On One

Day One.

I find myself unable to sleep and creep out of bed before the sun even thinks of showing it's face. I sip coffee that I don't need and ponder what to write. Headphones would make it easier. Music can trick the mind in to relaxing. It's the bourbon of the brain.

And I'm off.

The sun is cresting over the houses across the street, flushing the living room in a sickly orange. You could break that light with by walking across it. Clean, the floors, tan, the walls. Harsh, the glow of my monitor. And rapid my fingers rushing to conclusions across the keyboard.

On this day, the fifth day of October, I hereby declare


Blushed, my coffee. Messy hair. Raccoon eyes where the liner wore thin. Full my heart, to bursting.

Aida comes wandering out of her room and it's a blessing with each step. Suddenly everything changes.

Forever and ago, a memory bubbles up. It's snowing, always snowing in this cold horrible winter that I can't seem to escape. We're holding hands and where our skin touches is warmth. I watch you from the corner of my eye. You are the most beautiful peace I have ever known. Your words are a wordless comfort, to me. Your smile a salvation.

The last part of me that was hurting gives up in the presence of that smile and I know, know deep deep deep down you are for me and I for you.

Memory skips again, ahead a month and a moment and we're holding hands in a, well chapel isn't going to invoke the right images but I suppose that's what it was, and we're getting married.

Out in the dry Nevada winter, we skip away, giggling.

The sound of Aida's heartbeat. Like a train racing over tracks. How proud and excited and scared we both are. How lucky.

I think it's these types of memories, coupled with the never ending and loving support of my small, perfect little family, that will get me through this.

In the end, I can walk away from it all

As long as you walk away with me.

On this day, the fifth day of October, I hereby declare.

Cracks

Words fail.

The end of the day - this is the truth. They are small strokes. Very small. I wouldn't trust my weight to a single 's' and I can't picture a world where a 'w' could hold me up.

When I need them, they flee. Hiding away. Places I cannot reach. Usually behind memories of the mundane. The most important ones have hidden themselves in text messages from an unremarkable Monday.

Is it a curse of hindsight or gift of true insight that, in reflection, you look back and see the writing so clear. Do you write hope where there isn't any because you need it. So badly.

Thief. I see you, sitting there. You steal each line you read.

These are my thoughts and I'm flying them like kites against your screen. Can you see the colors and do they bring you joy, as they do me?

Life is so beautiful. So very beautiful. It is hard, too.

Today, everything changes

On late nights

In which I slip in to bed.

Not much to say tonight. It was either write this or spend some time mindlessly web surfing until exhaustion took hold. The curse and blessing of an over active mind. Bit like a hyper dog, needs walks and constant attention or I'm going to wake up and find important memories chewed up and passwords misplaced. Started a new auditor today. Ate pho tonight. Worked until I couldn't see straight and worked some more.

Aida and I got our passports today - Andrew's should be coming soon. Blonde is still sick from what she tells me, I believe she will seek medical attention tomorrow. Mom's doctor called, levels are lower than they'd like - I'll email them tomorrow for options. Aida is adorable, smart and lovely. Her Oma came to visit today and unprompted, she gave her a kiss. Mental note to self, visit in-laws more often, they are good people and Judita seems most likely candidate to help me with my Lithuanian. Excited by the prospect of spending more time with my father's side of the family, encouraged by the dinner we had on Sunday with my grandparents. Andrew is quite taken by them, I believe coming from such a small family and knowing only one of his grandparents, he is keen to glean the knowledge and worldly wisdom from mine. Looking forward to their hunting trip.

Can hardly type blog - the iPad is lovely but the touch screen is not my friend when I am so tired. I shall bid you rest and fair tidings until tomorrow. Happy April wired world, may it bring peace and happiness.

Blessed be.

Of Spinning Redeption

Song Prompt 2

The sky stretched forever, the way only spring skies can. Moving onward to the mountains across the valley, holding white puffy clouds dotting here and there the intent of a light shower.

Verdant fields rolled with new growth, gaining ground on the patches of winter brown. The air carried the current of atmosphere that caught on the back of the tongue with tangy electricity and he told himself, the top of a mountain probably wasn't where he wanted to be if a storm moved in.

Of Iron

At the end, I gave it less than a twenty percent chance. Less than the chance of rain the following day. Of your phone going to voicemail when I call. The night of wonderful conversation, great food and shared love. A bright percent sign hung around us in the air like snow on Christmas. Facing the future in a moment. Recklessly throwing your life forward. Happy, excited, grateful and laughing. Goodnight, sweet moon, hold us tight.

On Sunday

The sun streams through my kitchen window, hugging my wood floor with warmth. The smell of the carrot cake I am cooking fills the air and my house plants, that prefer my company to the open air outdoors, stretch towards the backdoor.

