bad for a girl’s stride right now. Not bad at all…

Questions of a Political Nature

2007-01-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

So a woman has broken the marble ceiling. Go Nancy! I guess. I mean I think it’s awesome that she has risen to a point where no other has thus far in our nation’s history. It’s always cool to be the first person to do anything. Especially on the hill, to be a woman, voted to the highest seat in the Senate by her peers. That rocks!

But once we get past the inspiration of newness, what next? I mean, what sort of leader will she be? Will she feel continually that she has to prove she has the same size balls as her cohorts or will she relax into her position and allow the merits that got her to this post to truly shine? Will she lead or will she threaten? Will she be empowered or just a figurehead?

Those are the questions we should all be asking I think. Not just of ourselves, but of her. Directly. No more sound bytes. No more pictures (especially not with Doug Lamborn!). Let’s make her start talking about what she was elected to do, her job.

Swept Under the Rug

2007-01-05T19:00:00.000-08:00

I am being swept under the rug and forgotten about. And let me tell you how crappy that feels. I want to cry and throw things at the same time. I want to scream and curl up into a little ball and disappear.

I know I shouldn’t care. This job was one of the most toxic, draining and dead end ordeals I’ve ever been a part of. I was never appreciated. I was never trusted. I was never engaged. I was always taken for granted. I was always questioned. I was always overlooked.

But the board chair just sent out an email to the readership about the annual meeting. He mentioned in one sentence that the board had decided to eliminate my position. In the next “very exciting” sentence he announced that one of the board members had agreed to step in as the interim Director. That was a very definite swipe of the broom across my forehead. It hurt. A lot.

I know I shouldn’t care. But I do. This is my integrity they are seriously fucking with here. I made the conscious decision to stick with this organization even after I knew it would be fruitless. I stayed because I thought I could make a difference and help the organization rise to be a functional and impactful member of our community. I drug them kicking and screaming into at least the mid-90’s as I couldn’t get them to come any further.

And what do I do now? When I see these people around town? Do I look them in the eye and tell them good luck and wish them well? Do I take them out back and kick their ridiculously stupid asses back to where they came from? Do I ignore them completely? How do I function without this affecting me? How do I not take this personally?

I’m angry. I’m sad. And no one around me gets that. Everyone thinks I should be doing cartwheels and jumping jacks over rainbow covered daisies to finally be free from this job. Right now, I’m not. Right now I’m angry and I’m sad and I’m lost.

Maybe that’s where I should be. Lost. Then that will force me to keep moving and force me to find my way. Force me to keep getting up every day and being creative and engaging my life. Thank god I have a 3-year old that won’t let me get away with anything less.

New Year's Reflections

2007-01-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

Here I sit on New Year’s Day 2007. And I’m retrospective, as is to be expected I suppose. I just got laid off, five days before Christmas. And I’m feeling really conflicted about it. Part of me is really angry and hurt that the organization I gave almost 18 months of my life to has essentially swept me under the rug and forgotten about me. Part of me is really grateful as now maybe I won’t have headaches everyday and I can reinvest in my kids, I’ve been missing them a lot lately.

And so I find myself, once again, at some sort of crossroads. I could get my resume up to date and start applying for jobs again. Probably wouldn’t take too much time to find one. But I don’t really want to. What I really want to do is start applying to grad schools to start an MFA in writing. What I really want to do is go to play dates with my friends so that our children can play and I can be with like-minded women. What I really want to do is revise my life so that it’s healthier and more positive. What I really want to do is the absolute opposite to what will make me feel safe and secure and make sure that my family is financially safe and secure.

So I’m asking myself, which is more important. Having that financial safety or my family having a wife and mother who is sane and present and happy? Of course the resounding answer is the latter, but I’ve not quite figured out how to explain that to our mortgage company.

For months everyone around me has been telling me to just trust and take a leap of faith. That the universe will take care of me and that I will always be exactly where I am supposed to be. And it appears that since I couldn’t make myself take that leap, the universe went ahead and shoved me off the cliff. Because here I am, putting one foot in front of the other hoping that here is still something solid under my feet with every step.

There’s a bit of freedom in that not knowing. But I think it could turn quickly into a dangerous type of freedom. The “I don’t care about anything anymore” kind of dangerous. I’m predisposed to that kind of danger I’ve learned. So I have to keep moving, I have to keep doing something. So here I am. Writing on New Year’s Day to keep myself moving. To keep the freedom positive and active.

So here I am.

Born From One, Two Follow

2006-11-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

Hello. We are three.