peripheral shadow of hope

sometimes the coincidences in life remind me that there is a beautiful symphony deep in the background of this existence, if only we could hear it fully. today i got teary cuz i almost heard it, just for a moment, like a sideways glance at a peripheral shadow of hope. if only i could hear it again...

~hope~


#hopevali #contradictivehope #note #peripheralshadow #hope #coincidence

5 Weeks

Well we've gone and done it. We done made a baby. A tiny little sesame seed of cells has invaded my pelvis and is already reeking havoc. And I love it.

We've been trying for months, an issue I didn't have with my first, who just turned four. But come to discover, the timing did work out in the end. It's not the busy season at my job. My coworker's vacation plans will not be effected by my maternity leave, as they would likely have been if we'd conceived any sooner.

We haven't told my daughter yet, I want to have the ultrasound in my hand to show her and be better able to explain it to her. However, I doubt I can keep it from her for weeks. I've barely been able to for the three days I've known already. ;)

I knew I was this time. I felt different, I was snapping at my husband at the drop of a hat, yet felt oddly calm at other times. My cramps were sharp random pangs of pain (still are) not consistent dull aches like my period brings. I had been eating like I had a tape worm... I was crying at everything, especially songs or sweet tv commercials. And I got stupid horrible REALLY bad clumsy like with my daughter. As if I'm trying to use someone else's hands! Which gets old. Fast.

The past two days I've been barely able to keep my eyes open past 8pm. I'm already getting that exhaustion at work around 3:30pm that was a constant issue with my firstborn. My body just stops functioning and says it's time for a nap. That's not helpful when my job expects me to function until 5pm! :D

I am hoping for a boy, but I'll be thrilled with any healthy child. But because of how difficult sisterhood can be, I'd really love to mix it up. I would also love to give my husband a son. His father was so amazing, and although I barely knew him before he succumbed to his second round with cancer, I know that the man I married is who he is, and is the father he is, because of his own father. I think that's part of why it's hard for him to be joyous about pregnancies.

My mom said my own father had a hard time with her pregnancies, because his father too died before he became a dad. She said, think about it, you're about to be a mom, who do you go ask about being a good mom? Who do you call at 2am when you're lost and panicking? YOUR mother. Who can they call when they need help being a dad? They want to call their dad, but cannot.

That really helped me understand my husband. My mom is so good at helping me find other perspectives. I'm told often that I'm wise, or an "old soul". I think it's just that I was literally intentionally taught that evolving is part of our purpose, it's our job, and it's our only way to true happiness. My parents are so totally different from the people who raised me. They continue to get better, to grow, that what else could I do but live up to that, right?

Oh here we go, tearing up thinking of my mom. ;)

I'm definitely not telling my job yet, at least not until we have an ultrasound that says everything looks wonderful. Perhaps even not until I start to show, we'll see. So for now, I cannot tell the world. I cannot scream it from a hillside like I so desperately desire. I must leave all hints to it off all social media, and I'm just dying. I'm great at keeping other people's secrets, but horrible at keeping my own. How's that for irony. ;) If that's even the right word...

Well, I'm sure I'll have far more to write as we go. 5 weeks down, 35 to go. ;) It'll feel like forever, then once the baby is here, it'll feel like 3 seconds I'm sure. :)


#hopevali #contradictivehope #5weeks #pregnant #prose

tired.

I am tired.

I am tired of being treated differently because of my job title or salary range.

I am tired of people assuming I'm somehow an imbecile because they are so insecure that degrading another is the only way they know how to feel better about themselves.

I am tired of being expected to always be the bigger person, especially by people who are the total opposite, where, no matter how vicious their initial attack of me, I am not even allowed to reply, let alone lash back, or somehow I become the asshole and they are just the poor victim.

I am tired of working my ass off to barely make ends meet, when people who do jack shit get to have it all.

I am tired of being stressed out.

I am tired of demands that I act as Obama's life defender simply because I disagree with some of Romney's opinions or beliefs.

I am tired of people assuming they know all about me, especially when they don't actually listen to a word coming out of my mouth.

I am tired of finding silver linings for myself, let alone for everyone else.

