Back when

September 17, 2016September 13, 2016Leave a comment

Identity is a tricky thing, always changing. Identity can shift at a moment’s notice, or over a span of years. I think back on all the things I am and all the things I’ve been. I wonder about all the things I’ll someday be, or if I’ll be able to reclaim the girl I was back when.

I’m a mother, I’m a lover,
A chef, a referee,
I’m a doctor and a chauffeur seven days a week.

Back when I knew it all, I was going to be a famous writer before I turned thirty. I’d be critically acclaimed and make a fortune and not need a day job. I’d work as a medical transcriptionist for a few years, until I hit it big, and then I’d quit the day job to write for a living.

It’s the hardest gig I’ve known,
I work my fingers to the bone.
Yeah, the dishes and the diapers never stop.
Lousy pay,
There ain’t no 401(k).
I know this may come as a shock,
But this here’s a full-time job.

Back when I knew it all, I was going to…

The wheel behind the squeak

September 16, 2016September 13, 20164 Comments

It’s always the quiet ones.

You know, the ones you have to watch out for. The quiet ones blend into the background. They do a good job of it, too – they’re quiet, after all, and it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, not the silent one.

Not the timid girl in the corner desk.

Maybe you don’t even notice. Maybe you never heard her heart screaming her frustration, or begging for a kind word. Maybe you did, but you don’t care.

Maybe she didn’t want you to, but maybe she did. What if she did?

Maybe she wears neutral colors because she’s afraid of loud noises. Maybe she’s afraid to be loud, to draw attention to herself because attention means she’d have to open up to others. Maybe the last time she came out of her shell, it was crushed by the person she trusted most in the world, and she had to find a new shell, a harder shell, to protect her fragile self.

Sometimes the squeaky wheel doesn’t need the grease – sometimes it just needs someone to listen. Grease will silence the squeak, but maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is for someone to notice the wheel behind the squeak.

Maybe the squeak isn’t something wrong, but something right.

Maybe it means that that timid girl is trying out her voice, trying it on for size. Maybe that little, tiny squeak is really incredibly loud, and she’s trying to figure out how to modulate her volume. Wouldn’t you feel terrible for silencing that squeak?

Because that’s what the grease does. It quiets the squeak.

It’s always the quiet ones.

Ten things

September 8, 2016September 8, 20162 Comments

With Labor Day now but a memory, I feel it’s time to kick my blog back into high gear. And by high gear, I mean posting more than once a month.

Because, you know, I’m a writerly type. And writerly types write.

Right?

Right.

Okay, then. It’s been a while! I’m still trying to make my head stop spinning after the whirlwind that was my summer, which I truly can’t believe is over already. It’s true what they say – the older you get, the faster time passes. And with that in mind, here are some of the ways I spent my time this summer:

Camping. A lot. Camping includes, but is not limited to, swimming, tubing, hiking, fishing, playing cards, roasting marshmallows, grilling, and touring maize mazes, nature centers, petting zoos, and museums.
Not writing. I’m finally starting to feel the ideas…

A letter to my son

August 23, 20163 Comments

Today, I send my darling baby boy out into the big, wide world. Next year his little brother, Thumper, will follow him, but I don’t want to think about that just yet. For now, I’m just trying to get through today…

Dearest Cricket,

I cannot believe you’re starting kindergarten today. It seems like only yesterday that we brought you home from the hospital, home to the proudest big brother and sister this family has ever seen. It seems like only yesterday that you started walking, started talking, started sleeping through the night.

It seems like only yesterday, but of course, it wasn’t.

IMG_20160823_101931

It was six years, one month, and twenty-six days ago. Hardly yesterday, and yet it doesn’t seem like it was so very long ago. How the time flies!

You looked so grown up this morning as you headed out the door in your new school clothes. Your rockin’ Ninja Turtle backpack looked almost as big as you as we walked down the driveway to meet the bus, and your hand in mine felt so very small.

