Momentum…I don’t has it

December 17, 20192 Comments

I had hoped to carry my November blogging momentum forward into December, but that didn’t happen. I could blame the holidays and being sick and all kinds of other things, and I wouldn’t be wrong, exactly, but I would be just making excuses. Because the truth is that if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way (and the time) to do it.

It’s not that I don’t want to blog, because I do. But my project for this month fell flat in a hurry.

See, I had this idea to document my Christmas spirit. Last year, one of my coworkers questioned my commitment to festivity, so I proved my love of Christmas by wearing something festive every day I worked for the entire month of December (and if I’m not mistaken, I may have started between Thanksgiving and December, but that’s not really important, I suppose). I only worked three days a week for most of the Christmas season last year due to my class schedule.

Apparently, however…

Making new things familiar

November 27, 2019November 27, 20197 Comments

I can’t get over how true this is.

One of the things I decided to do when my children were small is try to see things from their perspective. Everything is new to children, everything is full of wonder. I’d forgotten how to see the world’s wonders; I’d forgotten how to see its magic.

I’d become like the grown-ups in The Polar Express: I could no longer hear the sweet music of the jingle bell from Santa’s sleigh.

After I made this decision to see the world through a child’s eyes, I could once again see the magic present everywhere. I could see the wonders in each day. I could hear the sweet music of that bell.

But now…

On thinking

December 30, 2017December 10, 20174 Comments

I think in other people’s words. I think in movie lines and song lyrics and passages from books. Sometimes, I even think in advertising slogans. Often, I think in sound bytes.

Why?

It’s quite simple, really. Thinking in someone else’s words is so much easier than thinking in my own. Thinking in other people’s words is safer, less painful. It keeps me from having to dig deep, from having to face uncomfortable possibilities.

Thinking in other people’s words keeps me from really getting to know myself. And therein lies the problem.

If I never dig deep enough to find out who I am, do I really exist? If I think in other people’s words, am I a real person, or simply a copy of a thousand other selves? A clone?

To think in other people’s thoughts is to blend into the background, to be an indistinguishable part of the whole. I contain multitudes, but I don’t stand out from them.

Sometimes it’s necessary to stand out, to stand on one’s own. But by thinking in someone else’s thoughts, I keep myself chained to a pole, unable to stand on my own.

I am a sapling in a biosphere, immune to the wind…until the transparent sphere falls away. Then I will fall, for my roots are shallow and weak.

I think in other people’s thoughts, but I really ought to stop. My own thoughts have value and meaning, and it’s time I recognized that fact. It’s time I came up with a few thoughts of my own.

If I want to leave my mark on the world, I won’t be able to rely on other people’s thoughts.

Tired

July 27, 2017July 31, 20178 Comments

I’m tired. I’m not, really, but it’s much more acceptable to say you’re tired than to say that you’re angry and upset and you don’t know why.

I’m tired. I’m not, not really, but it’s so much easier to say you’re tired than to say that you’re feeling prickly and sharp and you don’t know why.

I’m tired. I’m not supposed to be, because I got almost seven hours of sleep last night. But my goal is eight or nine, and the seven hours I got weren’t good. I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling refreshed.

I’m tired. I’m not, really, but it’s much safer to say you’re tired than to say that you’re feeling jagged and raw and you don’t want to talk about it because you can’t handle hearing, “Suck it up, buttercup,” or, “Figure it out and get over it,” one more time.

I am running on empty, and I’m tired of it.

Burial

July 12, 2017July 20, 20176 Comments

I bury things.

When I was little, I was obsessed with finding buried treasure. Even though I live in a landlocked state and grew up a good forty minutes by car from the nearest large river, I was certain that a trove of pirate treasure lay buried beneath the sidewalk mere blocks from home. After all, there were bootprints in the concrete. What better way to mark the spot than with bootprints that ordinary passersby would take for some construction worker’s careless mistake?

I loved time capsules back then, too. They were my own variation of buried pirate’s treasure. I’m fairly certain that, somewhere in my old backyard, maybe a foot or so down (because I’d have been too tired to dig any further), there lies a tin or ten of memories. And if my dad still lived in the house I grew up in, it would be a lot of fun to go digging things up back there, just to see what I could find. To see what I’ve forgotten.

But he doesn’t.

