bravery at its best...

our little trooper
parker is a brute force to be reckoned with. he is definitely 'all boy', running nonstop from the moment his feet hit his bedroom floor in the mornings, as he yells, "where's my chwoe?!" and then takes off as if he's already running behind in a game of hide and seek. he had a good tumble last friday morning, but nothing that seemed out of the ordinary at the time. and he hardly ever cries after a run in with the floor ... or anything else. but we knew something was wrong by friday afternoon when he was limping.

today, i am writing this from parker's room @ children's hospital. after a near week long series of futile x-rays, exams and bloodwork, his pediatrician sent us to an orthopaedic specialist who scheduled an MRI this morning. his little tumble last friday scuffed his knee pretty good, dislodging a piece of cartilage and tearing his ACL. so, he had to have surgery this afternoon.

i have never seen a toddler more patient and cooperative with a medical team than this child. admittedly, i am a biased observer, but i am also an astonished observer. the medical team has absolutely adored him and even the anaesthesiologist from the MRI came by to visit him twice. after surgery, two nurses rolled him into our new room and said, "this is the sweetest baby we've ever had. we don't get many of these." *sigh* i agree.

what a brave little trooper! :) all is well and parker will likely sleep until tomorrow...

organized chaos. and insomnia.

“baggage”. arguably, none of us venture into the journey of adulthood without it. i have always envisioned my baggage as a suitcase. a big [okay, ginormously big], brown leather suitcase. only not a chocolatey brown or shiny pleather, but more of a louis vuitton cannelle leather with a once silky-smooth exterior now cracked, worn and faded, but not tattered. it isn’t a knock-off. it’s quality. epi leather, without the obnoxious and conspicuous “LV” monogram. clearly, this piece is not a status symbol of any faux-financial affluence. i need not parade it through the streets to futily declare that i’ve prestigiously arrived. [no, that's what a lexus is for.]

some enter into this strange land with mini-pouchettes, in which only the slightest of anomalies can travel. i envy these people. yet no matter the appearance or size, all of us who have baggage know that it eventually becomes like one of the hideous heirlooms we reluctantly oblige to keep. you know the kind. the kind from your mother-in-law. the kind you can’t sell on ebay. so it will collect dust in some inconspicuous, dark place. under the bed. in the attic. or better yet, the basement. out of sight. out of mind. for some people. and i envy these people, too.

for others (read: me), unlearned necessary life skills [like moving on, letting go, saying goodbye…] are all packed neatly in the baggage, among the chaos and mementos. so, inevitably, at some point, you have to make the decision to “unpack”.

they like to cleverly disguise this process as “therapy”.

rather than unpack, i did what any other regressed obsessive compulsive would do: i organized. having already developed my pseudo-self-soothing tendency to mentally compartmentalize all sorts of aspects of my life, in hindsight, it seems i spent an enormous amount of time (and money) replacing my old suitcase with a big, shiny mental file cabinet. i’ve meticulously organized the chaos into neatly labeled files. you know, like windows explorer. instead of ‘my documents’ it’s ‘my baggage’. and then categorized sub-files, organized by subject and status.

this is the same pseudo sense of accomplishment i feel each time i go “ocd” on my closet.

which, by the way, makes me a total walking contradiction since i am, admittedly, one of the messiest people i know. that said, i will gather my clothes from my closet floor, bedroom floor, bathroom floor, piled in baskets, draped over the chaise, folded on the chest… and hang them all. meticulously. on wooden hangers, facing the same direction (left). and it doesn’t stop there. i will then sort the blouses from left to right, first in the order of sleeve length, then by color. i will do the same for skirts, pants, dresses, jackets. i will place every shoe in its original box, label facing outward and every purse on the same shelf, also sorted by color. then i will stand at the closet door admiring my work. laborious pain that will be all for naught in anywhere from a week to ten days when every article of clothing i own will invariably make its way back to the floor. because what i need to be doing is discarding instead of organizing.

which leads me to the whole point of this allegorical (and insomniacal) blogging. the same goes for the “baggage”. it’s all neatly tucked away, but easily accessible for perusing, pondering and finally, discarding. and i’m going to work on it. piece by piece. it seems a large bulk is crammed into the “crap way too difficult to deal with now so i’ll deal with it later” file. that’s a good one. one linked directly to "procrastination". but aren't they all?

i think i'll start tomorrow.

pieces of me

i used to be a photographer. albeit an aspiring amateur one. file this in my "things left undone" file... i'm getting a new camera. stat.

out of sorts...

i have been miserably sick for days. today is my first day "back to the grind" since last wednesday. i am all out of sorts. i cannot fathom what it would be like to be chronically ill. [god forbid]. the only hope i'd have would be if said medications for said chronical illness didn't interfere with a steady diet of amphetamines. whatever internal mental and physical mechanisms i once had for "bouncing back" have obviously detioriated. there is no bounce at all. rather a slothful, sluggish sliver that is only derived from absolute necessity and would never occur at all at my own will.

