How many of these am I gonna do?

Okay, cyber world, and all you out there viewing this (by the way, feel free to say hello! I usually don't bite til well after my first cup of coffee, and even then, tis just a flesh wound love!), I have a bit of updates to throw out. Now that the next of kin has been notified. Now that my closest of friends are in the circle of trust. Now, now, now.....


I'm gay. As in, a lesbian. Mike and I are separating. Because I'm gay. Phew. Okay, they say admitting it is the first step.  Of course, this has been a long time in coming. Eleven years of marriage has taught us a lot, has taught me a lot, and in a lot of ways, has made it possible for me to be honest with myself and the people I hold dearest. So, we are making an amiable split. I'll continue living in Yakima, near my boys, but we're giving each other permission to move on. It's a lot harder doing than saying, but this is what is happening next. I understand you're all gonna have your different reactions to this, but I'd hope that most of you know I'm not the sort of person to make decisions lightly. A least, not these kind of decisions that affect my family the way this decision will. Of course, I have no say over anyone's response to this, your opinions or beliefs regarding what's happening. I guess I only post this because I can no longer justify hiding  or pretending. This is my life, and for whatever reason, you are reading about it. Yeah!



To segue way, has anyone met anyone who felt the need to tell you they were straight? Just wondering.

Place

I was realizing today that we have been living in Yakima for close to five years. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it is the longest I have lived anywhere for the entirety of my adult life (which I count from 19 on, since that was the year I started paying my own bills).

After a two year stint in Cheney, which is basically Spokane valley with slightly less, younger people, it was off to Davis, California, which I hated with the heat of a million suns for almost the entire three years we lived there. Then we moved back to Mike's parents' basement for 9 months, followed by another 9 months in income based housing in (yet again) Cheney, then off to Yakima. That's five addresses in the first five years of marriage. I really don't want to ever do that again. But, here we are, into our next 'planning' phase (I bunny eared that to signify planning to mean either starry eyed BS or serious mature goal setting, however you wanna look at it--- I myself vacillate), which means another bout of moving is upon us. Only this time we don't have the excuse of school or a job transfer. I just don't want to spend another five years here if I have a choice. Which is a funny concept. Remember when as a kid, the retort whenever someone told you to knock something off was the ever witty: "it's a free country dude! Lay off!" Yeah. Well, kids, when you actually grow up and start tying yourself down by Owning Things, that concept of freedom gets a bit iffy.

Anyway, this is all a long way of saying that I'm homesick for my next Real home, while suffering through real bouts of attachment for both past and present versions of that home. Today, as I was taking my run through the neighborhood of good old Franklin park, I realized that I really do consider this my home, which immediately sent my mind to images of downtown Vegas (not really sure, except that the sun was shining straight in my eyes just the way it would on my summertime trips down to see grandma, and also maybe because Yakima is basically a northern version of a Vegas dessert ghetto, except with seasonal snow and a surprising lack of squirrels), which, also, in a way I consider a sister home, as it was my mom's home.

This might also be a result of (once again) believing everything I read the first time I read it. This time? Gary Snyder got me. Shoot me, but people who can convey their thoughts through writing? I'm a sucker for that kind of special skill. I think mostly cause I'm jealous. Anyway, this Snyder guy makes a big deal about our sense of place and responsibility towards our communities, which made me think (dammit), but I think I've come to a relative agreement between my wanderlust and my craving for Place and that is that I really do consider the northwest my home Place. Right now, I'm very much attached to the desert portion of that particular locale (for those of you ignorant of the northwest geography, that of Washington state in particular, we go from coastline, rain forest, mountains, and back down to arid desert-- all in one day's car trip without breaking a sweat), but I'm feeling the pull of the south deep right now. Which is to say, Oregon. Yes, oregon is South.

In other news, did anyone else know that pussy willows are a native species of the shrub steppe region? That's me baby! Pussy willows for everybody!