I am tired of holding other people's luggage while they go pee, and just never come back.

I am tired of being the adult, and then being yelled at when the other adults want to do nothing but act like children, yet want all their own responsibilities taken care of magically or by me.

I am tired of double standards, inequalities and imbalance.

I am tired of hearing how everyone else knows better than everyone else and everyone else is just an idiot because they dare to disagree.

I am tired of people who are loving and kind getting screwed over by people who are manipulative and cruel.

I am tired of waiting for karma to make it worth it.

I am tired of waiting for the timeline to be long enough.

I am tired of "just breathe". I can't NOT breathe without dying, so maybe sometimes breathing is the actual problem, not the solution.

I am tired of trying to help, with the best of intentions, choosing my words so very carefully so that none feel attacked, only to be attacked in response, with words meant to cut & hurt, to be broken into pieces for no reason other than the fact that I tried to HELP and someone else didn't like that.

I am tired of my feelings & opinions mattering least of all.

I am tired of feeling alone, and knowing in my heart that I'm really not alone, but feeling it so deeply and exhaustingly that the logic behind it is drowned out by the tides.

I am tired of trying.

I am tired.




#hopevali #contradictivehope #iam #tired #poetry

reprieve, i do wait.

I keep catching myself fading off into the distance... My eyes lost focusing on nothing... Put together with the amount I've been sleeping, I think I need to pay attention again... I'm eating less & less healthy again... I haven't spent a lick of quality time with my hubby... I've been getting more testy with my daughter...

These are all the signs I know and despise, but have become my familiars. It's time for something to change. It's time for a smack upside the head. It's time for a treat, a break, a SOMETHING.

Cuz I can't stand the "D" word but I can feel it coming. Sinking into a void of nothing, slowly numbed and unable to fight through. Not quite here but rolling in like the tide, the tide of my life, an ebb & flow of days & nights into one massive cloud of "oh no". Depression has no visible line, no date, no shadow.

How trite that word has become. As if just some cold we all catch, a quick fix pill's cure away, a weakness we should all be masters at by now, yet none of us are.

And I refuse to bow down, to just take it like a victim. Which is part of why it's not here yet. But I feel it behind me, hiding until I am too tired to keep watch.

I do indeed know her causes, though her cures are not within eye-shot, today. For it is not in preventing the cause that this bout may be broken, not this time.

Unfortunate in it's outcome, the path cannot be untaken. This be one of the few times my control of the situation is gone. In this, I have no choice. In this, I have no option but to take what I am given. It is in that helplessness, I find difficulty. I find fear. I find frustration and anger. I find myself trying to give up. I find myself under-motivated to fight.

But my daddy would say he raised a fighter, so what exactly do I do with this? How do I fight a life of surprises that I also so deeply respect? How do I fight a ghost with no form? How do I fight for control of things I ought not have control over, just because control is what I desire?

How do I proceed? I despise that unknowing, unanswerable question. I feel it's weight, pushing me down under a layer of water so thin it appears like a cloud, not the fluid filling my lungs that I should be defending so fiercely against.

But in a single small moment of quiet vulnerability, one voice beckons through the notes of another. A reprieve perhaps? Reprieve per se? Reprieve darest I hope?

Reprieve, I do wait.


#hopevali #contradictivehope #reprieve #idowait #prose

destination of perfection

I don't get why people can't just let other people be.

Why are so many so preoccupied with the actions, decisions and semantics of other people, when I've yet to meet a single person who is entitled to judge. Everyone I've ever talked to has faults they could be working on within themselves, or battles in their own lives that need their focus instead?

Why must people try to read between every line spoken or written by another, instead of simply taking what is said or read at face value? Perhaps we'd all be that much better at communicating if we just spoke honestly and stopped trying to "interpret" everything. Cuz from my experience, "interpreting" = "assuming" and we all know that one-liner about those who "assume".

Just seems an enormous waste of time & effort to me, when so much else needs our time & effort more. People are starving, but you are upset because someone said "your" or "you're". Children are bullying other kids instead of simply playing & feeling the joy of innocence, but all you can think about it who's FAULT it is. WHO CARES? How does blame fix ANYTHING but YOUR sense of self worth???