i don't know who may have coined the phrase 'balancing act' to describe a woman's perceived ability to manage the affairs of a household, life, marriage, children and work outside of the home. clearly, this person was not a mother. or a woman. no. i take that back. it could've easily been one of the radical or socialist feminists who bought into and consequently, sold the theory [read: lie] that women could and should "have it all" without actually testing the hypothesis. just sayin. i'm all for gender equality and liberal feminism in terms of legal and political rights, but i'm also for [very for] the God-given physical, mental and emotional differences between men and women. and after testing out my own feministic hypothesis, i've found that i'd rather not blur divinely written lines. or.. in the words of prodigious pastor, Dr. David Platt, "..what if God really does know what He's doing?". :) love that.

anyhoo, the.. um, my... truth is, there is no equilibrium among so many facets of life. it is treading water at best. some days the current may be less torrential than others, but it never recedes. you are always in over your proverbial head. and by you, i mean me. it isn't a mere act of balancing, it is a desperate attempt to not drown.

baba blast off: ancient rite of passage.

well, perhaps its more of a modern rite of passage. nontheless, watch as our sweet Parker sends his beloved ba-ba into the sky with [reluctant] excitement declaring, "i big boy now!".

PART ONE:


PART TWO:

life in the moment... and the moments in between.

there is a tremendous amount of wisdom to be gleaned from the experience (read: regrets) of others who have passed from this season of motherhood on to the next. this is one of the reasons i prefer non-fictional, semi-autobiographical anthologies. clearly, i need all the help i can get carving a path through my children’s fleeting childhoods that isn’t riddled with regrets or vague memories.

there is a common thread of instruction that is intricately woven into the written words of those mothers and the thread is this: live in the moment. it is more than a simple directive, it is much more like a quiet, subtle urging to live each and every moment with your children not only with great consciousness, but with great intent.

i initially found that this ideology is somewhat flawed. as a mother, there are many moments you want to live in, and – in all honesty - many others that you just strive to live through.

but the more i read, the more i’ve come to understand that its neither the good nor the bad moments to which they so often refer or lament. while both milestones and fiascos are easily recalled, relived and retold, it is the moments in between that become irretrievably lost. the everyday on goings that occur with such mundane normalcy there is no distinguishable beginning and eventually, you find yourself looking back with the realization that there was also no distinguishable end.

admittedly, it is for this very reason that i have taken, literally, thousands of photographs of my children and consequently, never leave home without a digital camera. wanting to forget nothing, but at the same time, moving too fast to remember anything. unfortunately, i’ve come to the realization that you can take photograph and look at it later on as if you were seeing it for the very first time. documenting a moment doesn’t necessarily equate living in it. and unfortunately, living in it doesn’t come naturally. it takes practice. and it also requires a level of consciousness that our culture really isn’t conducive to.

perhaps their guidance is, in and of itself, too vague, just as their memories. our futile attempts to live up to “living in the moment” become a cliché that we liken with the need to take more photographs, create more memories, do more things, visit more places. we [and by we, i mean “i”] fool ourselves to into thinking we can “stop and smell the roses” while traveling 65mph with the radio on and windows rolled up.

there isn’t an instructional “living in the moment for dummies”. but there should be....

saturday, july 21st: we are on day two of our zoo excursion. it is a hundred degrees outside and a hundred percent humidity, but neither of our two seem to care. they want to ride the train. again. we had ridden it on friday and the conductor had maneuvered it so slowly, the trip bored all of the riders to tears. chloe was hoping today would be different and by different, she meant faster. chris is with us, so the four of us cram into the tiny seat. parker instinctively scoots over as if he’s trying to make room for me to sit on the remaining four inches of bench space. i put him in my lap. the train was moving even slower today. in fact, we almost come to a stop on more than one occasion and on the most boring part of the journey where there are no animals. no people. nothing. only trees. parker lays his sticky little head on my bare shoulder. i can smell the scent of baby shampoo mixed with his coppertone spf 50. i rub his little back and then pat it as if to comfort his boredom. i look over at chloe and she is, once again, bored to tears with her “fifty-yard, glossy-eyed stare, resting her head on chris’ hand. chris looks as though he's trying hard not to erupt in laughter and thus, spoil the moment of utter and total silence. it is an ordinary moment. and a moment that, ordinarily, might have found me irate. but i’m learning to live in the moment and doing so... changes everything.

the fear of failure. and success. [part one]

30 months later. i have been hovering within five pounds [or less] of my goal weight for the last nine months....

clearly, i have a problem with seeing things through to completion. an innate, yet indefinable, fear of reaching goals. some would define this as the fear of failure. it appears more to me as the fear of success. or some distorted mélange of both. oh, i'm perfectly competent with menial undertakings. i can hold a job, which perhaps, isn’t so menial. i have two children who are [albeit miraculously] happy, healthy, completely dressed and groomed at preschool. i have no difficulty completing work-related projects. i can plan showers and parties with immaculate detail and great success. and by all appearances, i clearly have it together. just ask anyone who doesn’t know me. i am what one might refer to as highly functional, under the circumstances of my obscured paralysis.