What goes around comes around

I told a sixty plus year old man yesterday to grow up and swallow his disgusting liquid stool softeners.
To be clear, he started it.
Also, he's a strong older gentleman, who, I am certain, has done Lots of hard things in his life. Like face down prostate cancer. Like live through world war. Like raising kids. And now he can't build up the gumption to swallow 10 millimeters of crappy medicine? Medicine that will bring life to his beat up colon and restore function to his latent flatus? Come on man! Grow a pair!
Oh. Right. You lost them two surgeries back.
I really should learn to be a little more sensitive. But, really.....you can't handle THIS? If that's true my friend, you have much bigger problems than a cranky obsessive nurse.
This is where my mother should chime in and recall what a good pill taker I was in my younger days. Yes, I was that bad. I used to spew Tylenol across the kitchen. Til I was ten. Okay, twelve at least.
Still...at least I always had the decency to point my spew AWAY from anyone else.
Geez.

You know I'm right.

I think we should go back to forcing left handed individuals to become right handed members of society. Not only would it save millions in streamlining supplies, it's also highly symbolic. I mean,how many times does the bible reference 'at the Right hand of God', 'choose the Right', and etc, etc? It really only makes sense.

And I really believe that being left handed is a choice. If you really wanted to, you could learn to use your other hand. What do you think all the amputees do? Go through the rest of their lives not writing, throwing baseballs or giving handshakes? Sitting around Not Contributing? I don't think so. And when you think about it, hand dominance is such a minuscule part of someone's identity. I mean, really, you think God made you that way? Please. So, learn to do it naturally, get a job and stop shoving your left handed sacrilege in our faces.

I just can't even think about this anymore, it's so upsetting. Thank God all my kids are right hand dominant (no worries, Cole will grow out of it. We're pretty sure he's ambidextrous anyway.)

Where never is heard a discouraging word

I am off of nights! My strawberries are doing great, and my boys are almost off for the summer. I think life is good. Tomorrow, I get to have a kindergarten picnic with Andrew and then, I get to accompany Cole on his class field trip. I haven't been able to do that for a little while. So... Outside of nearly slicing the tip of my middle finger off while slicing apples the other day (seriously probably should have got stitches), not much going on here. A lot of me trying to get someone (anyone) to get my stuff in print, very carefully *not* killing my garden, and generally trying to find balance in the universe--- although not exactly in that order. :)

Mike asked me what I wanted for mother's day, or if I had any plans for "my" day. I don't know about you, but the question itself was a gift. Of course, I answered that we'll be going to the farmer's market, where he will buy me a fresh baked good of some kind (preferably with chocolate), after which, we will be heading into the hills for a good old fashioned mushrooming trip. Ah, no. Sadly, no euphemism. I really do just want to go looking for some edibles in my friendly neighborhood forest. The weather is trying so hard to be agreeable. I just can't ignore that kind of effort. The lilacs are in full bloom, which always gives me all sorts of goosebumps to see. For dinner tonight, I actually used our thyme, sage, cilantro, rosemary and chives out of MY garden to go in our spaghetti sauce. Didn't turn out half bad, if I do say so myself. And..... I think that's all I have for tonight. Between the last four days or so, I have accumulated a good 8 hours of sleep, between my five year old turning six, a mother's day lunch-classroom-program, and two convienently scheduled night shifts. I don't care who you are--- tired can make anyone stupid in the head. Which, of course, is why one of ,y patients decides to throw off some nice old cardiac-related chest pain in the last thirty minutes of my shift the other night. What? Do they think I'm supposed to know what to do about it? What? They think I'm trained for this sort of thing? Just.... Come on! You couldn't wait a lousy twenty minutes? My other guy, my paraplegic trach guy, at least had the decency to wait til 8 to code. Geez. Some people, I tell you.

lift off!

Ladies and gentlemen! For the first time ever, I have created.... plant life!

That's right! My starts have started! Not only did my lettuce come up, but I have a tray of artichoke starts, and some valiant scraggly spinach that is really trying hard.

Totally not their fault to be lagging behind though. I did just about kill them by forgetting to water them for a week or so.

Okay, maybe it was a little longer than a week.

Mike showed me a neat trick though. This after he stole my seedling soil mixture for his own basil starts under his fancy-smansy plant lights.

Considering I only had egg cartons and our open window area in the back (plus batting away 4 curious kiddos, who, for whatever reason, seem to believe that anything not physically in the garbage can is theirs to mess with), I was not doing that bad on my own, but Mike's little trick of putting the cookie sheets under the egg cartons seemed to really do the trick.