I am sick and tired of ignorance. Ignorance that we are ALL THE SAME. Ignorance that we are ALL HURTING. We are ALL FIGHTING for what we desire, we are all on a JOURNEY and NO ONE has reached the destination of perfection yet, NO ONE. So stop treating people like they should be perfect instead of fallible, JUST LIKE YOU. We are so blind to empathy these days, to understanding, compassion, GIVING EACH OTHER THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. Stop letting your negativity at yourself turn into justifying why someone else is WORSE than you are so therefore YOU can feel ok.

Oh no, because WE KNOW what you're REALLY thinking, WE KNOW how things SHOULD be, WE KNOW what the RIGHT thing to say or think or be really is. Oh WE KNOW, don't we.

OR.
NOT.

How about we all just take a breath, back off, slow down, and be just a TINY BIT KINDER to everyone around us. Stop thinking what others can do for us and start thinking what we can do FOR OURSELVES.

Sorry, Pres. Kennedy, but I think introspection might do a whole lot more good these days than charity & service or national pride. I don't think most people could even handle those concepts, they're too busy pushing someone else down so they feel just a little higher up.

But Yertle the Turtle tried that and oh boy if he didn't end up covered in mud and all alone. #


#hopevali #contradictivehope #yertletheturtle #destinationofperfection #shouldbe #kind #ignorance #rant #prose

Let the hope hope

This weekend was an odd one... We spent Saturday afternoon & evening with my daughter's friend from school & her family. They are unusual folk but pretty nice, so despite some differences sometimes, I'm still maintaining that open door as much as I can because it's so important to my daughter that I do.

In the meantime, we are still "trying" for that baby. Not as many attempts made this month, but still the timing was hopefully correct for what we have to work with. ;) Between life pandemonium & colds running through our house like wildfire this month...

But life is a jokester around such things, I think. Messing with my head whenever possible. I did drink some beers with those friends Sat. evening, but we didn't get home very late & I had zero symptoms of a hangover Sunday except for... The total digestive meltdown that is/was my upper & lower digestive system.

The lower half of me could be screwy for any number of reasons. It's become my life to have issues with that, so it's nothing new. Could have even been a short lived bug. However. Usually when I have said bugs, I get upper digestive issues too, usually worse, and ones that rarely end well. Usually, once the upper digestive system starts to panic, little gets it to stop, I have no "off" switch.

So Sunday, I felt ill in all ways. Threw up only once, and then felt fine in regards to my upper half once I 'got it out' of my system. Which, well, that just never happens, really. One episode is so rare, that it catches my attention when something like that happens. So Sunday did. Granted, my lower half was messed up for a good 6-8 hours, that was the end of that too. And my lower back/hips have been KILLING ME.

Seriously, I think I'm making myself go crazy. Every time one of my boobs hurts even slightly. Every time I get just a tiny bit more clumbsy. Every time I get a girlie cramp or feel bloated or weepy... All I think of is that which I desire more than just about anything right at this point in my life. A baby.

And to think if I randomly started throwing up once and only once for a few days? I would not only jump to the conclusion that we succeeded in our attempts, but also that we succeeded in making ourselves a SON. For my daughter, altho she did make me feel sick during the early months of my pregnancy, she only made me *literally* sick one or two times. And my sister used to talk about the fatigue hitting from both her pregnancies, it was always her first symptom, wanting to go to bed by 7pm every night... I didn't have that with my daughter. But my sister had boys both times.

I despise this waiting game of "trying". I'm not even giving it the full 100% effort I could, not yet at least, but the waiting of it is so tiring. And my head just keeps getting it's hopes up, no matter what rational says, ignoring all logical thoughts of "yea right" or "there's no way to know so stop" or "you'll be so upset if you're not if you keep hoping like this...".

It's hard to convince a heart to not hope for that which it hopes for more than any other hopes in a moment. And a heart cannot step outside the box it is held within, no matter the moment, or the reality of the box. Even a box made entirely of mirrors, where one inside wouldn't even know it's held within a box. Isn't that our whole lives, really, I guess? Inside a mirrored box, with no way of seeing outside of it.