yet, when it comes to the more significant feats like college, weight loss, marriage… these proverbial paths in my life have been more than a little winding. what are simply “roads traveled” in the lives of some become full blown odysseys for me. relying on my own flawed instincts, i have more often than not, veered off the course completely and into a murky wilderness, where i (literally) “cannot see the forest for the trees”. i seem to like it there. most people would tend to be more fearful of the wilderness than of the path itself, but not me. i retreat into the dark, tall, willowy depths of mediocrity and stagnation. and i make myself at home. sometimes for a season. sometimes much longer.

for today, i’ll leave the educational and relational facets of my life in my: “hints, allegations and things left unsaid” file. [a title which is a direct plagiaristic steal from my favorite collective soul album.]

but the weight loss. fortheloveofblog, the weight loss! granted, it could be defined as success in and of itself, especially by my standards, that i’ve lost fifty five pounds and maintained the loss for nearly a year. or that i’ve been on this weight loss journey for a solid thirty months. i have no difficulty working towards something. i can focus with intensity and work with diligent relentlessness, but with the first indications of nearing the finish line or reaching a goal, come the first pangs of trepidation, a quiet uneasiness that intensifies with each step. i was a single pound away from my goal weight in february. one measly pound. 3500 unburned calories. for anyone else, it seems there would [and should] be an overwhelming sensation of joy. if you had asked me, twelve months prior to that, or even twelve weeks prior to that, what i would’ve expected to feel, my answer would have been ultimately, relief followed closely by uncontainable excitement. instead, i was absolutely wrought with anxiety and fear. and i’ve stayed comfortably within 3-5 pounds away from my goal weight since that day. that said,

what in the heck am i so freaking afraid of?

to be continued...

privacy: a rare commodity.

privacy is a difficult commodity to come by in the land of mommyhood. in fact, one of my favorite aspects of my part time employment is that i get to make frequent visits to the ladies' room. alone.

virginia woolfe declared that for a woman to write, she needed money. and a room of her own. it goes with out saying, she never had children. at my house, the only room that's my own is the bathroom when and if i can sneak away and lock myself in. even then, the pitter patter of little feet is never far behind. followed closely by the knocking on the door. (they've found me.) these days, it's almost always parker, who comes to perform his inquisition in broken [two and a half year old] english. he is in his inquisitive phase, wanting to know the how and why of every single thing he sees, hears, feels, and thinks every second of the day. my futile escapes to the bathroom are no different: "mommy?"... "mommyyy?!" [it's no use not answering. he has, by process of investigation and elimation, tracked me down. and he is just as relentless once he's cornered me. he will stand and knock and yell, "mommyyy?" with increasing intensity in that sweet little voice of his until i give in.] "yes, parker?" - "what you doing?" - "i'm using the bathroom. i'll be out in a minute, okay." - "okay... pause... whyyy?". regardless of my answer or my best attempt to distract or divert him, as soon as we finish the conversation, there is always a brief pause, a pause just long enough to make me think he has finally accepted it and gone back to play. then the knocking. he asks, as if it's the first time ever... "mommy?"... "mommy? what you doing?". we repeat this conversation over and over until i open the door....

....and see THIS FACE. undoubtedly, the cutest, sweetest, kissiest, squeeziest little face i've ever seen.

and then i giggle. and then he giggles. he is genuinely happy to see me. and i smile, knowing i can sacrifice a little privacy, or all of it, for moments just like that.

i'm just sayin...

i received another one of those emails yesterday. you know the ones. or maybe you don’t. but if you’re a Christian or conservative [or even better, a conservative Christian] living in the suburban bible belt, you know the ones.

this particular email was a pleasantly surprising, albeit equally annoying, deviation from the norm: which includes a weekly barrage of disparaging admonitions regarding a particular presidential candidate, whom it seems [more than a few are unreservedly convinced] just might be the antichrist. no, this particular email was urging, if not requiring me as a Christian, to boycott [yet another] American corporation because they have failed to uphold our Christian morals and standards.
matters like these leave me categorically dumbfounded.

and let me get one thing straight here, preempitvely, for strictly informational purposes: i love Jesus. i'm not saying that in a comically blase` manner. i mean it. i heart Him. i’m saying that as a literal honest-to-God believer in Him as Lord and Savior. i believe in Him in a John 3:16 and John 14:6 kind of way, with a Hebrews 11:1 kind of faith. consequently, i believe in the bible. fully. as the inerrant word of God. period.

that said, here's my beef (no pun intended): this time the evildoer is mcdonalds, the golden arches. which, honestly speaking, wouldn't be much of a loss for me since our local chain is, unarguably, the worst mcdonald's on the face of the earth.

so it is because of this personal faith of mine, i am persuaded by "peers" in the faith to essentially condemn (under the guise of disagreeing) a secular corporation operating freely and legally in our nation of inferential religious freedom and religious tolerance because they fail to uphold my personal, Christian theological and moral standards?

to me, this is as futile an argument as boycotting stores for labeling christmas trees "holiday trees". i hate to be the proverbial bearer of bad news, but in the grand scheme of oh, say, eternity... 'it ain't really gonna matter'.
the email goes on to declare that mcdonald's and other corporations will "learn the hard way that values don't just belong on the menu, they belong in company policy as well".

