Change of Address Form

I've tried. Heaven knows I've tried.  Cut and paste this VERY IMPORTANT LIFE EXPERIENCE PIECE into that place.  Lose the pictures.  Not good with the pictures.  And I like pictures because when I feel too damned lazy to really gather my thoughts and write words, well, they do say "a picture's worth a thousand words."

*sigh*

And I like it here.  It's all warm and familiar.  And you know where you can find me, if you want to find me.  That part is totally up to you. 

But I think that for the most part, I'm filling out my change of address form.  Now you can find all those VERY  IMPORTANT LIFE EXPERIENCE PIECES over at Wordpress.

 Step right up, it's always free...

http://havocandshine.wordpress.com/

Blogspot, it's not you, it's me. 

And the pictures.  I like using the pictures.

Oh, and if you don't feel like stopping by, even for the pictures, I should tell you that we are in the midst of excavating and prepping for THE POOL.  This is more terrifying than I can say, and I would really appreciate your support.  Sort of like coming by with a casserole after someone has a  baby.  Our baby is 18 feet in diameter and MUST, MUST be installed on absolutely level ground--within one inch or 25 cms.

Aw, come on, you know that's going to be hiLARious!

I'll give you candy...

Please?                                 Be Careful!  That's the Deep End!

The Parable of the Prodigal Mom

First things first–Let’s keep in mind that while I agree that the biblical prodigal son made some poor life choices and didn’t really think through his long-term financial strategies, he really sort of didn’t do anything horrible to anyone. He asked for his inheritance a tick early, but it would have gone to him at some point anyway,right? It’s not like he stole it. And okay, yeah, he promptly screwed it all up. Screwed it all up big. But how many of us could throw stones at his glass house? My hand is plastered firmly to the keyboard here. I probably would have gone for the wine and woohoo, same as him. Then, of course, when the party ended, he went back to his father and asked for some honest work. Nothing wrong with that–in fact, I’m thinking it was a pretty grown up thing to do, really. But then, maybe my perspective is skewed, I’m never sure. Now, it was then that his father went all Justin Beiber on him and that made the younger brother, who clearly had his five-year plan in place, all kinds of pissy. That’s the story, right? Well, it would piss me off, too. It would piss me off big.

My point (I know…I know…) is that that we make “prodigal” a synonym for “bad” or “mooch,” and eh….I can’t really see it that way. He blew it. Made poor choices. Then, he was forgiven. Not a bad guy, just um…human and simple.
I have a friend coming into town today, and I haven’t seen her for over a year. The kicker is neither have her kids seen her for that long, because in one split second, she just up and left. Everyone and everything. One day she was a Southern Baptist stay-at-home wife and mother of three small-ish kids who lived around the corner and rotated school pick up with me, and the next day, she was…gone.

New Man. New State. New Life.



Wow, right? I know. My husband was terrified that I was next. And yeah, not without reason, but really? I never could. No…I don’t think I could.



Anyway, so yeah, while the entire world knew that her husband was a complete ass, I had no idea how big an ass he was, or how miserable she really was. To her credit, she never said much about it. Me? I would have never shut up about it. She was in a different place. Called her period “ladies’ days,” painfully and reluctantly referred to anything sexual as “being with“ and she never, ever wanted to be anything but a wife and mom. That’s cool. Except that there’s a kind of southern man who (and I hate stereotypes, but ten years is long enough to form a hypothesis) is just hot air and big hair and Promise Keeper-y (no offense, PKs), and this particular kind of man always, always played football in high school. Because sadly, that is sometimes what makes a man down here. And this is the kind of man she married when she was very young. This is the kind of man who came home to her every night.

I cannot fathom.

Fast forward, she starts Face-booking with the only other man she’d ever dated, her high school boyfriend…chats get chattier, memories get fonder, and do I need to hand you a guidebook to showwhere this was going? Exactly. She left. This good ol’ Southern Baptist “ladies’ day” kind of girl now lives (technically in sin, by her own standards) with her high school boyfriend. Works part-time. And I guess she was so desperate that she thought abandoning her kids was all she could do. I didn’t understand it (which is saying a lot *ahem*), and I begged her to get some sort of custody deal–there were places, people who would help her, I said. She should know her rights, I said. She shouldn’t let her ex strong-arm her, I said. (Then he told her I’d threatened his life and that *I* was dangerous–yeah, me and my what?…hand tiller? Oh, all my evil plans and the autistic kid? God, I’m still laughing about that. Sad thing–she had to ask me if it was true. She’s a bit on the simpler side.)

So her ex made it as ugly and as untrue as he possibly could and he wrapped it all up in his ridiculous religious logic. Big pile of crap. Still, it hurt my kids. And he forbade their kids any contact with us. I have six year olds snubbing me at school. Nice example. And Whatever. And since I know he’ll have to explain it to Jesus one day, I can pretty much go with the flow.

And she’s coming back into town today. She’s absolutely welcome to sleep on our sofa because her ex thinks it “unseemly and confusing for the children” if she should stay with them. Yeaaaah.
All that is fine, really. What’s not fine is that I still can’t make sense of a mother leaving her children like that. Going completely AWOL. Becoming a Not-Mom. Moms are lifers, you know that. I don’t know how I feel. I want to be compassionate and unjudgy about it–who am I to say? But she left my kids with a huge, huge pile of hurt and confusion. Why did she go? and would I (my children are not idiots, lol)go? And why were her kids not their friends anymore?

I hate explaining stupid adult stuff to my children. It breaks my heart.

I guess I’m writing this all out because she’ll be here soon–at least I think she will, she’s pretty footloose and fancy free, no kids, you know…but she’ll get here. She and her new Not-Mom Self. (Self? what’s a self?)

And I suspect that she thinks it’s no big deal between us, but really? It is a huge M-freaking deal between us. I love her, she is a good person. Yes. True. She made bad (for her kids, at least) choices. She screwed (her kids) up. I’m trying very hard to not be that younger son, all pissy because I stayed behind and rode out the wave of shit this prodigal mom left behind. I have to tell her that just because she’s here doesn’t mean that her kids will be here. I feel very strongly that small children who are instructed to snub adults should not expect to be welcomed into that adult’s playhouse or into that adult’s childrens’ hearts. Hey, I didn’t set up those rules, her Hot-Air Happy-Jesus Ex Husband did. Mostly, I simply refuse to have my kids hurt again.

Man, I am dreading this…and yes, I did try to talk about it with her before today, but remember, she’s a Not-Mom now. It’s different. Not-Moms lose all their Mom-Logic when they make the switch. She probably doesn’t carry kleenex or wipes in her purse anymore. Or even Hot Wheels. Sheesh, what a life, right?

I don’t know. I just don’t know. And I really wanted to make some cool biblical connection between the prodigal son and the prodigal mom, but I’m more and more anxious as the day goes on, and don’t tend to make cool biblical connections when I’m like this.
Oh well.

Okay. Here’s my plan: I am going to try really, really hard to not be that pissy stayed-behind brother, no matter how much shit went down when she lit out with Facebook Boy. And I’m going to try really, really hard to consider that she truly did what she felt she had to do, even if I don’t understand or condone it. It’s just…in my heart, in my not-good-at-being-a-mommy-heart, I know there were ways around it that she just didn’t take.