So I'm stuck in this moment, this hope. And I cannot say I don't adore it, for the logic in my mind does know one thing for sure. This is either a wonderful beginning, or a saddness en route. So I might as well enjoy the light & joy of the hope while I still can. For it all might be gone in a week, on to more waiting & arguments within myself daily. Enjoy for now, and let the hope hope.


#hopevali #contradictivehope #prose #trying #hope

one of my fave poems of ALL time...

Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.




#stillirise #poetry #mayaangelou #fave

reallY?

it's really an abnormal and presumptuous request to simply check in on your kids while at a birthday party? really? how is this a lot to ask of a parent? and some parents think that because they brought their own beer & some food to share that somehow this justifies them to expect others to watch their kids for them while they run off to smoke cigs and drink somewhere hidden with their own friends while their kids are hungry and some other parent feeds them? really??? what is our world coming to?


#hopevali #contradictivehope #prose #rant #expectation #reallY?

pure stream of consciousness

I feel like I can breathe a little better today. Not that this cold has abated much, but for some reason, some things feel lifted. And then on the drive into work, I felt a new purpose.

I think I got it because last night, I finally listened. Sometimes She has to smack me a little to open my ears, but smack she did, and ears, they received, finally.

Yesterday was the final day of feeling low, feeling done, burnt, used, worthless and hopeless. I started to doubt things that normally, I hold onto for dear life and keep my life worth living. I started to lose faith. Faith in life, joy, strength, and even in me. In all of it.

And then I got a text message. Four, actually. From my best guy friend in all of college. Randomly. I had messaged him online probably about a week ago, as his Facebook page had vanished and I wanted to check in. Last night he messaged me about searching for jobs and how much he missed me. He invited me up to his place in Maine for this weekend but left the door totally open understanding if I was already booked, but wanted me to know how much my presence in his life was missed.

He made me laugh and smile more than I have in awhile. Genuinely.

It was in that moment of genuine happiness at being so loved (and by someone who's been with me through some of my lowest points in life, some of my worst "me" times where I hated myself, and yet he still stuck by me through it all. But vice versa too...) and in that moment, I had another moment. A moment of true deep realization, hitting me like brick (Her smack).

I realized, that yesterday, I woke up to another text message. From someone I still call my baby brother, down in Florida. A friend for more years than worth counting, who has helped my marriage so many times in our early years, that to this day my gratitude is immeasurable. Just a hello, replying to a text I'd sent a good week prior.

And I had gotten an email mid-day yesterday as well. From a former coworker and good friend that I think I haven't spoken to or heard from in about five years! One of those "hey I saw your name and thought I'd give your old email address a try just in case, how the heck are you???" kind of email. We emailed back & forth a few times yesterday and it was really nice to reconnect like that with him.

But it wasn't until I got the four texts from the friend in Maine that I saw the coincidence of it all. That I saw her face right in front of me, smacking me, without seeing a thing through my actual eyes.

My moment of realization last night was this - when my friend from Maine texted me, he was actually the third. To me, three is a big number in regards to coincidences. Maybe you could have two, but once you hit three, it's no coincidence, baby.

On a hopeless, a doubting my faith day, I woke to a message from one old friend. Midday got a message from a second old friend. And finally just before going to bed, I got the third message.

I guess you could say, "I got the message". Old friends out of woodwork expressing love and that I am missed when I hadn't connected with each in quite some time, all three pick yesterday specifically to find me again? And three no less, one for each part of a day. Dropped in my lap. I was blown away when I realized. I immediately turned on my bedside light and wrote about it in my diary.

As I was writing, the words kept coming out wrong. I had been trying to write as if for some blog, as if for an audience, and not simply to write it down. Fail. I know better than that. That I need to write simply because I NEED TO WRITE, not because I have some need to be read. And I need to remember that better, I think.