um, WHO's values, exactly? mine? yours? buddha's? has there been some sort of revolutionary amendment to the CONSTITUTION that i missed while engrossed in celebrity gossip?

legality and constitutional amendments aside, how is any of this furthering the gospel of Jesus Christ? in my opinion (and that's all any of this is) it is hindering the gospel and contradicting the Great Commission. seems our calling to "spread the gospel to all nations" would be somewhat of an impossibility if we were to systematically boycott every corporation who didn't uphold our moral code of ethics. i've heard a lot of amazing testimonies in my life, not one of which included a story of being reached and ultimately changed through condemnation or having the gospel imposed upon them.

it seems we live in a culture of modern day pharisees and they aren't much different from the biblical version. a perfect analogical example: Jesus himself eating dinner with tax collectors and "sinners". the pharisees hated these people and consequently, thought Jesus should, too. (sound familiar?) they basically asked the disciples why their "teacher" was eating with the dregs of society. Jesus' answer? it's right there in Mt 9 "Those who are healthy don't need a doctor. Sick people do. Go and learn what this means, 'I want mercy and not sacrifice.'—(Hosea 6:6) I have not come to get those who think they are right with God to follow me. I have come to get sinners to follow me."

i might be wrong. i'm certainly no biblical theologian. i do, however, know a thing or two about being a wannabe-pharisee and a sinner. but i believe... i really believe, that if Jesus were still physically present... he'd have no qualms about hitting up the golden arches for a big mac.

i'm just sayin.

blogoliciousness...

typically, any communication i write about any fast food restaurant is in the form of a strongly worded letter to management. that said, i have to take a break from the more serious and satirical subject matter to post some bloggerific mad props to the burger king down on the two-eight-o. seriously. these people have it going on. consistently. they have yet to fail me. i’m not a huge connoisseur of fast food as of late. it sort of contradicts my role as a weight watcher, but, i can tell you that this particular burger king has, without fail, never disappointed. i always get my three favorite items from the dollar menu: a whopper junior with everything, except mayo, a side salad and a small diet coke. (which, by the way, for you fellow weight watchers, is a total of 6.5 points [290 cal/12 g fat/2 g fiber/31 g carbs]. regardless of how many cars are in line, i have never had to wait an inane amount of time and they have never… hear me, never… gotten the order wrong. they are, undoubtedly, the antithesis of every other lunch hour drive through i’ve ever experienced. i finally had to say something today and as i was paying, i told the cashier how much i loved them. i mean that. i wholeheartedly heart them. i told her that whenever i’m out and have to get lunch in a hurry, it is the only place i am brave enough to drive through because i know they are not going to send me into a frenzied rage. long live the king!

snippets from my day...

i was thinking this morning that i could totally create a silent (i.e. scriptless) short film depicting the stereotypical day of a modern day suburban [part-time] working mother of two preschoolers.

i imagine these snippets playing in sequence and for entirely satirical purposes, i’d have a completely zoned out and expressionless face in every clip of my morning:

4:00 a.m. – bedroom door opens. four year old crawls into bed. i’m too tired to move her, so i spend the next 90 minutes tossing and turning, removing little arms and legs from my ribcage and spine.
5:33 a.m. - alarm goes off and i have exactly two minutes to decide how committed i am to spin class.
6:15 a.m. – i’m in spin class @ the gym, we’re in a ‘standing-climb’ position for what feels like miles, sweat is dripping of my nose and pouring down my arms. (clearly, i’ve made the wrong choice).
7:05 a.m. - i’m at home, standing in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around me, ill as a hornet, impatiently waiting for my turn in the shower.
7:30 a.m. – ironing.
8:00 a.m. – dressing kids
8:20 a.m. - i’m relentlessly trying to remove a spilled drop of syrup from the living room sofa.
8:45 a.m. – i’m in the car with two toddlers [who are riled up and screeching with joy as if we were on the way to Disneyworld].
8:50 a.m. – preschool – all joy having now passed, i’m standing as both of my little boy’s teachers work to free me from his grip, prying little hands from my neck and little legs from my waist.
9:00 a.m. – car – drive to work in total and utter silence.
9:15 a.m. – work – i collapse into my chair-on-wheels and take a moment to stare into space, trying not to think about the fact that i am, just barely, a mere four hours into my day…

11:00 a.m. - i'm walking out of the salon, hair soaking wet and, as soon as i hit the humidity of the outdoors, turning into a frizzy mess bc i was late for my 10:30 hair appt. and there was no time for the blow dry.

11:25 a.m. - my debit cars mysteriously vanishes into thin air at car was hq somewhere between the car and the cash register

11:30 a.m. - driving back to work, on the cell phone, cancelling my debit card and consequently, my only method of retrieving/spending money.