Should be an interesting week, don’t you think?

Got Questions?

My son does. Or he did, just now. And this is really particularly spectacular, so please keep reading and share my joy.




A few minutes ago, he asked, “may I have more kisses please?”



Oh yes, LRHF, all the kisses in all the world, you may have them all like you wouldn’t believe.



Then he promptly asked, “May I have Sprout (tv) please? channel 109.”



So guess what he’s doing now…

How Do I Know (if he really loves me)...Oh, Whitney, I feel you!

I never thought I'd make reference to vintage Whitney Houston, I can tell you that for sure.

And that's all I'm sure about, because I just don't know if words can be trusted.  Yes, this is kind of funny, because I do love me some words, wordiness, wordiosity, wordilasticity...I've got like five more of those in my head right this minute, but you get the point.

He says he loves me.  He says he still thinks I'm beautiful.  He says I am still his Beloved.  

But.

Should I take those answers, crumple them tightly to my heart, and hope for the best?  Or should I wonder why, why, why I have to ask, break down and weep, get all forlorn and shit,  before he actually says all that?  Truly, I do not know. 

And he's a lousy liar, but does that work for us, or against us? Does it mean that when he says these things, they are true and he simply doesn't say them often  enough (or um...at all), or does it mean that he cannot say these untrue things until  absolutely cornered by his sanguine and wild-haired wife?   Again, I do not know. 

We have so much that makes so much so much harder.  It's tricky and scary and it's never fair.   More than that,  it's sad, because it hurts us, and it is either our weapon, or our fortress.  Neither is much good if we're on the same side. 

Ohhhh...how I want him to still love me!  How I hope!

How I ponder and doubt!

Seriously, How do I know?

Sometimes...it's about time.

Sometimes done is done, even without discernable change.  We can pull and pull and push and push and talk and talk and still...

Done is done.

God, that's a sucky lesson.  Worse than the cancer thing? Ummm...about even, I think.  Maybe because the losses that drift so slowly away, even in front of me, even while sleeping beside me, those losses are constant and fresh and jagged.  My brother's cancer is...well, sort of a progression, a path, if you will. 

I'm tired of asking, suggesting, telling, showing, screaming the same things over and over. At some point I have to accept that what's not there simply is not there.  And there's no expecting, there's no changing, there's no discussing that which is not there.  I've been foolish in all of this, I realize.  I'm not laying blame, really, I'm not.  How could I?  There is no fault, except maybe letting too much time pass, maybe letting hopes get too high, and those are childish, foolish things, aren't they?

I can't do it. I can't pretend.  What's worse, I can't explain why I can't pretend, or even why I might wish I could pretend.  He's good.  I love him.  All my heart is laid bare for him over and over and yet...I don't know, is it that my heart isn't true enough for him to see clearly?  Could I explain better if I uncovered some subterfuge in myself? I don't think so.  Not good at subterfuge.  Not clever.  Never said I was. 

But's it's not so much about what I've said or not said--not really.  It's, well, it's realizing what I no longer hear, or worse, what I've never heard.  How thick am I? How long should it take a wife to notice such things? Especially a wife who knows her husband essentially cannot lie.  Like I said, he's good. And I love him.

I can't take another kiss on the forehead as my only kiss.  I can't bear begging for kisses--am I so pathetic?  He gets angry. Defensive. There's no good way to beg for kisses, if one has to beg.  Duh.
Jesus. I'm tired of asking, reminding, hoping. Yes Lord, I'm tired of hoping.  I can't stand wondering if I even really need to be there for sex--it isn't like I participate, not really...overall, I think that we're overstaffed in that department, if you know what I mean.

So sometimes, even if everything stays in the same place, even if I'm not leaving, and he's not leaving, and blah blah blah, sometimes all that means is that it's done and  it's time to quit looking for what simply is not there.

God, how I weep at this.  And I weep knowing that it's me.  I am not beautiful to him and there is nothing I can do.  This is not a concept that can be readily discussed on an objective level, so what's the point?

I wrote him a note pretty much paraphrasing that last bit.  This will save him lots of time and he can go to the gym and run marathons and keep on with that separate life he so mightily prefers, and I think that's good for him because he keeps asking me what's wrong--what the fuck should I say, right? I'm tired of saying and saying and failing and failing. . 

So now, my darling, my Very Great Love, you go on and put that note in your wallet  right where you used to keep my lovenotes. Funny thing, it kind of serves a similar purpose for you, doesn't it?

Beloved, my Best Beloved.  Now you know.  How simple. How efficient.

You're welcome.

Hurry up and get to the gym now, okay?

What the Wild Things Did

In case you’re dying to know, I surrendered my girlish dance dreams when I sprained my left ankle at Bible camp. And true to just about every Lifetime Movie sans Valerie Bertinelli or Very Bad Men (and I can think of exactly… um…let me get back to you…), this happened only weeks (*gasp*) before a Very Important Audition for a Very Turning Point-y summer dance program.

Got Drama?
(And also, I have the oddest associations between that hippy ’70s version of the New Testament The Word and intense lower body pain. Hey,do you think that’s what kept me out of seminary? I don’t know.)

Anyhoo, the ol’ ankles have been like unbaked sculpey ever since. In fact, I do believe I’ve crawled across every single backyard we’ve ever had, sometimes with a baby or two in tow, trying to get to the “C” and the “I” in standard post-ankle fuck up care (see below).

Rest Ice Compress and Elevate

Yeah, and our state is not known for flat backyards. And it may be a teensy bit genetic. My mother once declared that the only thing that kept her from nicking a certain lamp in the Wright Brothers’ Exhibit was the sad state of her swollen ankle. Believe it.

Clearly, the toys of small boys have an unfair advantage over this old mommy– they are small, they often have wheels, and they are frequently meant to interlock by means of sharp angles and /or edges. (I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it is unfolding more and more like a Lifetime Movie with every twist and turn–ankle puns aside). Oh, and I just went back to ballet class. So old. Sooooo careful. So tentative. And so damn sexy in my pair of white stretchy ankle supports. But I’m there. Only took two decades and then some.

mugshot of offender

But then…
Minding my business, doing regular old laundry-related duties, it was freaking Bible camp all over again. Only this time the offender was a block. A block. One of LRHF’s Where the Wild Things Are blocks. They are blocks made of freaking cardboard. I know them well, as I have picked surely picked them up as often, if not more often than I have picked up my small sons. Collectively.

Still, left foot caught the edge of one and Down Goes Mommy…

Dammity Damn Damn Damny Damn. And other bad words.

Because I have stuff to do. No, really–not just the painty, dumb arty stuff–I drive a pick up truck with a very, very itchy clutch…left ankle required. I have the whole compost thing I do. Again, left ankle not optional. And I have to remove and re-lay the stones for the patio outside the playhouse (needed more pea gravel–drainage issues–you know how that can be, right?)

More than that, though, there’s that dull understanding that sometimes (read: usually or always) I’m their maid. I mean, I didn’t twist this baby falling out of a pair of 4 inch heels. I’ve been picking up or tripping over the same crap every day, over and over…and I’ve tried to instill work ethic, really, I have. They’re not exactly Puritan stock.

Speaking of Puritans, it’s just R.I.C.E. for me tonight. Well, rice and B.