But I know you’ll be fine. You’re in good hands. You have a fantastic teacher and a wonderful school, and I know you’ll have fun. I know you’ll talk my ear off when I pick you up tonight. I hope you’ll stay excited about school, because today is the first of many first days for you, my boy, and I hope they’ll all be as much fun as this day. I hope you’ll make lots of new friends, the kind that will stay with you for thick and thin through the rest of your life.

Most of all, I hope you’ll never forget that no matter how old you are, you will always be my little Cricket. I love you, buddy.

Love,

Mommy

How did you handle your kids leaving for school?

Camp what?

July 7, 2016July 7, 201612 Comments

So sometime last month (I think), in a fit of enthusiasm, I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo. It’s essentially the same as the November event, but with more flexibility regarding word counts. And cabins (hi, bunkies!). And it’s a lot of fun.

But it’s seven days into the camping season and, so far, I haven’t written a word. (I have gone actual camping, but that’s another story for another time.) As a matter of fact, I switched projects. After realizing that I wasn’t sure exactly what I was trying to do with the novel I’ve spent years tinkering with, I shifted gears and moved onto something else.

I made a decent start on a new/old story and got a little feedback that had me second-guessing pretty much every aspect of my writing life. I got similar feedback on something else, which led to third-guessing my ability to write professionally, period. Then I tried to eat my weight in chips, fiesta ranch dip, and parade candy.

Suffice it to say, it’s been a rough week. Month. Whatever.

And it seems it’s not just me having a rough time of it lately. Between Brexit and the upcoming election here in the States, it seems a little like the world is trying to tear itself apart. Yesterday I read three different posts about people being tired. And not the usual, “Oh, I had a late night,” kind of tired, either. I’m talking the kind of existential exhaustion you feel in the marrow of your bones, the kind that makes you wonder why you even bother to get out of bed in the morning, let alone face the world. The kind of weariness that tells you that dreaming is hard, and it’s just not worth the effort, and the odds of success are astronomical, so why even try?

I’ve avoided the news for months now because paying attention to it depresses me. I joke about living under a rock, but the truth is that it’s quite nice here. Then I log into Facebook, and see things about how politics are destroying friendships, and my heart hurts. I was actually nauseated a week or so ago after reading that someone I consider a good friend had been deeply hurt by someone she considered a close friend, but whose politics differed greatly from hers. I was left reeling, and it wasn’t even my friendship that had been broken.

Why can’t we all just get along? I wondered.

This post is the first thing I’ve written in some time. You see, I’ve become paralyzed by fear. And I hate it. I’ve been inspired to write before now, but the Doubt Monster always crept in, whispering fearsome things and stilling my pen, relaxing my fingers. Doubt is a slimy, scaly beast, and I’m tired of tangling with him. Fear is his even uglier bosom buddy, and I’ve had it with him, too.

So this is me, trying to rid myself of the Ugly Twins, trying to break free of the paralysis. The silence round these parts will likely continue for a while, but I hope it won’t be quite as quiet as it has been lately. If I’m still, I can almost feel the fire stirring inside me again, the fire to write, to live, to be instead of to do. My embers are slowly warming, and one day soon, a crackling blaze will light my blog again.

In the meantime, though, the coals are perfect for s’mores…

How is summer treating you?

Nothing – or something?

May 24, 2016May 23, 201610 Comments

I’ve got nothing.

For the last few weeks, every time I sit down to write a post, my mind goes blank. As white as the screen at which I’m staring.

For the last few weeks, every time I sit down to work on revisions, my mind goes blank. As white as the pages I’d hoped to fill.

I’ve got nothing.

When my husband asks what I’m thinking, I say, “Nothing.”

And it’s true.

I’ve got nothing.

I sit and stare into space as seconds become minutes become hours become days. Not a thought flickers in my mind as I watch dust bunnies frolic in the sun streaming through my window. Everything I want to say, all the stories I want to tell, all the characters I want to bring to life – they yell and scream and clamor for attention, but all I hear is the dull insect drone of a thousand voices talking at once, and even that finally fades away into silence.

And I’ve got nothing.