1:11 p.m. - i am standing in my boss' office alone when i realize that i've forgotten something. something that he needed for the meeting that he is in at that very moment.

commenting...

just fyi: i've changed the settings on the comments so that anyone can leave a comment. so feel free.

writing. for the sake of it.

i am committed to writing. just for the sake of it.

even if the inevitable outcome is, more often than not, a rambling stream of banal, witless banter. i initially considered using the title “stumbling towards idiocy” in light of that. well, that and my frequent and frighteningly consistent acts of amusing stupidity. in the end, i concluded it was slightly too self-deprecating, even for me. and too restrictive. i needed something that alluded to a more multifaceted view of my life; something that would broaden the blogging horizon, freeing me to write from a more all-encompassing point of view, rather than the one dimensional view of myself as an idiot. occasional idiot is much better. obviously, i settled on ‘postcards from adulthood’. adulthood is the setting. my setting. the state of adulthood is much more of a depiction of where i am rather than who i am. to say there is some distance between the two would be a drastic understatement, but i’m on a journey to bridge the proverbial gap. and it seems my fingers may do most of the walking.

i’ve never written out of purpose or intent. i never really intend for anyone (other than myself) to “get” anything out of what i say. i should have a disclaimer that says: for amusement only. it’s an exercise of practice for my mind. and often, an exercise of my heart. it seems that whatever i bury deep within eventually overflows, rarely out of my mouth, but much more frequently down the length of my right arm into my hand and by a mysterious osmosis, into the pen and out onto the paper. this process is clearly evidenced by my several volumes of heart-wrenching adolescent poetry written to both chronicle and lament the “great unrequited loves of my life” which, during that particular season of life, happened to be every love of my life.

even at the age of [almost] thirty two, i find myself pleasantly and surprisingly enthralled whenever I nostalgically revisit those notebooks. the passionate naiveté exuded from my adolescent penmanship is, even now, remarkable to me. it was my craft. perhaps my personal calling in life, although i was too narrow minded to think about anything beyond whichever love in which i was currently obsessing. clearly i was infatuated with the idea of being in love and the only time i ever even glanced into the future, the only aspects that i considered were within that same realm: love and marriage and all of the things that would come with it. i was in my own world and it was one that, unfortunately, didn’t include any sort of legitimate plan for my life it terms of furthering my education, choosing a career path, becoming my own person.

i would spend countless hours drafting and redrafting, revising words, rearranging phrases, until at last, i was satisfied. i would then diligently and meticulously inscribe the final draft into its permanent home on the pages of my marbled patterned, hard covered spiral notebook. if i concluded it to be extraordinarily exquisite, it might deem a call to the bff of the moment. [teenage girls have a peculiar ritual of cycling through their closest friends and i was no different.] i loved beginning again with a fresh, clean and crisp white sheet of paper, full of empty little college ruled lines. to this day, i still love buying a brand new notebook and a pack of fine-tipped ball point pens. and to this day, if you read the first verse of any one of those tragic sonnets of my youth, i can instinctively rattle off the remainder of it. no matter how long. i didn’t just ink them into my notebook, they are indelibly etched into my heart.

each time i completed one of those little jewels of poetic art, an unidentifiable sensation would wash over me. i have only recently come to the realization that my writing is to me, above all things, supremely therapeutic. (this belated revelation, by the way, could’ve saved me a small fortune in real therapy had it only come a decade earlier).

many times, what comes out when i begin to write comes so fast and so feverishly that when i go back to read it, it is literally like hearing the thoughts, feeling those feelings, facing those realities… for the very first time. it’s my conscious meeting my sub-conscious. which is a very scary thought. ultimately, my writing coerces me into a state of self-awareness that is completely foreign to the state of self-denial that i have so comfortably reside in. which, in hindsight, makes perfect sense why i have written off and on all of my life. admittedly, any sort of real progression.. well, it freaks me out.

i was initially worried my memoir-ish ramblings might instigate a narcissistic perception and then i came across this little pearl of a paragraph in an excerpt from an article:

“Out of the demographic of billions are arising energetic and generous people who break through the wall of sameness and tell others about their individual history a story that has evolved through the years of their lives, and that represents a life they have actually lived. Through blogging and memoirs, writers share the story of themselves and in turn, want to know the stories of each other. A great way to jump into the ocean of humanity is to share your story. So, if you’re wondering if your story is worth sharing, don’t worry about the people who don’t want to hear it. Reach out to the people who do.” Jerry Waxler

so there it is. or here i am, rather. it may be an exaggeration to insinuate i am breaking through any walls or jumping into any oceans of humanity here.

i’m just writing. but maybe not just for the sake of it. maybe for the sake of me. growing up. stumbling towards adulthood.

prolific thoughts, or lack thereof....

a guy who works down the hall at my office and whom i've affectionally decided to refer to as ted for the purpose of his anomynity, stopped by my cube this morning to sarcastically inquire as to whether i was working or blogging. the truth is i wasn't doing anything. i was literally, perched in my chair- on-wheels staring blankly at my desk. my brain hadn't yet caught on to the fact that we were out of bed and halfway through our morning together, much less at work.