That would be for Bourbon. Because it ain’t Bible camp no more.

Doubting Mom-Ass

It’s true.


I still have doubts about the whats and whys of this blog thing. I mean, what you do is your business and god knows it’s nifty to pick out templates and stuff, but honestly I wonder what it says about me–yeah, I write, I’ve always written, it’s my thinking and praying and processing, but why on earth would I be emboldened to hit that “publish” button for everyone or anyone to see? Publish what? I’m not important. I don’t have anything brilliant or enlightening to share. I don’t do give-aways (Now, I love me some give-aways, but it seems to me I should know where my stuff is before I start giving away other folks’ stuff, you know?). And aside from any of that, my attitude is a little on the iffy side, if you know what I mean. (I know. It’s hard to believe, but yes, my attitude is pretty damn sucky an awful damn lot of the time. You can stop pretending to be surprised now, okay? it’s out in the open.)

We can flip through mommyblog after mommyblog…whole catalogs, lists, pages, whatever, and I gotta be honest, I wonder first, if we need all these little peeks in each other’s windows and second, how much laundry piles up while we tap our days into domestic details and milestone moments.

I really don’t know. Do we hang our days out there because we no longer meet to hang clothes and chat? Do we ask each other for Twitter follows because we don’t ask each other for anything else? The archetypal borrowed cup of sugar? Ten minutes while I pick up a kid? Motherhood is a lonely business, lonelier now, no matter how you do it. It’s work, it’s dirty, it’s tedious, and women have been producing new humans for a good long time now (quality assurance is another issue, entirely, but I digress). So is it interesting?
Uh…maybe? Sorta? Well, is there anything on tv? That could be the determining factor.


Here’s a little-known big secret of mine: autism is not as glamorous as it looks. Here’s another: multiples are not a ready-made party in the playroom.

Those are the big secrets. Now here are the not-so-big secrets–some of us doubt we’d pass the MAT (Mommy Aptitude Test) on the first try. Some of us wouldn’t even remember our pair of no. 2 pencils. Some of us wonder if we have any business at all being in this field. I guess that’s why I’m perplexed–I’m the *us* in those last two statements. I imagine that surely, surely, there must be others who wonder, but I guess it’s just not popular in mommyblogs. Totally get that. I don’t admit my doubts because I’m brave or any similar shit at all, I admit them as a disclosure, of sorts. A “just to be clear” sort of thing.

See, there’s this thing that happens around Mothers’ Day, especially to mothers of special needs kids. Suddenly, everyone is abso-freaking-lutely sure that we, by virtue of our station in life, are amazing, wonderful, selfless mothers. And they make a point to tell us. Now, everyone should get positive feedback about their momming, as long as it’s not too big a stretch. Yes. Absolutely. And it’s nice, and it’s well-meant, but it kind of amuses me…who can say whether my sons are duct-taped to their chairs even as I’m writing this, hmmmm? Well...can you? 
 They are (currently) not, btw, but the day is young. I’ll post pictures, if the situation changes.



I do okay, I guess…”bedtime w/o bloodshed” and all that is pretty much my gold standard, but really? My gorgeous college G.P.A. ( 2.45 first time through) is still a fair assessment of my effort and ability (which is annoying as hell because I only had that G.P.A because I was being all “We Got the Beat” and ”Girls Just Want to Have Fun” ’80s-neon-tastic. I think that’s why. Okay, I like to think that’s why. *ahem*) I rarely get similar opportunities and distractions these days. Why, I haven’t danced on big danceclub speakers in…oh, lifetimes…*sigh*

You know what? I’ve sort of lost my point. It’s raining, my kids are bored, LRHF needs another size 6 pull-up change, my rainbarrels are leaking, and I opened the gardening season yesterday by slicing both hands up sharpening bypass shears (“safety third” is my other gold standard). So maybe I’m just not in a really good mommy-place. Sunshine and lemonade and picnics and gymboree…nope. Not there. And maybe I feel a bit guilty about it because my sons deserve sunshine and lemonade and picnics and gymboree. They deserve someone with a higher mommy G.P.A. Yeah, they’re a bunch. They’re quirky and different and funny and maddening, but they are so much like me that I cannot but confess it.

Hmmm…there’s an idea:  Maybe it doesn’t matter that I’m not fascinating or wise or even certain that mommying is my thing. Maybe that’s not why I write. Maybe I write because I’d like you to know my sons, and believe me, they are worth knowing, even if only for the comic relief. I started sending bits and pieces of my work to my brother…I desperately want him to know his maddening lunatic nephews. And I guess that goes for you as well.

Told you they're a bunch.

So, these are my sons, ladies and gentlemen:

Here they are...

They are remarkable and they are a good reason to write. Who they are, what they do, and who they will be is immeasurably more important than any dusty old mommy-tip I might drag out and type up as wisdom.

And the best part? They are in spite of me. I do believe they are impervious to my ”nots” and “not sures.” I think we’d know by now, don’t you?

So, um….Tah-Daaaaahhhh!!!!

Let me tell you about my sons, Big Boy, Fuzzy, and Little Red Headed Fellow.

They’re worth it.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

I don’t think I’ll plant seeds this year. For the first year in almost two decades, I don’t have it in me to seek out the magic, the pride, the miracle of putting a dirt-colored dot (or slip, or similar shape) into the earth and wait for it to rise in beauty and color and scent.

No, not this year.

My brother has stage IV pancreatic cancer. He is 47 years old and I adore him more than I can say. His talents and gifts are more prolific than I can list, so I will leave you to imagine, and I would ask that you take your time because the list is long and rich and varied. I can tell you that his children would be at the very top of this list. His wisdom and strength would be absolutely at their heels. My brother has walked through fire, survived burdens beyond my understanding, and he has always, always made it to the other side–bowed, tired, maybe, but even that, only briefly. He emerges upright. Goddamned upright.
But not this year.

This year he will most likely leave us. Over 94% in the first year and that’s on luck's whimsy. I’ve written before that I understand how he would so hate to wither under this cancer, and that I can only ask God give him a gentle road Home. I cannot ask my burly bear of a brother to fall frail and brittle with this treatment or that, just to put off my own feeble grief. God, how I hate this. Truthfully, I am completely, really completely weak and watery and pathetic and scared. There is no noble about it. No Greater Good, no wisdom, no courage anywhere in me. Please absolutely know that. Rather, it’s all I have in the linty corners of my soul, it is all I can ask. It is the scraps and shreds of whatever hope I may have ever had for him on this cancer firewalk.

My prayers are base and dark now. I pray not to be this weak and watery mess when I must be more–for him, for his family, for my sons. I pray not to fuck it up, and I think God knows me well enough to know that the F-word thing is just preciselywhat I might do, so He lets the bad word slide. (Granted, my theology is a bit um…broad, but that’s another day’s prayer.)

How can I let him go? This Most Magic Uncle to my sons…my oasis of sane in a vast lot of crazy-sand. How is it that such a ragged hole should be torn in the very thin (think cheesecloth) fabric of that which gives me hope?

Ahhhh…God never tells me anyway.

So as bound as I am to the seasons, the weather, the earth, I can’t find a reason to do the beginning thing of Spring that tugs at me just as firmly as the pull of my sons’ small hands

No, not this year.

