big as the sky

One more thing before we press on . . .

My girlhood among the outlaws,

Was salty, bittersweet,

The things I did I could just kick myself now, 

Through nights of lousy dreams.

As visions gather in my head, 

I find it hard to live with the things I did and said.

But for you my friend I'd give it all again,

To love you in the end.  

Anything for you, baby, anything for you.  

If it took those years to get me here,

I'd do it again for you.

~Maria McKee

My new son was two months old.  The kids and I were packed into the van driving home from an evening of swimming.  I was exhausted, I'll admit, but glad to have the bit of normalcy of hanging out with friends.  The Dude started crying in his infant seat, so at a stoplight I turned in my seat to give him a pacifier.  

In silhouette my girls were bouncing in the back seat.  And beyond them, was my husband.  He was in the car behind us clad in sunglasses and sternness.  Without changing his face, he lifted his fingers from the steering wheel to acknowledge me, and continued to stare at us with stony coldness.  The light turned green, and I did my best to lose him as I drove home.  Given the direction we were headed, I knew exactly where he was going.  And it wasn't home.  

This was a defining moment for me, if for nothing else, to act as a living, breathing, in-my-face metaphor of where my life was.  Actually where it had been for the last fifteen years.  Alone.  Humiliated.  Hurt.  Pushed away.  Avoided.  Degraded.  My life literally flashed before my eyes in fast forward until it landed on that moment.  Driving with my kids in my mini-van with my husband behind us on his way to his girlfriend's place.  

It was the period at the end of that sentence.  

Life was going to change.  Move in a different direction.  But what in the world had I done to get it here?  I've shed many, many tears with this question impaled in my chest.  In fact, I couldn't get away from the question.  How did this happen?  How did I get the dud husband who could do this?  Where did I go wrong?  What did I miss?  How did I miss it?

There's a long answer to those questions that's both tired and boring.  But a piece of it is simply standards.  For myself and for those around me.  My pastor once said we're all "acceptance magnets".  We migrate not toward those we admire, but toward those we think will accept us.  In a sad display of "please love me" I've spent a lot of years with people who did things I didn't admire and acted in shameful ways.  Crawling to the lowest common denominator that would, for sure, accept me, I ended up at that stop light that evening.

So . . . one day . . . I did it.  Life since my marriage was so dense with circumstances and history and people and schooling and jobs that it seemed impossible to undo.  But I did.    

I went to the moment he showed up at my door step all those year ago, and I closed the door and went back to bed. 

As soon as I did, though, my heart tightened and I caught my breath.  When I turned him away, I also turned my kids away.  I quickly opened the door back up to him so I could have them back.  And went down the same twisted path that led to the stoplight.  I'd do it again.  Just to have them.  Not just to have kids.  But to have these kids. 

And there it was.  I have truly wonderful children.  Each with their own unique and shockingly beautiful personality.  Are they why I went through those awful years?  I don't know.  But they are definitely the result of them, and I wouldn't trade them for the most perfect family on earth.  No regrets, at it turns out.  

With that, it's time to move on.

Love in the End

To the gypsy that remains
And faces freedom with a little fear
I have no fear, I have only love
And if I was a child
And the child was enough
Enough for me to love
Enough. to. love.

~Stevie Nicks

I remember lying in bed staring at the clock in November 2007.  It was 11:47 p.m., and I decided, after a pathetic torrent of denial and spastic hope, to end my marriage.  My real self put its arm around my my pretender self and told it to stop.  And it did.  I faced the truth and laid it down that night.  The next year was nothing short of hell.  Shedding all the lies I had told myself resembled a drug addict's withdrawal.  How will I live without this life sustaining poison?  To be frank, some days I wasn't sure I would survive.

But I did.

And today I stood in front of two complete strangers, an attorney and a judge, and legally ended my marriage.  I thought this day would bring either sadness or anger.  But it brought neither of these.  It brought only love.  

As the judge looked up at me and finished with a, "Good luck to you" I wanted to kiss him and everybody else there.  I walked out the double doors and felt myself for the first time in ages.  Actually, this feeling was for the first time ever.  I couldn't wipe the smile off my face.  

It was a gorgeous day.  As I walked to my car, I watched a train passing.  I've always loved trains and every single time I see one, I want to hop it.  The rhythmic rumble entices with freedom, the beauty of the unknown, and the eccentric gypsy life.  