my mind was then, and still sort of is, completely void of any original thoughts of which to write... or in my case, type. the words and thoughts are in there, somewhere, i know. but its as if they are compartmentalized in an entity all their own. i collectively refer to this entity as an alterego of sorts: 'the blogger in me'. she comes and goes as she pleases, as if i am just a sidenote. so i futily peck out letters on the keyboard and wait for her return. and in the meantime, perhaps i should do some work, too.

letting go. part two.

if you're just getting here, you'll want to start with part one.

the sidebar on the playhouse was completely unintentional and slightly superfluous, like the word superfluous. anyhoo, the actual life size house is the issue at hand, and at heart. i finally let go of the playhouse (as much as i could) after i'd resigned that i'd simply done all i could do. but the house, it still had potential. it still needed a savior. it went on the market a few years ago and that was the first time i got to step into it. more than another decade had passed since i'd visited it at the age of sixteen and again, time had not been so friendly. the interior had deteriorated substantially and shrunken in size by what seemed at least two thousand square feet. still, i wanted to buy it so badly. oddly, i have never had the desire to actually live in it. i have just desired to own it. desperately. i reasoned that we could keep it as a rental. we discussed it. we consulted my dad (i.e. real estate expert) about it. i tried my best to present the intellectual and logical side of my pitch and only make mention of the nostalgic benefit as a sidebar. a bonus. but he saw through my facade. in hindsight, i should not have ever made that call. i should have known that he would stoically and rationally present logic and reason in the face of my irrational and emotional justifications. "never make a business/financial decision based solely on emotion", he said. and that was that. it was a run-down home in a depreciating neighborhood and unstable market. it wasn't too much of a risk or financial obligation for a house, per se. but it was too much too ask for the house as some sort of childhood memento. i would have to let go. and by let it go, i really meant put it back on its shelf.

last week, i found out the house was on the market. again. vacant. cheaper than ever. we could totally afford it and this time, i wouldn't consult with my dad about it. i did, however, consult with chris. i even managed to get him excited... (okay, excited may be the wrong word)... optimistic about it. (oh, okay, well he didn't say no, how's that?) so, friday morning, i pulled out of the driveway, turned the radio up, rolled the windows down and consequently, allowed all sense of logic and reason fly right out on the drive. my heart was filled with anticipation and hope. the kids were singing songs in the back seat and i was silently calling out, "home of my childhood, your savior is about to swoop into your circular drive in her luxury car and save you!!".

it was a bright and sunny day, but as soon as we pulled into the drive, it became eerily dark and dreary. it was an omen. the trees and shrubbery have grown thick like a suburban rain forest, so much so that chloe, upon glancing the yard, said very studiously, "look at this jungle!". the tall grass and overgrown shrubbery combined with the most dreadful, depressing shade of gray painted onto the brick exterior made for a very uninviting welcome. it looked like a great old ship washed ashore and abandoned in the middle of suburbia. nonetheless, i'm accustomed to being sadly disappointed by the exterior view. i've grown to expect it. and i was too high on hope to be distracted. a little landscaping there, a little [or a lot] of paint here. we walked through the front door into the tiny living room that decreases in size every time i walk into it. we make our way down the narrow hall and i am with great purpose and intent studying each room. i already knew. it would be the last time. it was worse than i ever could have imagined.

chloe asked which room was mine and i told her about how i had cycled through all three of the hallway bedrooms during my residency. i don't remember where i started, but i do remember the first room on the right, with my white twin canopy bed covered in frilly pale yellow bedding. i used to throw all of my stuffed animals on top of the canopy and then jump up and down on the bed with my arms fully outstretched above me, catapulting them off, one by one. in the next room, i had a full size bed covered in bedding that had small rainbows all over it. i can remember laying in that bed in that room trying to stay awake, peering out the window and hoping to get a glimpse of santa clause.

you know, it's funny, because these days, i literally cannot even remember what i did yesterday, but standing in that house, memories of even the most trivial things are so vivid. so hilariously vivid. and some, just so vividly hilarious: like the night i spent soaking my technicolor rainbow bedding with tears over michael j. fox. the fact that i was eight and he was, like, twenty three, was clearly overshadowed by my childish infatuation; i remember crawling down the hall on hands and knees, pushing barbie and ken their pink convertible corvette over the thick, blue shag carpet in the living room, and down the stairs to the "drive in" in [now infamously] red living room. oh the red living room. red carpet, a large red chair, and the longest red vevleteen drapes you've ever seen. they must have been twelve feet long, reaching from ceiling to floor. in hindsight, they were hideous, but as a toddler peering up at them, majestic! oh, and the memories from toddlerhood. they are equally as vivid: i will never forget crouching behind the door in mom's study (my former canopy bed room), hiding because i didn't want to go to preschool one morning. with my four year old logic, i reasoned that if she couldn't find me, she would eventually just give up and go on to work. (sidenote: can you imagine waking up and not being able to find your child?!) i hid for so long and was so wrought with anxiety, i wet my pants. furious frustration and anxiety, aside, she finally found me soaking wet. [p.s. i'm really glad we can laugh about that story now.] oddly, i don't really remember what happened after that. maybe she was so relieved to have found me, we just cleaned me up and went about our morning. either that, or i've blocked it from my memory. good times. so many. of course, some memories are less humorous, but no less vivid. if the lot is ever renovated, someone is going to unearth a small pet cemetery in the back yard. then there are the saddest of memories here too, but none that negate the happiest ones, for the happy ones far outweigh the sad ones. i could go on and on... and i was in the midst of this nostalgic fit of daydreaming when chloe interrupted me and [holding her nose] said, "mommy, let's get out of this stinky place!". she was right. the odor on the inside rivaled the view.