This year, Oh God, this year I will most likely see my brother be given to God’s earth instead. I will write for him, about him, to him. I will try very, very hard to not fuck this up and not fall entirely and irreparably apart. In that order.

So you see, this year is different. I won’t bother scanning rows and rows of seed packs–Zucchini or yellow squash? Cactus or Mop-top Zinnia? Mounding or climbing nasturtium? It’s embarrassing to admit how much free time this omission will leave me, by the way. But then, there’s none to waste. This season is one in which I must consider other things. Flowers, vegetables, herbs take energy and hope, and I just don’t have it to spare.

Not this year.

Hidden Under all that Big Top

He's smart, so smart. He's magic and magnificent and absolutely maddening. Not so much the talker. Strong silent type, my son.
Tonight his therapist asked him a question about the circus, and this is how that sort of conversation usually goes:
Therapist: Did you go to the circus?
LRHF: circus.
Therapist: What did you see at the circus?
LRHF: see at the circus.
Therapist: Did you see elephants at the circus?
LRHF: Elephants at the circus.
And so you get the idea.
(Mind you he is totally phoning it in. He is so messing with us...all his words, packed a little funny, yeah, but all in there, shared rarely and received gratefully--if you can imagine how frustrating and sad it is to know this, and yet how secretly my heart jumps at this very same knowledge--a conundrum, I know, but true just the same)
Anyway, tonight, the therapist asked him a question about the circus and it went a bit differently:
Therapist: Did you go to the circus?
LRHF: Circus.
Therapist: What did you see at the circus?

(Hang on now...)
LRHF: Horses and clowns and zebras and cars and tricks and elephants...
Sweet Jesus, what a list!
So many things, so many words, so much engagement! My beautiful magnificent, if slightly mis-packed son!
He's there! He's there! He's there! Oh, I have always known he is.
And yeah, that's great, but here's the thing: yes, he's there, but he's sort of in the next room, if you will. Sometimes he comes to the doorway and peeks around the corner at me, and sometimes I tiptoe to the doorway and reach out--almost touching him, so close, so absolutely maddening! And then the distance moves between us like a returning tide.

But.
I do believe that there will be a day, any old day, when he peeks and I sneak at just the same time, and we touch with our words and our eyes and all the things we take for granted with our typical children.
He's there.
And another thing: He knows him some circus.

"And Oh, How They Danced...the little people..."

If you recognize the title of this entry, rest assured that I know that you know that I know how old you are and I will not tell. 

Promise.

(If you don't recognize the title, then your sociological and musical canon is tragically lacking .Find a copy of "Spinal Tap."  Still funny after all these years.  (Still not telling how many...)

Good Party today.  Bit of madness, totally forgot the puffy-paint treatsacks, needed help tweaking the stew (curry and raisins did the trick), and (of course) was still in the shower when the first guests arrived.
LRHF opened all the presents as they arrived (and then updated  Thomas the Train a out each one on his pretend phone call.)  In the end, he (LRHF, not Thomas) passed out in the middle of the yard curled up under the rainbow parachute.  What a life, eh?

But how sweet to see people know and love your very different child.  To appreciate what makes him so very different. To take pleasure in his progress.  Maybe you haven't seen this, maybe you don't have an autie, or special needs kid (and that's really okay),  but trust me when I tell you that it is rarer than April snow. 

There is something so joyful in watching children play outside.  Please remind me of this when the next round of birthdays roll around and I'm eyeing up "Pump-it-up" as a venue. This is a party.  Hanging out and watching kids do kid things.  Knowing that if you look away for a minute, your kid will still be okay.  I confess I sat in the playhouse with another mom for over an hour just comparing notes on crazy.  We had beer just in case we felt dehydrated. 

It was good. 

It was the kind of party I imagine we'd have if we had family.  I'm probably wrong--everything imaginary looks good, but it's what I would want for my sons.  And so we make our family for their sake.  Hell, we force a family. We meet our neighbors and learn their names and find out how similar we are, how much we have in common, how varied and rich our talents and dreams are. And it feels like family.  (I think.  I am woefully inexperienced in this area.)

So often, I write of the ghost town my family has become, the distance between old friends.  So much more, with my brother hanging in the balance.  I don't undertand, I won't, and I can't pretend I do.  It hurts and I am scared and saddened, but it is what it is, you know? 

We made new friends today.  My sons made new "best" friends.  They ran and chased and yelled and jumped.  Then they all the obligatory melt-down. But it was good. 

Just for today, I stepped outside my tight little circle of sad, and yeah, I know I can't stay outside of it for too long, but I'm so very, very glad for days like today because even the smallest bit of light eases the dark.

And guess what? Next week we'rehaving a hoot-n-nanny!

 I can't wait.

Party On!

Finally. 
Almost a solid month after the fact, we will actually celebrate the twins' seventh birthday tomorrow.
How pathetic is that?

Well...see, with every passing weekend, the days get longer and there's less of a chill in the air. More chance to play outside. Less chance of too many little kids tearing through the house freaking the cat.  And if LRHF is going to be barefoot, as is his want, we should do what we can to make it seem less absurd.  No small task. 

What did I do today?  More importantly, why do I have so much freaking crap to do tomorrow, and why does so much of it involve puffy paint?

My babies are seven.  SEVEN. That's two syllables, which is twice as many as they had last year when they turned six.  Seven.  Good God. 

So much changes in that double-syllabled time frame.  I've lost all my grandparents, my mother drifts ever farther from, well, everything, then there's autism, autism, autism. Oh, and of course, there's the autism. And,now, my brother begins his journey Home, too soon, too quickly, and completely without my permission. 

And yet. 
We celebrate. We jump on the trampoline, we swing on the swingset, we play in the playhouse.  Good, basic stuff.  I hope they remember these low-rent so-not-at-Pump-It-Up parties as our gifts to them, our our sharing of them with our little low rent world.  We love the lives of our boys, LRHF's coy and stubborn smile, Fuzzy's e.e. cummings observations...they are so very different, so very lovely, and so very mystifying, even after seven years. 
I wish...I wish my family knew them, my sons.  I wish that for them, and it makes me sad. 

For now, tho, I need to find more glitter puffy paint for the treat sacks.  I think about all that other stuff later.

Maybe.

Priorities, you know.

Funny Man

Spoke with my brother yesterday.  He's still in the hospital, and there's still not much to do but pray. 

And cry.  I'm like that with the crying.

His response?

 "You just shouldn't worry so much.  It's not healthy."

*sigh*

Oh.  Okay.

Prayer

His kidneys won't tolerate the chemo.  There is nothing left but prayer.

It's just that way sometimes. And I hate it.  But here we go, all together now:

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

I would ask that I can do what is necessary, and that I can do it without fucking it up too much.  I would ask that I can do these things and not lose sight of my own family, my own small sons, and that I can discern between my cowardice and my stubbornness. This is not my strong point, so it will be um...interesting.

I would ask for Grace, and that my brother be given his best, most gentle road Home.  I would ask that I be propped up (somehow, Dear God, but that will be some kind of propping) enough to offer a hand where I may.