I buried him, too. Because along with things, I bury people.

I remember when I was five and my grandfather died. My parents drove the two hours (give or take) to my dad’s hometown to attend the funeral, but left my sister and me at home because we were so little. I was furious. We hadn’t known the man – he and my dad were not close – but in my five-year-old mind, that didn’t matter. I should have been there.

There once existed a picture of my grandfather pushing me in a stroller, though. Or maybe that was my uncle, and the picture exists only in my mind because I loved it when my dad would tell me the story about my uncle pushing me in the stroller.

I buried a niece, too. I was seven then. I cried and cried and cried when she slipped softly into a better realm. I buried a schoolmate, a great-grandmother, a friend’s little brother. I buried friendships and relationships and my mother.

I buried them with resignation and heartache and immense, unfathomable grief. I buried them with soil and flowers and kind words, the sort that reassure those who hear them. Because I bury words and feelings, too.

I bury words, way down deep, till they come surging forth, angry waves upon the shore. I shove them down, bottle them up, try to keep them contained. I bury feelings deeper still, till they come seeping out, magma leaking through my cracks. I bury words unsaid next to the words I’ve said, but they tend to bubble up within me. Their memory burns me, so I bury them deeper, so far down that I forget their existence.

That is, until I can’t. Because eventually, those words and those feelings that I thought were buried come shooting back to the surface, fireworks in a dark sky, lighting the way to a different place. A better place. A place of new beginnings.

You see, I also bury seeds. I bury them without looking, sometimes without knowing. The things I bury in pain or in anger sometimes become seeds of hope with a little time and patience. Hope is a powerful thing; it cannot be contained. No matter how dark the night, the sun always rises, and hope with it.

What things do you bury?

It

March 19, 2017March 20, 2017Leave a comment

Fear is more than just a dirty word.

It chills my hands, my feet, my chest. It sends shivers up my spine, ripples through my core. It freezes me.

It clogs my throat. It keeps me from speaking, from singing, from breathing. It keeps me from thinking, from doing, from being. It immobilizes me.

It radiates from my center, permeates everything around me. It destroys my confidence. It debilitates me.

Fear controls my life.

Somehow, I have to fight it. Somehow, I have to overcome it. Somehow, somehow, somehow…

With a name comes power. Now that I know the name of this unspeakable and overwhelming foe, I can defeat it.

I have the power.

Fear had better watch its back.

Days Like These

March 16, 2017Leave a comment

Thanks to the wonders of sharing (read: Sick Kid #1 shared with big brother (and also, apparently, with Dad)), I ended up spending today at home. Okay, I thought, I’ll get him all tucked into bed and have a nice quiet day. And then I remembered that it’s spring break and, unlike last week, I would not have the house to myself.

So much for that nice, quiet day.

I had planned to finish a short story today while Sick Kid #2 slept off his headache/fever combo. I had planned to get a little revision work done on another project. I had planned to be productive, but in the end, I didn’t do any of that.

Instead, I calmed down an upset little Cricket, who wanted to watch a movie instead of going to lie down in bed. I gave him some Tylenol to get his fever down, tucked him into bed, and read him a story before turning his bottom bunk into a nice, dark cave. Then I sat down and stared at my computer screen for a little while. Didn’t really do anything, just stared (and scrolled through Facebook). Thumper played on his Leapster, which he loves, and I love that he’s so into the educational games. Kid loves to learn. 🙂

I ended up running to the store while Miss Tadpole watched her brothers for a few minutes, because Cricket wanted some 7-Up. A quick stop at the library for a print job led to an unexpected yet exciting conversation with the librarian (watch this space for details). When the caramel apple dip in stock at the grocery store proved terribly disappointing, I decided to make my own and then prayed I had all the ingredients.

I did, and it was amazing. I have my seventh grade home ec. teacher to thank for the cookbook I got the recipe from, and a longtime bestie for the recipe itself. And, thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I was able to thank them both. 🙂

Miss Tadpole and I spent the afternoon eating apples with our homemade caramel dip and watching movies. It is my considered opinion that one can never see The Cutting Edge or Emma too many times (which is probably a good thing, since I have two versions of the latter). We talked, and laughed, and it was so, so wonderful.