Banishing sorrow like shadows, the sun of this spring day lifts my sprits with a gentle acceptance. It is not the acceptance of defeat or helplessness. It is the trust that even when bad things happen, horrible things; the sun still comes and winter carries forever the promise of spring.

Glancing to my living room window from my computer desk, I see a rainstorm moving over the roof of the houses across the way. I wonder if I was to walk outside, if I might catch the faint smell of rain.

The scent of cinnamon and carrots and baking, which is a little electric, fills each breath. Soon, my husband will return from his adventures, carrying my daughter and the dog that didn't mind waiting in the car. I can't help but watch the window for their arrival.

Of Thursdays

In which the week nearly ends.

It was a room temperature caramel macchiato that took me an entire day to drink. Followed by the Healthy Choice pasta I nuked for a quick lunch at my computer desk while I managed my department. My eyes were burning, my head tight around the temples and I knew, oh I knew, I need to call it early tonight. I need a recharge before I reuse.

On Disconnect

'Deserve ain't got nothing to do with it."


Oh blog. I wish I could tell you everything. I wish I could lay it all out there. It would be pleasant, I think, for a few. To hand off this weight, shift it to someone else's shoulder. That's one of the hardest parts, I think. I get so angry because I feel so helpless. I'm seven kinds of furious that the world's gone crazy.

Ultimately pointless and helpless. Verging on the point of a pity post again. Wonder how that keeps slipping in here.

Turned on music. Sometimes that helps to write. Other times, a nifty quote at the header can lead the way to deeper places. A picture on occasion will ring a starting bell and off I go. None of that's helping today.

It's a vast rolling sea, turning with a storm. I'm standing on a cliff in a nice, waist length coat watching lightening strike the waves.

I'm grasping straws here. I'm already on the ride.

And there it is. My elusive point.


It'll be ok blog, it honestly will. Some days are harder than others and small things tax you for their time in the lime light. Get it all out of your system now. Cause tomorrow, baby, there's going to be sun.

Of Things Small

Some days have highlights.

I think that most will head to the great unknown with memories of a wedding day, mixed with memories of kids, grandkids, dances, dates, watching the rain storm or roasting marshmallows over a fire.

These aren't the kind of highlights I'm talking about. I'm talking about that flash bulb memory. The one that ignites in you a feeling of awe and comfort. The tiny moment in your day that feels a lot like a visual hug meant only for you.

I'm talking about finding a mushroom in my blackberry plant. The blackberry plant I'm growing in a massive pot inside my kitchen because I was so excited to plant, I did so in my kitchen, weather be damned. I'm not going to lie. I thought it was a piece of trash at first and it wasn't until I went to pluck it off did I, with growing excitement, realize it was indeed the beginnings of what I can only hope is a mushroom forest!

Grow little guy, grow!

In Support

I waited till it was light out to write this. I waited till my mood was magnesium bright. What I'm trying to write is hard and that's an understatement. If I tried to start this when I was upset, I would break down in to tears before ever getting to the second sentence.

I don't know anyone else out there that has a family member with chronic health problems - with debilitating issues that overshadow everything else. I'm sure if I did, they would agree that its stressful and lonely and exhausting. Maybe they look at other families that don't have these problems with the same wistful feeling I do sometimes. Can't be sure.

I feel like I live in two circles. My small family of myself, Andrew and Aida comprise the inner circle and it's glorious. No stress, no worries. We count our blessings until they are too numerous to count further. The inner circle becomes more amazing when you consider it was created despite of the circle that surrounds it. It's like an oasis in a wasteland or more accurately, a miracle in a curse. That second circle, the one that can't touch but surrounds my family is the circle that is my mom's illness.

I remember I was on Facebook one day, looking through my cousins family vacation. The strangest feeling came over me. A similar feeling arrests me every time someone posts about the support they are given by their moms. It is a feeling of nostalgia. Back right when I started college. Back before things began to slip away at a crawling death speed. It started with bad days once in a few months. Bad weeks fell in to bad months. Months in to years that eat away hope and normality. Calls that should have sent my heart stopping throw me instead in to numb expectancy. "Mom's in the hospital...again."

I've given up on hope that some doctor some where will give us that magical answer we had held out for years ago. That there would be some pill or treatment that would stop the destruction of my mom. The therapies hold out the lies that are a few good days. For an hour, I see my mom, smiling and seemingly capable and I hold on to these memories. I try to use them to wash away the building tide. My mom isn't the person that cries all the time and shakes and looks at you without seeing you. My mom isn't the one that gets so upset she can't string two thoughts together because there was a missed call from her office. My mom, my real mom, is the one that reads Aida stories and offers to help me around the house, even though I know that maybe in an hour or a day or a moment, she will be gone again.

I marvel at her strength. Maybe in her position I couldn't fight as long as she has. My siblings comfort her saying over and over, once this new medicine.. once we get this done... we'll email the doctor, ask about this... it's an empty hope that we only believe on our best days anymore.