Here's the thing:  In my heart, I suspect that God knows how fiercely my brother would hate to wither under chemo and this med and that med and maybes and try-its.  So while my own heart breaks wide and raw, I guess I can only ask that God, who knows us so wholly,  grant my beautiful brother that which He knows he most needs.  I will strive to be glad for this (which will take a Red Sea-sized miracle), and to know it as kindness and a mercy (walking on water miracle).

I cannot ask my brother to wither.  

(Man, if you could see what a freaking runny pile of water and whining I am, it would totally make that up there seem like bullshit.  We both know no way I can do that stuff.  How pathetic when one must pray for strength to pray.)

And yet.

Lord, if You would...re-read that stuff and consider it.  And if You're taking stupid requests, I would ask that my brother get to see another summer...

Amen.

What's Love Got to do with it?

Tonight we went out to dinner for Valentine's Day, and while I know that you proably did just the same, in some fashion, this was the first for us in a long damned time.  Because seven years ago, just after midnight on Valentines Day, we got a phone call.  The twins had been put in the NICU a few days before, because Fuzzy, who was very much, even then, quite fuzzy, caught something  icky from his petrie dish older brother and cousin., and he was stable...but then we got that phone call.  We should get to the NICU, they said.  Fuzzy had been intubated to help him breathe, and they just... didn't... know...
I asked to speak to the doctor, who wanted to know if we'd previously lost any children or if we were first cousins.  Yes, indeed, it would seem that we did need to get to the NICU.

How harsh, to bring home big strapping twin boys, only to return them days later, with no guarantees. 

And we went, so early on that Valentine's Day, and we sat by Fuzzy's incubator and I held his tiny, so tiny baby-hand and I must have seemed even more clueless than most parents who might find themselves in the NICU in the middle of the night, because the nurses eventually and very gently suggested that it would be good if I sang to my son.  So I did.  I sang hymns and bits and shreds of lullabyes, but my set was mostly Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, with a good bit of John Denver thrown in.  It was all I knew.  All the songs of my childhood, hymns and hard drinking country, I sang them all.  

It was endless and horrid.  We slept in shifts on sofa cushions in the waiting area.  We fielded calls.  We checked on Big Boy.  We prayed.  I cried.  My husband kept hold of me, always, always, he kept hold.

My Fuzzy is seven now.  Brilliant and funny and insightful and, well, fuzzy.  Dodged that bullet, sure, but until tonight, I did not acknowledge this holiday because it was the day I almost lost my son.

Now, this Valentine's Day, it is my brother, who hangs in the balance.    Before he had his first chemo today, he went to all his jobsites and collected  his tools, and that simple, practical gesture, says quite a bit  more than I can without falling apart. 

I sat across from my husband tonight, like a million other wives.  We shared a meal and we shared words of devotion and love.   But I wept--(so not a turn on, by the way).   Seems that this isn't a great holiday for us.  Not so much about love,  but about loving and losing, or almost losing, or eventually and always losing. 

And Fuzzy?  He is named for my brother. Interesting, no?   He carries my brother's name with all his seven year old pride, just as we'd hoped.  I want him to carry it, yes, but God, it seems  that now he'll be carrying it on. And that is so not what we'd hoped.  

Sometimes, more often lately,  I wonder why we even bother with hope.

And I am just as lost and useless tonight as I was seven years ago.  My brother needs so much more than my raggedy  version of "Mama Tried" and "Ring of Fire."  This I know. 

I can't do this.  So many hearts on Valentine's Day.  Everywhere.  Paper, Candy, Crayon.  Red, Pink, Rose, Lavendar.  So many hearts in so many places on this one day, then why is mine twice so broken?

How?

My brother begins chemo tomorrow.  He had a port installed last week and says it hurts like hell.  I can't imagine. 

How?

How is this the way he starts his week now?  How can he be so sick, so quickly?  And how can it be so...unpromising.

Of all that I've known, faced, run from, or dodged, this is the thing that I cannot do.  And I'm just in the bleachers.  How silly, right?

But still. 

I don't know how.

I Hate School

How many lessons, Lord? This subtraction is breaking me.

No, I get that the answers will not show themselves, nice and tidy, in my Saturday inbox.
I know that. God is God and He's got plans and I don't get called into the meetings.
I know all this.

And yet.

What am I to ask, given the circumstances?
("the only stupid question is the one we don't ask"--don't you think God is a bit pissed with whoever came up with that? Seems like it would take up a whole lot of His time, don't you think?)

I'm tired of learning through loss. Am I so thick that this is what it takes to get through? Is this jagged loss my only path to understanding?

That just so sucks.

And I'm just not sure I'm learning anything, to be honest. I am numb, empty and exploding at the same time, reaching dumbly into the dark to find a reason. So far, I've got nothing, btw.

My heart is breaking for my beautiful brother. He is too much to be lost so easily, so painfully. I don't understand.

I wonder if there is a remedial class to help me make sense of this constant thrum of grief that runs through my thick head. And where would one find such a thing? What bulletin board?

Jesus.

Then again, maybe some lessons are just shit. Necessary, yes, but shit just the same. Maybe that's the best I can hope for.

How sad is that?

So here's what I learned in school this week:

I learned Hurt.

Crying Uncle

My brother has cancer.
Pancreatic cancer, to be exact, and this is pretty much all I know of the medical side. I suppose I will know more in the upcoming days, and I suppose that I'll wish I didn't know so much by then.

He is quite simply the best of us. He is brilliant and talented and grounded and sane (no small feat in our end of the gene pool). He has raised beautiful, brilliant, talented and grounded children to the cusp of adulthood. He has walked through more fire than I could begin to explain.

He is 48 years old.

My sons adore him from afar. He sends perfect gifts--he sends vast numbers of flashlights and geodes and hammers and goggles (very glad for that last part, I would forget to do that). My children think him exotic and multi-talented and magical. And he is. These boys will need him, want him in their lives, and he will spark interests and talents in them, simply by his example. I need him, if just to look at our family portrait and point and say, "he's not crazy. He's really amazing."

I have too many words in my head right now to make much sense. Words about unfairness and loneliness and fear and grief. Words about my ache for him, for his family, for everything he's made, built, touched. Words about losing too much, too goddamn much, and for why?

My sons' most beloved uncle. My brother.

I should stop now.

Pavlova Weeping

Tomorrow, I'll take my first ballet class since...oh, since way before Baryshnikov retired. Balanchine was still kicking the last time I did.

It's been a lot of years and babies and general decline since I last ronde de jambed. Tomorrow,though, I will look myself in the (oh shit) wall of full length mirrors and hope for the best. I figure if I look myself in the eye, then I won't look down at my 44 year old un-dancer-esque body. Maybe I could keep my eyes shut. That will render me invisible, right?

Man, this is scary.

My body remembers ballet, I know it. Port de bras...arabesque (ow just thinking about it)...barre work...floor work...the curves, the angles are all still here somewhere in this old body, but *my* curves and angles are not where they used to be, to put it nicely. Nor shall they go where they should anytime soon, I would think.

But yeah, it used to be my thing. Five times a week, burning through pointe shoes, or rather, bleeding through pointe shoes, sewing ribbons, rubber sweatpants (god, we were so silly), it was what I did, and what I wanted to do forever. My parents were patently horrified because back then, it meant cutting off education to get a career over and done with by hmmm...maybe 34? I think there was an NYCB dancer who was 34, and that was completely calcified in ballet years. It meant killing yourself to fit the mold. Let's see--I'm 5'5 3/4 inches tall. When I was thirteen, I was also 5'5 3'4 inches tall. You know why? Because dancers couldn't be taller than 5'6. My mother swore that I willed myself to stop growing. Yeah, probably. Along with the diuretics, and the acquired eating disorder, it was all part of ballet's powerful hold on me.