What I thought was going to be a less-than-fun day at home (I hate when the kids are sick because I feel so powerless and all I want to do is make them feel better, but I can’t) turned out to be pretty fan-darn-tastic. Between sick kids and bored kids and moody kids, it could have been a not-so-nice day. But with Cricket eventually content to sleep away the day and with Thumper absolutely absorbed in his animal-catching game, it was actually pretty peaceful.

In some ways, I think the teen years are even harder than the newborn and toddler years because there’s just so much going on, and sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like to be that age. After all, fourteen was a lifetime ago. And fourteen was hard.

But I think in the end, days like this will count for something. I think in the end, days like this are what the kids will remember when they’re all grown up and struggling with how to raise their own kids. And I hope that, in the end, they’ll want to recreate days like these. Not the whole staying-home-with-a-sick-little-brother part, but the part where we had a ton of fun.

Days like these are what make family time so much fun, and life worth living. Days like these are when memories are made. Days like these are rare and special.

Days like these were meant to be treasured.

Clickity Tweet

March 11, 2017March 12, 20174 Comments

I love the clickity-clack of high heels on marble floors, especially when they’re my high heels. Wearing them makes me feel very grown up, sophisticated, important. But I also feel like a bit of a fraud. I’ve been eighteen for fifteen years and still expect someone to see through me. Any moment now, someone will see that I have no idea what I’m doing; that, despite my best efforts, I don’t have this whole responsible adult thing figured out at all, not even a little bit; that I’m just a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s closet. And when they figure it out, I just know it will be in front of a huge crowd of people and I’ll be humiliated, exposed for all the world to see.

I love the simple joy of the sun on my skin on a warm summer day. Alone in a meadow with the sun shining down on my upturned face, it’s easy to forget about the hustle and bustle of daily life. The birds sing gaily, their song carried far and wide by the gentle breeze, and there’s peace. My doubts can’t find me here; it’s just the sun and the birds and the grass and me, and there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.

Frozen to the Core

December 9, 20168 Comments

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

A storm rages outside my window. It’s dark, and the freezing mix makes it hard to see. Amy sounds tinny, and far away, and not at all the way I remember her in this song. In my memory, she is warm and welcoming, close enough to touch yet larger than life.

Now, though, she is tiny. A tiny woman singing a tiny song through a tin can phone.

I’m alone, and lonely, and the darkness doesn’t help.

It’s the hap-happiest season of all…

The darkness wraps itself around me, but it does nothing to ward off the chill, cannot stop it from settling in my bones, from freezing my marrow. I freeze all the way to my core, and not even my expensive down coat with its heat-reflecting interior can warm me.

I’m alone, and lonely, and the darkness doesn’t help.

It’s the most wonderful time…

I crank the heater up to eleven and then, because I can’t hear her over the road noise and the heater, I turn Amy up, too. Only it’s not Amy singing anymore, it’s Josh, and Bing, and their once-silken voices now sound raspy and grating, so I turn the radio back down. The blast of hot air from my car’s dashboard vents sears my eyes and chaps my skin, but it can’t warm my soul, and the bright Christmas tunes can’t dispel the gloom.

I’m alone, and lonely, and the darkness doesn’t help.

Oh, the most wonderful time…of the year!

Champs

November 18, 2016Leave a comment

“Please, Lord – just let them win. Just one more game. Please, Lord.”

Somehow, I thought, if they could just win one more game, if they could have a perfect season like the basketball team before them, then everything would be okay. The hurt feelings, the bitter words, the barely-contained anger – all of it would fade away, and we would be a community once more. Whole. Perfect. Complete.

I didn’t know how it would all work out; I just knew it would.

And so I prayed. I prayed harder than I’d prayed since the day my youngest son was born, the day we very nearly lost him because of a careless mistake. I prayed when the clock stopped, I prayed through halftime, I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. “Please, Lord – just let them win. Please, Lord. Please let them win. Please, Lord…”

I cheered harder than I’d ever cheered in my life. On the outside edge of a sea of blue, I was both a part of the crowd and an observer of it. Their highs were my highs; their lows, my own. I cheered and prayed and prayed and cheered and when I couldn’t watch anymore, I ate cotton candy and prayed even harder.

“Please, Lord, oh pretty, pretty please let them win. Please, Lord, please…”

And when that blue-clad warrior plucked the ball from the sky, I screamed and cried and danced where I stood.