Now I need to figure out how to get them in the ground without killing them.

I think people would actually be amazed how often I use that phrase. Hmm.

Night shift

In the next few weeks I will be back to the land of the living, interacting with other people in the light of day, not wearing hoodies or listening to music on my earphones while doing 24 hour chart checks at the nurse's station. That's right. I'm going back to days.

There's a few things I will miss about nights, though. Not that dizzy disoriented 3am feeling that, no matter how much sleep I've gotten the day before, seems to have no way around, or the way patients you've cared for a good 8-10 hours are asking who you are at 7am in the morning. I won't miss waking up two hours into my 'night' completely disoriented, wondering not only what day it is, but why the house is so quiet, and what happened to my boys... and omg, my boys! Where are they? 

Yeah.... so, there's some things I won't miss. 

I will miss the people though. Night people, from my experience anyway, tend to be laid back individuals with an unreal sense of humor and fortitude. Not much offends them, not much hits them off kilter. Maybe it's the isolation from any other normal part of society, but night people tend to be tight, but not above taking one more under their wing. There is a great deal of empathy you feel working on nights. Like you're part of your own little community. 

That, and I usually have enough down time to check my email, jot down some poetry or finish a book without 'management' pulling me aside to tell me about our standards of 'professionalism'. 

Hey! I was watching the lights. No one's dead. Let's all relax, shall we? 

Night shift feels very romantic in the way that gothic ghost stories are romantic. It's nothing you want to do for, like, the rest of your life, but the experience, I feel, is valuable. To work on the other side of the clock, to be the Watcher. The Healer tiptoeing through the hallways, counting stranger's respirations per minute, emptying their catheters--- It has a mysterious untouchable quality to it, I guess. 

Or that could just be the lack of sleep talking. Sorta like adrenaline making colors seem more vibrant than they are. Or something like that. 

Anyway, I'm going to days. At some point. Management, power that it is, hasn't changed my schedule yet. Ironically (gah, I hope I'm using that right), the gal who got the position that I applied for in ER is the reason I am even moving to day shift, so as soon as she's gone.... Management, the power that is, did say something interesting to me the other day though. 

"You can help us out though, right? While we make the adjustment?" 

They were referring to the change in schedules, of course. Moving one person to days, finding another to take my place. And I said sure! without really thinking about it, because that's what I do, only to think later: oh crap. What did I just agree to?

I really hope that I didn't agree to doing two different shifts at the same time. Say it with me: Please don't make me do both! That would completely ruin the romantic mystery.

sorry Hollywood.. I think the french won this one.

Okay, so my husband is what you might call a bit of a movie buff-snob. I can't tell you the last time we actually went out and saw something on the big screen--- I think it might have been Shrek---- but, when it comes to knowing his movies, I don't know anyone else that has logged the kind of hours my hubby has.

Praise be to Netflix! (end shameless corporate homage).

This is how it's rolled: My hubby, bless his heart, decided a good while ago (more than a year--- I don't even pretend to keep track of time anymore) to take care of his mortal temple by jogging on our treadmill several times a week. Fast forward many months into the future, and said hubby has lost a net total of 70+ pounds. Which, if you're like me and numbers don't really always make sense to you, is a BIG deal.

Seventy+ pounds is a lot of movies.

Of course, Mike doesn't just go for the stand by shoot-em-up blockbusters. Nope. Mike likes movies with subtitles. Because you can actually follow the story without blowing your speakers while jogging on the treadmill, a contraption louder than our washer (a difficult feat, believe me). Well, and also because movies with subtitles are BETTER than your stand by shoot-em-up blockbusters. They have synopsis lines that make me depressed just reading them (a mark of a truly good movie, in Mike's book). An couple examples:

This inventive drama charts the disintegrating relationship between newly married twentysomething Justine and her melancholy sister, Claire, just as Earth hurtles toward certain collision with a newly discovered planet. 


Abandoned by her husband in a country foreign to her, a Colombian struggles to take care of herself and her two children on the streets of New York. 