What happened? Why did I stop? Oh God, puberty struck with an absurdly early vengeance, and it left me surrounded by my breastless, hipless classmates. How come they got the good bodies? They didn't know the difference between a glissade and a pique turn! They didn't drool over Peter Martins, or study Gelsey Kirland's technique for breaking in her toe shoes (it involved a hammer. I still like hammers). Not fair not fair not fair.

So yeah, The "Good Bodies." Not like mine, replete with heavy, unwelcome femaleness. Lithe? not exactly. And no matter how well that sturdy body knew the joy of ballet and the subtle nuances of the art, that body had most likely already failed me. At 14.

And at 14, I had what was probably my first episode of depression, which sort of makes sense, and sort of explains how I spent the next decade self-medicating, no? Then, in my late twenties, come to find out, I did get a "good body," but I wasn't dancing anymore, and it was more like a rental because that good body was gone, baby, gone, with that first baby.

Maybe I'll have some sort of psychological implosion concurrent with that first plie. Wouldn't that be um...interesting? I can't imagine. Even facing this chunky, creaky old demon in the wall of mirrors (more like funhouse mirrors) I don't think big body-length capes are de rigeur for floorwork, do you?

Probably not. Oh God.

Well, putting aside tomorrow's pending and very public psychological trauma, I should go.

I need to find my solar plexis.

Mean Girls

As greatly as we may miss Lindsay Lohan's screen presence (go ahead and have a moment of silence here, if you are so inclined) this one isn't about the movie, but rather the archetype. Well, okay, and specifically (mumbling) I was recently, um...well, I think I was a...okay I acted like a Mean Girl.

Who am I kidding?

I was mean. I felt mean and I went with the feeling.

Sort of.

See, it didn't start out like that. It started out with desperation and brokenness and dependency and need and um...silence. And since I was swirling and dizzy in the desperation and the brokenness and the dependency, the silence was um...pretty goddamned silent. I didn't know--had no way of knowing, because I was consumed by the words I actually did have to hear. Not good words, lots and lots of not good words.

Consumed. Ever been consumed? It's pretty self-explanatory. Completely devoured, chewed up and gone. That was me. (Sit down if you must, but seriously, try to follow along a little better from now on because me being all that stuff should not surprise you one bit at this point.)

Anyway, that was me. And I leaned where I could, against whatever was there, because if I fell, it would be one big goddamned fall. So I um, I had a friend and I leaned on her and she let me and said nothing. I knew nothing, except, you know, Thank God For Her. Unfortunately, I should have known better. Should have considered that she could not, and in fact, should not yet have understood my pain. She was appropriately ill-prepared. Still, I didn't see. And this became an imbalance, an irritation, a resentment for her. But she was silent. And I couldn't figure how to get to bedtime without losing my mind, much less read her mind. See, communication (you know how I am about that) was synonymous with confrontation for her, and you know I don't get that shit (Talking. It's called talking--that really would be a lousy bumpersticker, wouldn't it?), so it was a bad mix. I never had a chance, a trial. We should have talked.

But we didn't. Until the day we stopped completely. I didn't know. She'd never mentioned the resentment, the anger, the stress. Call me out, call me names, but for God's sake, call me on it. Give me a chance. But nothing. So the break was nasty and sudden and sharp and shocking. One more shitty loss. To me. How could I mend something so hidden? And perhaps I couldn't have, but I should have had the fair opportunity. On that, I will not budge.

But I digress.

So this all happened a lifetime ago, and while I now understand that I put her in a place in which she had no business or capacity to understand, and hopefully, she never will, I think somehow, that I was recently mean to her. There's no way, no reason she'd "understand" and that made me mad, and it made me mean. Why my mother? my son? my family? No one could tell me, and it turned my grief hard and mean. Indirectly, sort of. Whispery and behind my hand. The worst kind. No better than her silent condemnation, at the very least. And when I was in that broken and dark place, I should have picked on someone my own age to hold my hand--yeah, I was reaching into oblivion because I had to, but couldn't I have known she wasn't able to hold on? Couldn't she have said?

Regardless, if I'm going to talk all about forgiveness like I know it up and down, all climbing mountians and similar crap, then I should probably confess myself and begin to forgive myself as well.

So yes. I think I was a Mean Girl. And I am sorry.

Moving on.

All Done: Part Deux

Nah, nothing to do w/marriage.

Amazing how a few stolen hours can remind even us who we were, and are, and what we do and why we do it. That our children are, absurdly funny and unquestionably ours, regardless of the mix. And That Smile, a little more tired maybe, but still that same smile--it is good and it is enough. Talking, even when it's hard stuff, even when it's Misguided chatting with Misunderstood, comes slowly, awkwardly, and sometimes still a bit on the late side, but we do it. Hurts, feels silly, seems like something we should have mastered by now, but, well, we loved so fast, so hard, that I think maybe we missed some steps.

No shame in retracing, right? It works for car keys, so why not give it a whirl? It works for talking, too.

And this "all done" isn't about LRHF. No, he had a great observation. He did back flips. Literally did back flips. Now, this is not an independant goal, you understand, but the laughter, the pride, the "hey did you guys see how amazing and cool I am?" engagement was positively prism-esque. That's my boy.
My Happy Boy

Nah, this "all done" is about forgiveness. Finally knowing that forgiveness is really kind of a puzzle that God leaves around for us figure out so He can get the Really Important Stuff done. It sounds massive and magnanimous. It sounds implausable and holy. It sounds like the the top of the mountain, and, oh, it feels like the top of the mountain when all you can do is consider that it is One More Goddamn Thing You Have To Get Done.

I don't think it's the top of the mountain. Not anymore. I think that it's more like finding that little bit of brave that will let you get closer to the mountain. And it's looking at what you have with you, and discerning how to leave the old stuff, the stupid stuff, the indignant and hurt stuff at the bottom of the mountain to consider the climb. Put all that crap down and then it's easier to stand up and breathe.

Breathing is good.

And man, I am so often (read: regularly) at the bottom of that mountain, all pissy, kicking the shit out of those first few rocks (which is a really good way to break a toe, btw) I absolutely spend way too much time worrying about whether to take this or that, or if I'll need this or that, or do I have enough of this or that...seriously, I can't pack a lunch without all that drama. But when the drama is done, when it's just plain old time to get going, then I think I'm learning a little. Not quickly or easily, or even willingly, but I'm learning that forgiveness is an exquisite and necessary Grace, a get-out-of-hurt-free-card, if you will, in that it is the difference between insisting on carrying all that crazy-weighing-down-stuff and discerning the Grace of simply lifting our eyes and moving forward.

Today I got all done with some crazy-weighing-down-stuff, I think. Yeah, it wasn't on the books for today, but I think it happened just the same.

All done. Lifting my eyes. Moving forward. Upward.

Now that's a gift. Thank you.