so. here it is. beloved home of my childhood. all but dilapidated. and by dilapidated, i mean the upper level master bedroom and lower garage portion (not fully visible in photo and which was an add on to the original structure) literally looks and feels as though it is on the verge of separating itself from the rest of the house. i had our realtor find out what he could and the worst was confirmed. there are serious flaws in the foundation. he went on to say that we could always inquire about repairs. he felt confident they would lower the price even further to compensate for it. now, i would be lying by omission if i didn't say that i wasn't still considering it. or at least considering the 'inquiring part' with contractors, etc. but somewhere deep down, my own [albeit unfamiliar] voice of reason spoke the proverbial nail into the coffin. it was time to let it go. it just needed more than i could give it. i just needed to let it go. and whatever reward i had ever hoped to gain in owning it, couldn't possibly be worth the time, the work and the cost that would go into restore it. it was past the point of restoration. it just needed to be torn apart and gutted.

it's not in the condition to be stored in my closet of broken dreams. i really have to let it go. and while, for the most part, my revisiting and wishful thinking has been lighthearted throughout the years, letting go, really letting go is proving to be a much more serious and excruciatingly painful experience.

to be continued...

letting go. part one.

letting go. a necessary life skill. one [of the multitude] that i am still learning. the past, people, places, lost hopes and dreams. i collect them all the way some people collect precious moments figurines, all lined up collecting dust on the random shelves and hidden corners inside of me. some commemorate specific events, most could have a more generic inscription, like "regret". i occasionally take them out, one by one, polish them off as if to admire them and then carefully put them back in their places. needless to say, it's time to clean out.

but, i digress. long blog short[er], i'll narrow it down to just one of my little trophies. my childhood home. no, not the log cabin in the forest, but the home i lived in prior to that. the home that i had spent the first eight years of my life in. the home that, in my distorted memories of my childhood, was quaint and spacious and perfect. it was a four bedroom brick on the end of a cul de sac street with a circular drive in the front and lots of trees. my distorted memory painted a beautiful little portrait that i held onto for years. it was a portait that, to my horror, was tragically destroyed the first time i drove through the neighborhood at the age of sixteen.

even though we hadn't moved terribly far away, we never revisited. i drove myself there shortly after getting my drivers license. the house was occupied, but time had clearly not been kind to the neighborhood, nor to my mind's eye. but i kept going back. again and again. sometimes because i would pass through the town, sometimes because it was a nice day for a drive, sometimes because i just wanted to. once, i parked my car and walked all around the neighborhood. it was like walking through a ghost town. only i was the ghost. my old playhouse sits in a neighboring yard, battered and bruised. it survived two generations, but somehow got left behind and is now too deplorable to try to move. (i know this for a fact, as i actually tried just a few years ago). i had this fantastic delusion of rescuing it, bringing it home with me and restoring it to it's original condition. only better. i'd paint it to match our house, put flooring on the inside and window boxes on the outside. my own children would spend countless hours playing in it, just as i did and maybe, just maybe, i'd sleep a little better at night knowing that i had restored, or perhaps, redeemed a portion of my childhood.

at the risk of sounding completely neurotic, admittedly, i feel sorry for it. it just looks sad. its the same pangs of sympathy that brings tears to my eyes every time i read my children The Giving Tree. granted, the tree was slightly more animated and self-sacrificing than my little playhouse, but clearly, you can see the correlation. every time i drive down the street, i can feel it looking at me. as if waiting for me to explain myself. it's the same sensation i get when i'm the first car that comes to a stop at a red light next to a homeless person holding a sign on the corner and i've got nothing to give. literally. no cash. no change. if it's remotely close to payday, even a check would probably bounce. sometimes, i want to roll down the window and explain, "i know it may appear as though i have money, but i don't. it's all a facade!". as if my explanations or justifcations would suffice as an offer of comfort. instead, i try not to make eye contact. and i drive away. i'm in no way suggesting that a homeless human being is in any way equivalent to this playhouse of my youth, but the overwhelming sensation of helplessness that both scenarious derive in me is one in the same.

to be continued...

the library revisited

the library. my new hangout.
so i went to the local library today. since i haven't actually visited a library since, oh i dunno... 2005, i decided i should check my membership online to: a) see how much money i owed in late and/or lost books; and b) see if my membership had expired. i was right on both counts. what i should have been doing, however, was preemptively brushing up on my basic prerequisite library skills. it's not that i don't read, because i do. but my idea of picking up a new book typically entails browsing Barnes & Noble while sipping a grande sugar free non-fat vanilla latte. two hours and thirty bucks later, i'm good to go. but, with my ever present attempt at curbing my reckless spending and my newfound desire to read more, i decided it would be wise of me to dust off (or in my case, pay off) my library card and check out some books. needless to say, i have forgotten everything i learned in the 5th grade about the dewey decimal system. why can't all non-fiction books just be organized as like the fiction, you know, alphabetically? i didn't want to look as conspicuous as i felt so instead of asking the desk clerk for help, i walking aimlessly up and down the non-fiction aisles, trying futilly to make sense of this organizational chaos and these secret dewey number codes. what? were we supposed to commit the decimal system to memory?