Now, I'm not trying to diss on Mike's preferences. To each their own and all that--- but I'm the kind who likes to read the book jacket before I commit myself to anything. I want to know that things won't be too terribly sad, and even if they are, the story itself is redeemable. If it's not, then I'm really hesitant. Mike, on the other hand, seems to be drawn in by the experience itself, whether it's a fatalistic end-of-earth tale or the underdog who never gets a break. The more down to earth and real-feeling, the better. The words Criterion Collection or Swedish turn of the century psychotic thriller make him salivate, while for me, anything with the words Tina Fey or comedy tour can make me pop up and pay attention.

I tend not to pay much attention anymore to what Mike watches. I've never been a patient movie-watcher anyway, and even when I am, I have a tendency to talk my way through the boring confusing parts. Hollywood was made for attention spans like mine. I'm the movie goer sitting behind you that you swear is drunk or on something, simply judging from the enthusiasm of my.... uh, engagement?

I like to talk to my characters. Sue me.

Suffice it to say, it's taken most of the decade we've been together for Mike to convince me to watch something in its entirety with him.


Enter last night. 


It was a pretty typical night. Me, on the couch with my laptop, Mike, on the treadmill scrolling through Netflix (go corporate America!). Me saying I'll probably head to bed soon, Mike saying that he's just gonna jog and be right in.

And then he started his movie.

To fully appreciate the moment, let me try to explain it this way: Jason Bourne + Eiffel Tower + mobsters + The Rock agile enough to jump through spaces the size of a front loader dryer door.

Getting it yet?

If you're more of the visual kind, maybe you want to see it yourself: It's called District Twelve. It's French. And be advised: There's two of these bad boys!

Enjoy!

buttons

Shoes are the bane of my son's existence. In the cold of winter or the cement boiling heat of the summer, my son prefers to have his feet unfettered. He revels in the feel of his bare toes against the elements, even when said elements turn his toes an amusing shade of purple. He basks in the ever-surprising sun-baked burn a bare driveway in August can produce. Worts, slivers, insect bites--- He's endured it all in the name of freedom. This son of mine will even take the time to take his shoes off during the five minute drive between our driveway and the school.

This same son is convinced that buttons and shirts should not mix EVER. Even if said shirt had a T-rex eating a front loader being driven by a light-saber wielding Jedi knight on the front. One button can outdo all graphic coolness. Even if the buttons claimed undying love to even just the concept of being the same vicinity as a shirt, my son wouldn't stand for it. Buttons and shirts are for Cole what interracial marriage was for Americans in the 1930s: unthinkable.

This isn't to say that my son is an intolerable bigot. He's not. He doesn't bat an eye when he sees other kids wearing button friendly ware such as polos or flannel (or as we call them in our house, Sunday shirts). In fact, if cookies are involved, he's been known to actually wear one. Over a shirt, to be discarded at the first available opportunity.

Perhaps it's not so much a hatred of buttons as it is an unwillingness to knowingly strap himself down to anything. I'm pretty sure the kid would wear his boxer underwear as shorts and run around shirtless at school if given even the hint that mom wouldn't body tackle him with socks (the third clean batch of the week, thank you very much... not that anyone is counting).

This is the same kid that told us that the nice thing about hot weather is that you don't have to comb your hair anymore. The sweat does it for you.

There's some dinner time conversation for you.

I can't say that I can't relate. Not about the sweat thing of course (although there were some years in high school where, I swear, running cross country did wonders for my hair), but the desire to walk around in my underwear, unembarrassed. Fortunately, there are some things that surviving childhood does for (most of) us. We grow hair, our skin bulges and retracts, leaving odd fault lines..... in short, I don't really wanna see myself in my underwear, let alone strut around where people can, like, see me.

Someday, my Cole will also know the paralyzing dignity of being an adult. I guess I can give him a few years without the buttons.

now I just wanna take a nap

It's April, the bulbs are bursting out of their winter-encased straight jackets, the sun is out, the birds are strutting around with self assured possessiveness---- The world is again waking up! This is good. But, I just wanna sleep.

Well, not all the time. Just when the boys are at school. So, just most of the time.

I did go for my jog this morning--- Joyce Carole Oates says herself it's good for the writing soul. Which I'm trying to take seriously, or at least, seriously enough that I've been trying to figure out some professional-looking forums to give and take some peer feedback. Alas, everything I'm looking at looks like it's being moderated by goth teenagers whose idea of a poetic prompt is a picture of cheesy looking tulips while italicized lyrics of a Three Dog Night song plays underneath.