Dear Waiter at Red Robin:

I realize that it was a Monday evening and we needed lots of kids' menus...and really, really, I'm not one bit mad or annoyed, it's just that I think you should probably know this one teensy thing for future customer service-type reference:

When Mama orders a bourbon up with twist of lemon, she is most definitely not kidding. Mama doesn't kid about bourbon. She fully means she wants a bourbon up with twist of lemon. Please do not ask her "what she really wants to drink." Write it down that first time and everyone lives another day.

Bless your heart.

It's just fine to bitch to to the bartender about the shoddy mothering going on at table eleven when you're at the bar getting the bourbon, but just get the bourbon.

Are we clear?

Great.

Check, Please.

Recovered Memories

We ran away together.

We had to. You understand, right? I mean, we didn't abandon anybody, or anything, we finally, FINALLY freaking found someone who could/would spend 24 hours with our precious baby angels. She left intact, for all intents and purposes. We left her with lots of beer, so here's hoping it was all mostly good. Just a little bloodshed (LRHF--big toe--apparent toybox attack.), and nobody seemed to miss us as much as we had missed each other.

It's been a long damned time since we spent 24 hours like that. Ten years? At least. That's as long as we've had kids, so yeah, that seems right.

So sweet. So sweet that I wept (not as arousing as one might think, btw). I saw that smile--you remember me talking about that smile? I saw it! Like the Northern Lights, hell, like the freaking Loch Goddamned Ness Monster, but I saw it, I did, I did, I did! I will try very, very hard not to forget it because it is enough make me hopeful.

It's goddamned hard, what we have, what we do, how we do it. And nobody gets points for that stuff, no matter how often I hear that "special kids find special parents." Frankly, that just makes me picture a heaven full of beautiful, albeit high maintenance baby-angels hanging out looking for trouble... (For the record: If you get to the "if" part of that phrase before I start slapping, it's only because I've pulled a muscle. Really. Don't try me.)

So, yesterday we ran away. We looked into each others' eyes again. We reached for each other again. We saw each other again.

And today we came home.

*sigh*

There's Got to be a Morning After...

My heavens, but yesterday morning sucked! It sucked for all the usual recent reasons, along with LRHF's inexplicable intestinal ick, which kept him home from school after three of Alabama "What's that white stuff?' days off from school.

And we fought. And I cried. And we changed pull ups. And I did laundry. Followed those same four steps for at least six, maybe seven hours. At least. Altho, at some point, I did have to scrub a feculent mattress, so don't nobody tell me I don't know variety in my day.

These things come on us like or own virulent ick. We know. We know, and yet...

Ugh. At one point I realized that his problems with me--or rather, as he says, "the things he would like to see because he thinks I'd be happier," are eerily similar to that list I'm sure his mother has tucked away somewhere in her very controlled, germaphobic, autismaphobic, PETA-loving mind. Oh you Mommy's Boy!

So, well, I need coffee desperately right this minute...but when I get back, I will tell tales of drama and weeping and locked doors and, well, pull ups, but more to the point, of him closing his eyes and nodding his head at one point. This is his tell. His Maybe Mea Culpa tell.

And I'm wondering if two people can just forget that they love each other. And then, they remember.

What do you think?

Mercurial Much?

Damn, I miss the guy I married. He was...so funny, so beautiful, so gentle...so much an unexpected gift...I miss him so...freaking...much...

See, he came to me long after I'd given up on finding someone, anyone to love me in good true faith. I was after-30 lonely, and it was a different kind of lonely, not like this one, and the chances of two people finding, loving, keeping each other seemed obscenely low. I'm sure it was.

But him. When I met him, when he turned around and smiled at me in that little Church in Eldersburg, I knew. It wasn't love at first sight, I'm (as I so adamantly pointed out in the last post or two) not stupid. It was...well, it was unexpected and even a bit unpleasant, it was a realization without preparation. Knocked me down. Kept me very quiet and sort of pale (or so I hear) on the long ride home after the wedding rehearsal. Kept me up that night.

Hmmm....

We never looked back. God, how I adored him! And I'm sadder now for how he then adored me just as well. I got a dozen roses every day for a flat-out solid week after our first date. Can you imagine? I teased him that our children would be limited to community college if he kept it up. I would have been less fascinated and more appreciative of the roses if I'd known that they apparently meant something that was only true before we married. I haven't seen roses since my wedding bouquet. Foreshadow much?

Oh, I could go on...I was treasured...my beautiful husband had a smile, such a magical smile, and I mostly saw it if my late-night kiss broke his sleep just a for the briefest moment. He would lift his head and open his eyes and he would smile a smile that was so true, so loving, so pure, it made me, this tattered tired thing, it made me shine like a queen. It gave me peace. It's gone now, of course, that smile. He sleeps with a hood pulled over his head, with earplugs, and hell, half the time, I'm not sure if he's there or not--just a clutter of pillows and quilts beside me in the dark. But oh, how lost I am without that smile!

And I used to be beautiful. "Beautiful," he would say. Then, I was pretty. He would say that. Now he doesn't say. Really. If pressed, he will admit to "finding me attractive." When the fuck did I become Florence Henderson? I don't know how that happened.

How can twelve years be a regret? How can *I* regret wasting his time for the last twelve years? But I do. Oh, how I do. How can I wish that he had married better, or more appropriately, when all we ever wanted was to be married? Yes. Yes, I am sorry. Sorry I didn't quite meet minimum standards. Sorry I didn't quite get the hang of whatever I was supposed to get the hang of. I am sorry. I didn't mean to fall short for him. I know I did, I do. But I always thought he'd love me. And yet, here we are, falling away, losing our grip, fading on the horizon. God, I never had second thoughts, never reconsidered, never saw anything but our love.

Our Great Love. God, how I loved him. Him. All of him. That guy. I miss him more than I can bear. More than I can put into words. And I'm not supposed to notice the difference, sort of like when they replaced the Becky character on "Roseanne." But, as I said before, I'm not stupid. He's gone, that guy I loved. That guy who loved me. Same parking space, different car. And the indifferent stranger who swears nothing his fault and I am really losing my mind is only pulling down heart so much farther so much faster. And without so much as a thought.

I mean, seriously, I don't know him. And what's worse, I do know what he thinks of me.

Maybe I'm Going, But I'm *Not* Forgetting

There's this one thing I realized today. Well, two things, actually, but who knows how long before I'm just a metaphorical footprint in the sand of this marriage, right?

Today I realized that I don't think I like him anymore. He's so different from that man who could bring warmth and light to the darkest parts of my soul. I don't know this man. I know that I dim in his presence and I become cold in his bed. He's lessened me, wounded me, and I do believe now that he's lost me. He's set up a whole nifty life where he doesn't have to admit I exist, and he doesn't have to admit that's part of the fun.

There's nothing I can do. He tells me it 's all about me, and then he tells me how I will surely kill him. That's a little bit about him, isn't it? He tells me how I don't take care of myself (huh?) while his barely shaded vanity, his self-obsession bleeds through in every part of his life where I am not. And that's a lot of life. It makes sense that there would be no room for me.