As I drove to the corner, I saw, where the train had passed, a church, and dead center was a plain white cross.  The peace I wished for so many months ago is finally here.  I had wished for a quiet knowing that everything would be alright.  And even if it wasn't, it still was.  And as the cross beamed through my windshield, I felt God giving me a wink.  Everything is always okay.  Not only okay, but perfection.

Then, as I rounded the corner to u-turn home to my kids, I swear on my life, this marquee stood on a street with nothing else. 

The faith I have in myself today brings me tranquil stability.  The hope I have for my future brings me giddy joy.  And the love I have for everything gives me quiet peace.  Only love.  For the all the great and all the shitty.  The yin and the yang.  It's all there to be relished.  It's all perfection. 

Lost

Just because I'm losing,

Doesn't mean I'm lost. 

Doesn't mean I'll stop.

~Coldplay

I was at a holiday party last month, mingling, chatting, and surprisingly having a great time.  It had been a while since I had enjoyed myself among my peers and it felt good (thanks, Mom, for the motherly pressure to attend.  "Go!!  We're watching The Dude!!  Get out of here!!!").  While sipping my water and chatting with a friend, she asked if I had started dating yet.  The answer was a polite "no" while inside I envisioned myself at a hypothetical quiet bistro with an innocent man victim, my boot lodged squarely on his neck as he writhed on the floor.  No, I'm not ready to date.  

But it did beg the question.  If I can move past my voracious anger and soul sucking bitterness, what would a date look like?  Last time I dated was in college and it consisted of drinking from a keg and talking bohemian fantasies with your friend's friend's friend at the duplex party.  I'm an unemployed mother of three now.  What in the name of diaper duty would I talk about?  

So I did that thing that we all do and went on the first ten minutes of a date in my head.  "So, tell me about yourself"  he says.  And so I did.  Kind of like preparing for a job interview.  "Hmm, I can talk about where I'm from, skim over my childhood, college, jobs I hated, stuff I love, delete the part about how I can't cook and bring home stray dogs".  And so on.  

Sadly, at this point my hypothetical date was beginning to glaze over but I didn't care.  I asked for the hypothetical check and hypothetically excused myself.  Because in this silly exercise I had stumbled on something quite . . . disturbing?  Important?  Enlightening?  In going over my life in my mind's eye, in quick chunks, I could feel a deep connection with myself again.  I felt it when I went to my childhood, in college, in graduate school, and when I worked certain jobs.  

I didn't feel it in certain other jobs.  I didn't feel it when I was married.  I didn't feel it when I was a mother.

Now, hold your horses!!  Don't call CPS just yet!!  As anybody knows, I adore my children in an over-the-top somewhat obsessive monkey grooming kind of way.  "Are you okay?  Do you need anything?  Can you please do whatever you're doing in the same room I'm in?  I love you.  I love you.  I think I'm going to eat you."  

I love the look of my kids.  The smell of my kids.  The sound of my kids.  Watching my kids do anything.  Watching my kids do nothing.  I find my kids so engrossing that I tilt my rearview mirror down in my car so I can glance at them just staring out the window while I'm driving.  What are they thinking?  They're so beautiful.  

I'm not alone in these parental feelings.  Me and most every other parent feels this way.

But, when I think of myself over the past seven years, I see a body doing chores for other's lives.  A shadow in khaki shorts and t-shirt floating from task to task.  

When I think about other times in my life, I feel in my gut an excitement.  A buzz.  When I studied for my exams in college I loved my classes so much, I would pace the floor unable to sit still.  When I pulled into the barn for the five hundredth time to jump mine or anybody else's horse, my hiney would tingle.  On the five hundredth time.  When I drove to work in graduate school, I would sometimes tear up in joyous disbelief that I had found a paying job I would do for free.  In all these places, I had to restrain myself from grabbing the next person I saw by the lapels and screaming, "I love my life!!"  I felt alive.

But I got lost.  

I got married and fell into the role of following my husband around, deferring to his life, his interests, and his career.  I still managed to slip myself in a little.  Then I had children and that was all she wrote.  

I'm not blaming my ex (for this. small. detail.).  Or my kids.  Or even myself.  I didn't know any better.

But now I do.  This is so, so, so cliche, but the people you sacrifice yourself for -- and I mean sacrifice in the sense you kill yourself to serve them -- don't want you to.  My kids might complain as I'm walking out the door leaving them with a sitter, but in the end, they want a mom who feels alive.  They want a role model.  They want to be inspired.