I mean--- wow. Basically, all the poems people are posting seem to be stuck on love and suicide. I mean, really: sooo high school.

I don't know where people go to be taken seriously. I'm not just saying this as a woman, either, although, historically at least, I think we have the rawer end of the deal with all that. I mean, who decided that raising kids was a career? Getting paid, having a job--- that's a career. Having kids is not a job, not a hobby, it's your life. There's gotta be something else that you're good at, that you crave.

But, then, that's just my opinion, because I think women should be seen as more than just vessels of the next generation. However, before I let my mouth run off---- again---- back to the inspiration that is the internet, or, perhaps more accurately, where the lowest denomination gets its pats on the back.

I don't know, maybe I'm just being cranky. I read something earlier this week: 'we're all cowards at the starting line.' It's one of those lines that's supposed to be inspiring, in an intimidating sort of way, but it got me thinking, and now, when I wanna just lay down, it's what pops in my head. Maybe I just don't have the guts to truly write. I don't wanna know how much I can improve, because that only highlights how bad I am at it right now. Hmmm.....

Well, I have a few hours til I pick up the boys again. Better get to napping......

please, please, please, let me get what I want

Spring break this week, so that's nice! Unfortunately, I'm actually at work from Monday to Thursday, but I also have a job interview for a day position in the ER on Tuesday, so.... fingers crossed! I'm kinda nervous, because it would mean getting to know a whole new group of co-workers and schedule and ways of doing things. I've only ever been a floor nurse, meaning I start with a certain group of patients and pretty much stay with that group for the duration of my shift. ER is the opposite. In and out.

I kinda really really want this job though. I want to get my hands in there, with some acute care stuff. I have a good 9 years (oh gah, how old am I?) of medical surgical floor nursing experience, and I love it, mostly because by the time patients get to me, they are not bleeding messes of yucky. ER, acute care.... they've always intimidated me, in that, they make me nauseous and slightly dizzy to think about. Did you know all the ER nurses start their own IVs, for example? I don't think I've done a single IV start in the last five years, at least.

Anyway.... fingers crossed!

Also: does anybody else get an unaccountable craving for fudge brownies once the spring time bulbs start to surface? Or is this just coincidence?

overheard

"Come on, Andrew! You can do it! You just have to believe in yourself!"

THUNK, SCREECH.... is that a child running into a wall or a book being dropped from the bunk beds, or... OUCH!

"Uh, okay, maybe not like that."

And... another great life lesson learned. Sometimes, things take more than a healthy belief in YOURSELF. Huh. There are things you won't be able to do, things you won't really want to do and end up watching other people do, and then resent that they can do it, while you.... yes, CAN'T.

This is perhaps not the most mature of attitudes, but I honestly don't know anyone that doesn't feel this way from time to time. Maybe it's why we feel the need to upend conversations towards what we did to solve a particular problem, citing all the evidence we can that masses of people agree with us, that we are authorities to solve the multitude of other people's problems--- when the whole time, people just want to be heard. Just want to be acknowledged that their problems are hard and not just simplistic ready made permission slips to lecture at.

I don't know, but I find myself more and more dis-trusting pat answers. Absolutes. Black and white. There's too much complexity in the world, too much color and situation and nuance. I've come to believe that the only real answer to be trusted is what's already in your heart and gut, and getting to that is already complicated enough. Getting to a place where you can quiet all the outside strain and chaos and expectation and just listen. 


For anyone following this rambling thought process of mine, let me assure you that no, no child was hurt previous, during, or after the making of this post. No heads in walls or books careening off bunk beds, where, in all likelihood, they would have ended up smashing someone else's head. Phew! Yeah for learning! Which can also sometimes be simply amusing and not painful!

a long, long time ago...

When I lived in California, there was a mother I knew, more from a distance than on any kind of intimate buddy level, that was raising four-five boys on her own. She looked it. Her figure looked like she was perpetually losing weight (and not in a good way), the bags under her eyes had their own bags under them, and she had this perpetual calm about her that seemed zen until you tried talking to her. At which point, you would then realize that she was simply freaking exhausted and not really fully awake at any point of time.