There's a bunch of stuff tied up in not liking this man to whom I'm bound. Yes. Yes, I'm sorry I married him. Not because I didn't love the man I married and not because I didn't want so very, very badly to be his Great Love that I gave up my family, my friends, my career, and my future. I don't like being married to this man, this stranger, full of blame, and superiority and issues. I don't like that if he doesn't admit to such things, they do not exist. I don't like that it is so easily my fault, my crazy, my stupid. I never saw him coming, not really. And if I have to stay, an you know I have to stay, I just wanted you to know that I *do* know how it is. It's my choice because it's my children.

After all, I'm not stupid. No matter what he thinks.

Sort of a Good News/Bad News Thing

What do you want to know first?

Me, I like the bad news first because it always makes the good news, well, gooder. Some folks are the other way around and they all have perfectly good reasons, I'm sure, but I'm never quite sure how to handle a good news/bad news thing unless I take a poll.

That seems impractical in this particular situation, don't you think?

Well, I guess I'll go with the good news first: Okay, I am absolutely sure that our marriage will be just a-0kay fine. Yup. Betcher bottom dollar on it. Always and Forever

Here's the bad news part: this will only work if I am not actually part of it.

Tricky, no?

Nonetheless, that would seem to be the trick. And it will certainly be a trick for me, because I have no idea how to begin, did not see this coming, and would not have entered into such a situation because I'm not good at invisible. Worse yet, I'm not cool with being invisible.

(Boo! here I am! Ha! See what I mean?)

I don't remember anyone mentioning this part of marriage, I really don't. I know I wouldn't have agreed to it because I'd feel really bad about the whole bait-and-switch thing. I'm not a master of disguise, no lie. I don't even like dying my hair. (Now, if the gray would just all come in and be what it is, then that'd be completely okay w/me. Instead, it creeps up my part and my temples and brings all sorts of weird faded dark colors along. But you get my point, right?)

Anyway, as long as I don't inconveniently and inappropriately (and it is always, apparently both) insert myself into my husband's life, we'll be just fine. So....there you go. How can someone become completely unimportant and not know it? How could I miss myself fading away, losing my place, moving from invaluable to value-less? It's like getting fired and then showing up the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and so forth and so on.

God, I'm thick.

Sad. Really just so very sad right now. What am I to my Most Important Person?

I..I am not.

In these last few months, I've become more and more not. And definitely not worth talking about. And increasingly not worth talking to. My not-ness has really become all I am.

And it's not important. Not something to worry about. Not something he wants to hear about. Not something he even considers.

That's me. Not. Not. Not.

What the hell? This is not a problem for him. I just need to be very, very still and very very quiet and very very agreeable. (Shhh...I'm whispering now)

Oh God. Just ask me to do brain surgery,why don't you? Same fucking success rate.

And here's the kicker: Not one damned thing I can do. I can not. Kept hoping, you know, thinking we needed to nurture each other better, more often and more openly. Show our affection. Knew we had work to do, changes to make, things to think about. I was, it appears, not on the right track with that. See how it works?

I just don't show up in his world anymore, unless it's because I'm making a spectacle of myself by, you know, speaking or something.

Honestly? He always could make me feel stupid. It was an ever-present teensy snag in our Great Love that was kind of weird, because I generally don't ever feel that stupid, and I am not in the habit of letting others treat me like I'm stupid. Because, you see, I'm not stupid. But for whatever reason, I ignored it, this singular feeling of stupid that was limited to how I felt around my beautiful husband. Damn. Now that was stupid. I figured he didn't mean it, wasn't aware of it. I mean, I'm not stupid, and he's really sure he's not stupid, so surely, surely he must know I'm not stupid, right?

I was an idiot.

Because now, it isn't even about whether I'm stupid or not. That is at least something to be, a place to hold, albeit not a good one.

Now, I'm just not.

ME ME ME ME ME (self-indulgence check in progress. Please do not adjust your screens)

Should I apologize? Is blogging, by it's very nature, exclusively self-indulgent?

I'm not sure anymore. It sure didn't start out that way--I always wrote, journaled, whatever, and am a much better typist than handwriter, so it made sense. Then, when I got to pick templates, well, maybe then I got a bit giddy. Then, when the whole FB thing started, it was seemed kinder to let old friends catch up on Alabama, autism, dementia, and drama at their own pace instead of heaving it out all at once in the "How have you been?" part of the friending process. You know, sort of a "read what you want...this is how it is, and it is what it is...talk about it or don't...it's okay" sort of thing.

Really. That's how it started. It continued because I needed to write to think and I needed to think to accept and I needed to accept to grow. (granted, that's a lot of "I", but really, what kind of mother would I be if I didn't continue to grow? Yes. Utter Bullshit.)

This week I came across a blog written by someone so absolutely wise, so self-assured, so completely confident regarding so very many life issues that still terrify me, inspite of whatever I've managed to glean from my many extra years of unplanned situations and plain old weird outcomes...well, it stopped me cold. Made me cold.

Am I the same? I don't want to be the same. I know how unwise, how scaredy-cat I am. I know I have no idea what I'm doing (um...just today our water got shut off. Seems the bill was misplaced. Alot. Clever, no? No. Not clever).

So then, what's the point? Oh...the point is so much about hidden magic, unexpected beauty, tiny miracles strung together like pearls...all stuff I would miss if not for LRHF and his base magnificence. And the point is that I did not find all this magical beautiful miracle stuff because I'm so freaking bright myself, but rather, that God had to slap me silly a whole damned bunch of times (metaphorically, of course), and the point is that if such gifts exist, even for me, even for my broken old self and my bitten-up soul, then surely, such things are within your reach as well. See, I thought surely I would break and die--I did. Knowing me, I should have. I waited to break and die. But I did not.

Not yet, anyway.

So I'm thinking that this is what I want you to know: You really don't have to break and die either. And you deserve to hear that--no matter what. Just take it, fold it up and stuff it somewhere in the backpocket of your head, will you please? Just in case it gets too dark.

Look, I'm sure of precious damn little, we both know that. But through Grace, through Hope, I am absolutely sure that you can do whatever you need to do.

That's all I've got. Hope it helps.

Oh Christmas Tree

When I was a senior in high school, I received a pretty decent state award for some writing I'd done. I sat in the assembly beside the head of the English department wearing a ripped sweatshirt (it was 1984) and a vintage old man coat b/c I'd totally forgotten to dress for the event. My teacher was understandably horrified, as she had remembered to dress appropriately, but the kicker was when, during our state song ("Maryland, My Maryland"), I felt the need to turned to her and whisper that I did not know "Oh Christmas Tree" (same melody) was our state song.

She was not amused.

But I digress.

Another Christmas fading away...lights and glitter and sparklies all packed up as time and energy and small boys allow. And I am glad that the madness is done and that we're halfway through the dark of winter, but still, I'm sad. I have boys who believe. I have a Big Boy who says, "Well, why wouldn't you believe?" and I am proud that he owns that tiny bit of magic, even has he gets all gangly and mouthy and cologne-y in his early adolescence.

So I'm sad taking down the tree because next year...next year might be the one. That first unmagical one. Perhaps, tho, maybe my boys understood the real magic, even with my incessant maternal bungling. No promises and no money back guarantees, but maybe...

Because--

Yes, indeed, Big Boy--why wouldn't you believe? And also...When you find even a tiny bit of magic, a small patch of possible, please promise Mama that you will always, always take it, you will nurture it, and you will keep it safe.

It matters.