i was able to find the book i wanted in the computerized catalog, but unfortunately, there was no secret code on my non-fiction book, which made NO sense to me. despite my blatant ignorance, i did know that thye book i was looking for was non-fiction. admittedly, i love a challenge. i was even slightly amused by the whole ordeal, but at the same time, i was beoming increasingly unnerved by the fact that, at almost 32 years old, i am obviously imcompetent of checking out a libary book. first graders do this stuff every day.

i eventually resorted to using one of the internet computers to google "dewey decimal system". at least i knew which range of numbers my book should be in. so, after fruitlessly browsing those categories. i finally gave up and did what anyone with my level of stubborn defiance would do. i call chris on my cell phone and [hunched over in an aisle and whispering] said, "okay, clearly, i have no idea what i am doing here". he gave me a brief synopsis of his memory of the ddc, which by the way, wasn't much better than mine and advised me to simply ask someone. i hung up. by this point, i've been on the 2nd floor of the library for a solid hour, still emptyhanded. what began as my amusement at my inadequacy was slowly eroding into frustration, which would soon give way to an angry rage, thus ruining my whole library experience. i felt i was too far in the battle to turn back and ask for help or wave my white flag of defeat. on the other hand, it was saturday and i wanted to go back home eventually. i finally, reluctantly and begrudgingly asked for help and the desk clerk, without even consulting her computerized catalog, walks me directly to it. it was, for reasons i will never know, hidden in the biography section, which have a special section all their own with no secret codes, but with a big letter "B" and the first three letters of the authors last name. i would have never found it.

is there a book called "visiting the library for dummies"? because i totally need it. sheesh. no wonder bookstores have fared so well. people would rather buy a book that they're going to read one time rather than borrow it from the gauntlet of the local library. from now on, i'll be reserving my books ahead of time online. then, they're on a nice little rack at the front entrance with your last name on them waiting for you. maybe i'll be able to find those, if they're alphabetical.

so two hours and a whopping $49 later, i leave with an armload of books. but i have to say, i'm still feeling a little shafted without my sugar free vanilla latte.

here we blog again.

here i am again. i've lost count of how many blogs i've began over the course of the last decade. literally, i was blogging before it was the cultural phenom it is today. i was blogging before it was even referred to as such, when it was just random postings on a personal website, beginning around the time of my engagement in 1998. it was a way for me to intertwine my love of writing with informational content to keep friends and family updated on my life. it wasn't that i felt my life was so fabulous that i had to share, it was just that i enjoyed doing it. then, along came life, complete with marriage, a house in the burbs and two adorable little monkeys. my life sort of happened before i had even decided what i was going to do with it. and so here i am, a decade of intermittent blurbs about my life forever lost. every time i gave up on the whole concept, i'd just delete the website. or the blog. or the myspace page.

that said, i collapsed into bed a few nights ago with my newest issue of Good Housekeeping. yea, i know. i'll explain that later. anyway, i came across an article written by a middle class mommy who got to experience a shopping spree in new york for clothes that no one with the word "middle" in their socioeconomic status could rationally afford. as a person who, admittedly, has lived beyond their means all of her life, i loved the concept. i expected it to be a good article, but it was so much more. curiously, i googled this "average southern mommy" and found that she's an avid author and blogger. i had to let her know how she had inspired me and posted the following comment on her blog:

"Absolutely brilliant!! I was perusing the pages of my monthly GH when I came across your article (which, by the way, I only subscribe to as a futile attempt to subvert my obsession with celebrity gossip and other trashy reads). Admittedly, I am a former wannabe fashionista label hound. And by former, I'm referring to my former life. The one prior to my transformation into a thirtysomething, married mother of two toddlers living in the burbs of Alabama. Consequently, immediately, the concept of the article intrigued me, but before I turned the first page I was "on to" the fact that either this particular mom was no ordinary suburban mom OR the kind folks up at GH decided to bring a writer to cover the story and write for her. Of course, by the end of the article, I was convinced that you were the writer and I had to google to find out more and viola, here I am.

Long blogment short, your writing awakened something inside of me that has laid dormant for years too long and that is my love of writing and my longing to write. All those voices inside of my head that have, for years, convinced me that it's just too late, that I've waited too long, that I don't have the time... or the vocabulary... those voices were all silenced as I finished reading your brilliant piece!

So I will be eternally grateful for your inspiration and also, most likely, eternally jealous of your Louis Vuitton bag, too. :)

Your newest fan, Nadia"

so, that pretty much sums up my return to blogger. needless to say, the blogger in me has been reawakened and ready to begin. again. stay tuned. :)