Of course, this was just my shallow impression of her, put together over a handful of times of seeing her at church, the grocery store, etc. At least one of her boys had 'behavior' problems, or so I heard. This was why I'd only see her in passing, or so I assumed.

Then, one of my actual friends, whom I had spent enough time around to have an actual conversation or two with, shared with me her own experience when she happened to be dropping in on said acquaintance. She was going with the intention of sharing that month's visiting teaching message, but instead of reclining on the couch and swapping cute kid stories, my friend was literally pulled into this woman's home by her shirt tails. Before she could really get her bearings, she had a child shoved into her arms, the curt instruction to keep him with her, and that she'd be right back---- and under no conditions was she to follow her into the back room.

Long story a little shorter--- her older child had had a... well, melt down seems such a light term, but we'll go with that.... melt down, and she had three or four (the numbers are sketchy in my mind now--- I only had one at the time, and any more than that always seemed like a million more too many) to get away from said melt down child, who was throwing, biting, and otherwise presenting a danger to himself and others.

I remember sitting there and listening, and feeling sympathy for this woman. She was single and didn't have much choice except to dig in and work with what came up. It didn't occur to me that she was doing anything wrong, I just figured she had some kids in legitimate need for medication---and (this is the hitch), I thanked my lucky stars that I would never have such monster problems with my own kids----

The other day, I was telling a co-worker of mine about an upsetting melt down that my oldest put out earlier that afternoon. And when I'm done, she says... can we guess? She tells me, gosh, honey. And I thought my kids were bad! It makes me feel better, knowing someone else has it worse!

For the record, she's a friend of mine, and I got what she was saying (not like the jerk from the other night, spitting on my music!), but it still made me pause. Did I make my child sound so horrible? Or maybe you just don't think you can handle it until you're given no choice but to handle it. Of all the people in my present family, I would have thought that I'd be the one they were talking away from the kitchen knives (that's just an expression by the way--- no contact with knives... yet.), but, what do you know.... it's my kid!

I did get a number from a fellow autistic-mommy. Someone who can maybe help Adam out. We'll see. I did the hard stuff and actually left a message--- for some reason, the first step is always the hardest for me.

that's encouraging

On night three of my four, one of my 'younger' co-workers wanted me to guess her age. Which immediately cued me into the fact that she was probably anywhere from 19-25, so I said, I dunno, twenties? Don't you want to try a little more specific than that? is her reply. No, I think, but whatever--- so I say, hey, twenties is a good spot to be! I myself was in my twenties until yesterday morning! 

Oh my gawd--- you're thirty? she says. That is so old! 

I should have her talk with my 7 year old, who's amazed that any of us last past 19. Because that is ancient. 

And really, being the 30 year old mature person that I am, I could blow off any insults to my experience, but turns out, that this young co-worker (21, thank you very much--- and a nursing student, so she knows, like, tons!) also felt the need to criticize my taste in music. 

Wow. I don't know anyone who likes that band. In fact, I hate it! Nothing personal, I just can't stand her. 

People, people: Age is just a number, but music is sacred. I once heard it said that if you really want to get to know and understand someone, listen to their music. You don't rain on someone's mixed tape. Like, ever. 

Especially if said mixed tape includes Florence and the Machine. 

Whom I get to see in July! Squee! 

night shift

It is official! I am a night owl! That gets to be paid! This week has gone surprisingly smooth since I started my first night shift on Wednesday (I had to think there.... it's beyond weird to come in on one day, but then to leave on another one. I had to ask Mike if it was Thursday or Friday today. I'm sort of really overjoyed it's Friday--- even though I still have tonight's and tomorrow night's shift to get through.... )

Ben has been very helpful in helping me acclimate to night shift by staying up most of the night Monday and Tuesday. He came down with a pretty solid case of croup, so I had him on the nebulizers by Tuesday evening, but still.... he was not having a good time there for a little bit. Right now, said boy is sitting next to me, chatting away about all the things he's jotting down in his notebook. He's getting to where he can trace letters pretty well, although we still don't know what he's saying half the time. Doesn't stop him from trying though! HeHe! To which I say, thank goodness actually. I'm glad he's still trying.