For Christmas this year, my six year-old asked Santa for a list of stuff.  On the list was for "Mommy to be happy."  Wow.  

After fifteen years of a toxic relationship.  And seven years of falling into the oh, so common, mommy quicksand.  I'm going to find my way back to my path and grant her that wish.  

As I sit here thinking about it, my hiney is tingling:) 

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Photos!  

Bee 

The Dude

My Guru

All I Really Want . . .

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionalbe ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.

~Thoreau

All I really want is some peace, man.

~Alanis Morrisette

In recently jumping back into the bloggy world, I began briefly frequenting some of my favorite old haunts and one of them has something called Theme Thursday.  I love stuff like this because it's so fun to see what others come up with (dangling prep, I know, I know).  I thought I'd jump back in for the fun of it . . . and also because this is a hobby you can keep between the hours of 11pm and 1am after the kids are all hopefully asleep. 

Her theme this week was "What I Want."  Easy enough.  As I sat bleary eyed at the computer looking to do a quick post at 10:30 at night, I found myself paralyzed by a tsunami of things and nothing at all.  What DO I want??  

The first obvious choice given my recent abrupt shove into single mother-ness is money.  Money is like an attorney, you mock it until you need it.  It's the biggest stress in my life right now as I aim to support three kids with a graduate degree in social work.  Oh, yeah!  And I'd also like to be present for them as much as possible.  Make lots of dough AND be with my kids.  Can I get an amen!!  It's a conundrum that occupies my thoughts much of the day.  

But beyond money, what else do I want??  

Peace was the second object of desire that elbowed its way forward.  But what the heck does that really mean?  What does it look like?  What does one DO to make it happen?  I'm looking for action verbs here.  And finding peace while the above money conundrum plays over and over in my mind is yet another conundrum.  But, I do know I want peace for myself and my kids.  A quiet knowing that everything is OK.  And even if it's not, it still is.  I'll go hunt down the manual for that one, and let you know what I find.    

Joy was the next model that sashayed down this runway.  But joy is just that right now, a beautiful supermodel that looks great up there but is totally out of reach.  The joy I experience now comes in small, pitiful kernels and is often artificially inflated to make my kids feel better.  It's hard to get to joy when hurt and fear are guarding the door.  And I miss it.  I'm so looking forward to the day when I laugh so hard I cry.  Right now I just do this weird, nervous, scrunched-up face laugh all the time so that I don't cry.   

Then the usual suspects marched forward and I waved to them familiarly.  A pedicure, a massage, a new wardrobe, a couple new camera lenses, Starbucks gift cards, and a boob lift.  Superficial stuff that makes me feel good on the surface and acts as easy targets for the sake of diversion.

Then I started thinking how short and uninspired this list really is.  Money, Peace, Joy, and a Massage?  Who doesn't want these things??  What makes me any different than anybody else??  I may as well say, "Food, Water, and Air" for how boilerplate these wants are.  

So then I realized I don't really know what I want beyond some vague and obvious list.  So I aim to find out.  As Glenda the Good Witch said, "You always had it inside you" now click those tacky shoes together and get out there and take what's yours!!  

I've had the blah's for the last fifteen years and now have the unusual opportunity at a second chance to make the life I truly want . . . if I can find a sitter . . . and figure out what it actually looks like.    

Theme Thursday turned into Mission Get A Life.  Thanks, Stacey.

What do you want?   

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What's a post without pictures?  A boring colorless rant.  So, here's a couple from the week.

I'll first start with a daily occurrence in our home.  My oldest child in some sort of quiet entrepreneurial pursuit during which she descends into a focus that takes her to her happy place.  And where I begin to notice several cabinets cleared out onto the floor and something being feverishly formed.  I love this about her, even though it causes messes that make me hyperventilate.  

Her latest passion is cat toys, and she actually came up with this one all on her own.  I thought it was pretty impressive.

 

That's a lollipop stick on a pen cap with craft feathers glued inside.  She showed up with this as I was nursing little man.  Here she is playing with Charlotte.  I think she's sooo cool:)  There's been a flurry of different ones made and the cats really like them.  

No other photos to share.  Taking them while holding a baby is tricky.  But, we start "Potty Training, Take 2" tomorrow with Bee.  We'll see how that goes . . . it maybe worth a click or two.