I’ve got nothing but hopes and dreams and an ever-growing to-do list. I’ve got nothing but a sense of time wasted and a never-ending headache from all the things I’ve left undone. I’ve got nothing but apologies for my family and my readers and my friends.

I want to have it all.

But instead, I’ve got nothing.

Something tells me I will never have it all, despite what I see on TV every day. Something tells me it’s not possible to have it all, despite what I see on TV every day. Something tells me I’ll stop wanting to have it all, because of what I see on TV every day.

So instead, I’ll focus on having something instead of nothing. Because what I’ve got is plenty. And this zombie state will pass. Eventually.

Right?

Right.

But until it does, the posts here may be few and far between. Don’t worry, though – I’ll be back soon. I love blogging too much to let this place go quietly into the dark of night, especially when the light of day is so warm and inviting. 🙂

In the meantime, how have you been lately? Tell me about everything going on with you – I may not have much to say, but I’ve got plenty of time for listening!

Home

March 7, 2016March 7, 20166 Comments

That’s me on the bottom right. Thank goodness high-water pants haven’t made a comeback.

Home is where your story begins.

My story began in a modest red house on a quiet corner in a small town. But nothing stays the same for long, and when my little sister arrived a couple years later, that quiet corner became considerably less quiet.

And so it goes.

Many years (and even more plot twists) later, I left that modest red house with its white garage and its yard full of trees behind me as I ventured out into the world. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to go back to that little red house on the corner, but it was too late. I was too grown up.

Maybe you can’t go home again, but you can always take it with you.

You can’t go home again.

So I made my own home. Several times over, in fact. And while I think it’s true that you can’t go home again, that’s only because I believe that home is something we carry with us wherever we go. Home is in our memories. Home is in the way we look at the world. Home is the way we treat others.

Home is a state of mind, a way of being, a feeling that can’t be taken away.

When I think of home, I think of the warmth of my grandma’s kitchen. I think of the hustle and bustle that went into family get-togethers. I remember the after-dinner tea and cookies, and how all of those things came together the morning after my second wedding as we all congregated in the kitchen of my new home.

Home is family. Home is friends.

Tadpole and Bubbles like to get up to all sorts of shenanigans.

Home is where your heart is.

It may be a sappy cliché, but that’s only because it’s true. Home is where your heart is because, without heart, there can be no home.

Memories and feelings

February 10, 2016February 10, 20164 Comments

If you haven’t read Justine Manzano’s post about regrets and Facebook memories, go read it. Now. Without it, the following probably won’t make a whole lot of sense.

Read it? Good.

Her words about how “Facebook Memories are equal parts fun and annoying” sound so, so familiar. Mostly, I really enjoy seeing my Facebook memories because I’ve always tried to be very positive online. But sometimes even the happy memories remind me of a sad time (my youngest son’s birth, for example, was equal parts joyous and terrifying).

I’ll see all that positivity when I’m feeling down and think, “Why can’t I be more like that now? I used to be so positive. What happened?”

The thing about trying to wear such a positive face on the web, though, is that all the smiles sometimes make you see things through rose-colored glasses. You forget all the negative stuff that was going on way back when and how it affected you at the time. How it made you more of a black rain cloud than a ray of sunshine. After all, if everything looks so great, it must have really been that way, right?

It’s on the internet – it must be true.

And then…

Where my heart will take me

January 27, 2016February 4, 20166 Comments

Don’t stop believin’.
Let it go.
Be true to your heart.
Keep on movin’.
I’m goin’ where my heart will take me.

What do these five things have in common, aside from being fantastic songs? They’re words that I find inspiring. But more than that, they’re words I hope to live by in 2016.

Two more days. In two more days, I’ll be 32. While I officially surpassed my mother’s age back in August, it’s really just hitting me now, as I approach the first birthday she never reached. Perhaps this all seems a bit self-indulgent, but for some reason, I’ve always thought I would leave the world like she did – young, and with things left to do. There was – is – so much I want to accomplish before I die, and I had no idea…