Anyway, he's feeling loads better. Still a bit of a runny nose and dry cough, but he has color back in his cheeks and he's back to eating, so... I'll chalk it up to another successful foray into and through the childhood world of sickness. Yuck! I really do not care for February. All the nastiest viruses/bacteria/whatever seem to hit in February!

a dangerous pass time...

I know... but, I got to thinking today, about all the things in life, in the world, that can chip away at a person. All the things that make us less, that can take away pieces of ourselves. I started wondering where all those pieces go, when they're chipped away. When grief or pain or fear take your sense of what should  be.

I was picturing this, all the places and people we meet along the way, trying to put pieces back together, trying to reclaim... something... and it occurred to me that putting together is just the other side of falling apart. The people we meet, that we are drawn to, they complete our sense of self. Or, at least, the worthwhile ones do. The ones that are truly for us, in the same way we are for them--- hopefully, anyway. If we all could be so lucky, I think the world would be a good place most of the time. And what are places but the people that inhabit them?

The image I had in my head was our bodies/souls as this sort of velcro surface that has everything that's ever happened to us just stuck there. Sometimes we manage to scrape it off, but not without price. It usually takes skin with it, takes something literal of us with it. Eventually, hopefully, experience teaches us how to not let everything stick. It helps us to pick and choose what we're going hold close to us, what we let go of. With any luck, it helps us to find those pieces that we find ourselves missing. Pieces that were once a basic matter of what went on in our brains and souls.

Feeling introspective today I guess. Huh.

Cole: "Why does it smell like avocados and celery in here?" (said in the car, on the way to school, while sucking on a ricola cough drop.)

I did not know how to answer that. If anyone else has any ideas, let me know. Cole hates it when I can't answer his questions, which, no matter how bizarre, he always expects me to know the answer to. Because.

Anyway, in other news, we are getting the house ready to sell. Maybe. Probably. Heaven willing. According to realtor #1, we'll be able to sell it at a reasonably acceptable price, if the buyer is dumb enough not to get an independent appraisal. Hmm.... This is what I want to know. How in the underworld beneath, does one buy a house, improve its condition, pay its bills on time, and otherwise be an honest and financially stable owner, only to have it decrease in value in a measly three years, to the point that you are now 20 grand in the hole to the bank, an amount you've easily already paid out to said bank through interest alone?

I was never very strong in math, but those numbers just don't add up to me. Seems like, either way you go, someone else is trying to make money off you. But, I guess that's the way of it, huh? Sigh.... Seems all very fatalistic. We'll see if opinions match up as we do some comparison shopping. Yes! Comparison shopping! Hurray for learning!

You belong to me!

My oldest turns nine years old this Saturday. Yep. Nine years old. I can hardly gather my brain around that one. Remembering his beginnings into this world is rift with good feelings for me, and some very well-earned sighs of relief at not having to go through some of that transition ever again--- and I'm not just talking about the strictly labor type of transition either--- although--- really? Is there some kind of biological need for labor to be so excruciatingly painful and long? I promise I would have loved him anyway, without the pain to bond me. But then, I guess some things are just so, just because (to which my son Cole would say, "That is not a good answer." To which, I agree.)

So-- My son, my first, had his first night of life sleeping in a hospital bassinet in the same hospital where his father had been born some 24 years prior. I was a month from turning 21, which I was pretty proud about, that I was indeed a grown up mother, and not a teen one. Yeah for me! We were living in a three hundred square foot apartment out in the boonies of a small college town, where both of us were attending school. The clearest thing I remember about that afternoon Adam was born was that, after pushing for a hazy two hours, everyone in the room starting getting more and more adamant about me pushing the darn thing out. I remember thinking--- "yeah, I'll get right on that---" in the end (which in real time meant probably no less that a couple minutes after everyone went frantic on me), Adam was delivered by forceps. He had the cord around his neck (nuchal cord in medical speak, as I had learned in nursing school a few months previous), and he had been in distress for several minutes. He was born dusky, but pinked right up, and has been a fighter ever since.