I'm crying and I told myself I'd stop if I couldn't write this detached because I endanger my writing with self pity and that's not what I want.

Of Doctor Who

In which I discuss my love of things that cause most people to go 'huh?'

I am a big Doctor Who fan. I am, in fact, a HUGE Doctor Who fan - and British TV in general. I find the plots original, refreshing, bold and the wit sharp fast paced and fun. I am not in to TV. We don't have one, truth be told. (Shock and amaze) And so, I order my doses of of Doctor Who on Netflix and on lazy nights, curl up with my husband and indulge.

I love my body. My husband adores me for all my softness and my squishy curves. I'll probably never be rock solid or a professional arm wrestler. There's a good chance you'll never see me jogging down the streets and if you see me at the gym, it's because my sister guilted me in to it. Being totally content with me, in this day and age, makes me an oddity - a fact I have to keep close to the chest because to not complain makes the group uncomfortable. I make up things to be upset about, or I say nothing at all and nod with a lot of fake conviction. Everyone wants to lose weight, everyone wants to wear tight fitting clothing and boots up to here with hair out to there... but not me. When my husband wraps his arms around me, I know I'm perfect. And I like looking like a mommy. I hope my daughter is surrounded by people that save her from the pressures so many girls give in to. I hope she always knows that she's perfect as is. We all are.

I like to read. I love to write. I devour new and interesting. I have a membership to NPR and support monthly the news that informs me and keeps me thinking. I like debate and social issues.

There isn't anything I would change about my life.

My husband and I have never had a fight. Never. Not once. Debate - oh yes, hours of debate and laughter - but not anger, never. I'm told this will change. I'm told all relationships have a expiration date and once reached, the honeymoon ends and the compromising begins. I'm told marriage requires work. I wonder who decided all this. Not me. Not us. We continue on, happy and in love. I told him one morning that my marriage to him 'was the relentless pursuit of something I already had'. Every morning I wake up ready to 'wow' him - willing to spend all my effort hoping to make him feel a fraction of the love I feel for him. Every night I before I go to sleep, I thank him for giving me another day to fall in love with the most perfect man in the world. I think this must be the way of soul mates. Maybe more of us should speak out and maybe fewer people would settle for compromise.

I like sushi and raw things. I'd probably be a tree hugging, mushroom hunting hippie if I didn't love my coffee, computer and all things modern so much. And fatty foods and chocolate. And probably the large amount of work it would take to be a hippie, like living in boulder and mirco diets....

I don't see the point of fast food. I have sworn to bring a large amount of scorn against the first person to dare feed my child fast food. OH THE SCORN.

I haven't drank soda in over a decade.

I haven't drank alcohol in five years - this is a personal thing between God and myself. I like to think of it as an inside joke.

I'm not the scariest person you've ever met and I'm certainly nothing to be wary about under normal circumstances. I can't out run you. In a fight, even a dirty one, I'm not going to win. My physical skills are laughable and my capacity for violence non-existence. I'm not angry enough to hold a grudge and I'm too full of happy-joy-joy to create the kind of bitter, drawn out drama that most people surround themselves in. But I think that's my greatest trump card. I have limitless patience and understanding. I'm probably an extremely boring enemy cause I forget you. Completely. I don't allow things like that to touch my life.

I would like to write more.

But believe about the Doctor Who thing - it's worth watching.

Have a good one Blog.

In which I Don't Sleep

And things happen.

Dear Blog.

Right now in my life, I am a happily married mom-o-one. I am very happy and extremely thankful for every aspect of my life - from that job that I'm lucky enough to work with my sister at, to the hansom husband that adores me, to the my lil world sleeping in the next room.

Life. In short. Is amazing.

But irony of irony.

My life has come together, a circle complete if you will and all around me other lives are stumbling along. It was like my life, cemented in to place, caused the tiles around it to crack and shift. I remember what it was like to be lacking. I wish I could make it easier on others.

Also - note to self. I am a terrible writer when I have nothing to say. No news is good news and life has been so peachy lovely lately, I have nothing to write about. Thankful - very - but I should learn to master the mundane. Make doing laundry and sweeping the house sound action packed. I audit medical records for Bob's sake - it's going to take a lot of effort to sneak action filled sentences in to that work day.

Don't worry Blog. I'll be back. I'll write more. Maybe when the winter bends to the spring, when the moon hammocks across the summer stars and the full promise of life is realized, the life inside me that lends to these words will bloom too. I'm lazy in the winter - snow has never inspired words in me, nor action. I sleep in the soil under frost and boot covered foot. I'm writing is the part of that day that got lost in the short sun light. Snipped away to make room for the happy, plump night. I'll be back with the Sun. Soaking of hours of warmth and activity to sit long silent nights in creative joy.

Count on it.