Adam was named for my brother, my parent's second child, who passed after a six day battle. Throughout my life, I have always felt close to this brother that I have never met. Sometimes, when I entertain the idea that angels might actually exist, I like to think that he has been mine, in a way. I felt an immediate bond to Adam. Its intensity surprised and delighted me at the time. I had been told that Adam would be my baby girl, so I had prepared myself to meet my Mallory Joanne (the name, by the way, is not up for grabs--- I might be done, but there are things that are sacred, even though they don't always make sense to outside parties), and then I was face to face, skin to skin, with this other soul--- who was definitely not Mallory Jo or even any masculine equivalent of any/all Mallory. I was scared to look at him, scared to be the mother to someone I had misnamed and didn't know. And then I did look at him--- I couldn't help it---- and that's when it happened. I knew who my baby was. This was Adam, and he had always been my Adam, on some level anyway. I know it sounds cooky or even a little weird, but for me, this was a defining, spiritual moment in my life. I knew what I was supposed to be and do with my life. I was Adam's mommy, and even though I've grown to find balance in that role, it is still the role that I feel the most honored to have.

Happy Birthday my sweet nine year old!

It's sad, how this whole experience here online, with this blog, has been so neglected by me, isn't it? I think so. In my defense, I think my brain is on strike. Has gone on strike. And I don't know if negotiations will be successful. Scabs might be our only defense at this point, poor as that substitute is.

Or, it might just be that trying to put my head on paper is just one thing too many with all the plates I've been juggling. Every day it seems, I get all my piles together, throw them around in some sense that I'm actually getting things done, only to have dropped all of them by the end of the day, where they lie, chipped but not broken, til I wake up and do it all over in the morning.

And doesn't that description just make you want to shine sun out your..... I'll stop there. I think I'm giving the wrong impression of grouchy crap-ness, but it's really quite the opposite around here. This past month has been... uh, interesting? But, do-able. I'm feeling healthy, I'm getting my sleep, usually all at the right times of the 24 hour cycle, we're all fed and warm and things are relatively uncomplicated around here. We're getting into a mode of operation with Adam, and his 'struggles', Ben is starting to talk more and more, Andrew and Cole are doing well with school, and I've even had time lately to pay attention to them--- Yeah! Pats on the back all around!

It's just: it never rains unless it pours, you know? We're planning a big life change this summer, in that, we're moving to Portland, hopefully for the long term. Lots of reasons, none of which are particularly easy to explain, just that we want to, and that we both have felt the need for this choice for a long time now. It's just that now, all our ducks are stacking in their rows, and we're just ready to not wait anymore. I met with a realtor for a walk through today--- hopefully, she will turn into MY realtor, but we'll see what she gets back to me, in regards to numbers and what she can do for us. And while we're on the subject, should anyone out there be in need of a cute home in a good quiet neighborhood that is close to school and hospital, not to mention shopping and bus line, with a full 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, lots of storage space, a fenced backyard with a detached double garage.... Let me know! It's a keeper! Just... uh, not for us :)

The bathroom is freshly painted, just for you!

What happened?

Okay, let me explain--- no, it's too much--- let me sum up: 

And now that I've got a good opening line, I'm not sure where to start. It's been another interesting month around here, and since I've once again drifted away into the midst of fogs we know collectively as LIFE, it's sometimes easy to lose my footing when I actually try to use words. 

I blame that above paragraph on the fact that I am currently reading House of Leaves. I didn't believe it at first, but they're right. It does get in your brain. Such an incredible writer. 

Anyway, back to the interesting month. Our oldest has officially been seen by the professionals and duly categorized with Aspergers, high functioning mind you. He continues to do fine at school, and really, in most situations, but this new diagnosis really is helping a lot of things make a lot more sense. It's too many nuances to explain on a blog, but let me just say that it's a relief and a bit of a grief to learn. Mike and I just want him to be okay. We don't want him to struggle, but life is a struggle sometimes. Just the way of it I guess. 

The biggest relief has been that he is our same Adam. This is something that there is a lot of research about, something that is becoming better understood. Ironically, I've always felt a special bond with Adam because it didn't take a lot of guess work for me to know what it was that was going on in his mind. Didn't make it less irritating, to know why he embraces irrationality at times, but I've never not understood him. Poor kid is more like his mother than is healthy perhaps. But, we have our health and we have our scattered little neurons mostly intact, so on we go. 

Hopefully, my next posts will be more coherent. Here's to hope, as always!