So then this morning, in thinking of this new Tumblr blog I have begun, which so far has only served to mirror THIS blog, I had a new idea... People tend to read blogs that have a theme. A friend has a blog about his transgender journey, and he has a ton of readers. His blog has a theme, something unique and an idea behind it that stays stable, consistent. And I thought, what if this Tumblr of mine had a "purpose", a theme, a consistency that this blog does not. Perhaps I do have a need to be read, as well as to write. And why can I not have two ways, to serve each of my two needs, but separately?

I started THIS blog as a diary, a journal, a place to dump some emotional diarrhea. So why do that on two blogs? Serves no purpose, really, right?

But then, my name is HOPE. I've always wanted to be hope for others, I've always felt my name is part of my purpose. Ever since meeting a boy at age 16 who was blown away that my name is what it is, who did not believe me when we were introduced. He literally demanded my drivers' license to prove my name, because for him to meet someone who was really named HOPE in that moment of HIS life, would have been too coincidental for him to handle right then. Because all he needed most in the world at that exact moment in time? Was a little hope. And there I was. (She smacked him too, apparently) :)

So I think maybe I'm going to keep this blog as my soul's place to purge its whatever. But make this new Tumblr thing all about hope. One for Hope with a big H, and one for hope with a little h.

Tumblr will have none of my whining when I need to vent, that's what this place is for. But when people search by keyword on Tumblr looking for hope, the idea of it, I want to be there for them, I want to serve my purpose. If I could so much as help one more person, like the boy when I was 16, to just get through that one moment in time, that one day of doubt like I had yesterday, then maybe I'd get to give back.

To give back what I was given yesterday. I was given back my hope, by sheer "coincidence" and my goddess. She reminded me why I believe in Her. Not a "God" or diety like the Christians have. But a mother. To me, She is the combined total of all the energy in all of life in all the universe. Energy with a balance weighing to the side of good, of love, of hope, of joy.

If each human being has a soul and a consciousness, just in the one tiny bit of energy we each get to have inside of us for our lifetime, then I believe that if you take all those tiny bits of energy and combine them, the likelihood of that combined energy having some semblance of a soul or consciousness is high, since even a tiny bit does. The combined total of all our bits would have an impressive soul, it seems to me.

I believe that this is our Source, this combined energy. Where we came from and to where we each return at "death". And the closest word we have for such a thing in our language so far is "mother".

Unconditional love and support, wishing us only that we find joy, happiness, that perhaps we learn and evolve, but only in that we are then more able to love each other and find contentment and satiation in our connections to each other, to ourselves and to Her. (I only call this energy a "she" because that is the easier pronoun for me to connect with)

Funny, too, that I have a highly private name for this "goddess" or "mother" figure of mine, this persona that I give to my source energy belief. Until today, my name for her has always been intensely private. Still is, but with the feeling of renewed purpose and hope in faith that I was able to receive last night, that carried into today, I almost feel like her name is soon to be released. That maybe others need a name for this source, too. This "not God" higher power to believe in.

Because the "God of our fathers" has become an idea of man. And in the moment of becoming something belonging to humans, it immediately becomes flawed, imperfect, tainted by our insecurities and our battles. It becomes laden with our desires and our present needs, and loses it's wholeness and balance. For we, we are imperfect, we are not whole.

But my source has not these failings of people. She has only love. And my connection to that love was finally restored again last night. But only with the balance of being given the weight of new purpose. A bargain I am willing to make. A deal I am willing to take. And I am grateful.

happiness who's

silenced disillusionment
free from false belief
beliefs unseen as in dream
to harsh reality's
transparent gleams

drowning disenchantment
finally undeceived
pretty cartoons
of happiness who's
turned off said tv screen.

pieces

Here's how I feel lately...


I feel like pieces, desperately trying to stay together, but falling like sand through finger tips. Like my gravitational force is dissipating and my revolving planets are simply drifting away. Not my friends, but the pieces of me.

My thoughts are irrational and annoying and getting in the way of being able to do what I need to do. My emotions are unstable and giving mixed signals to the rest of my entirety.

I feel far away, distant, like I'm watching from outside, fighting to stay at the window to at least keep watching...

But the tide is coming in, and I feel it's cold water creeping around my ankles, up behind my knees, licking at my hips and washing away any hold I might have.

the dark side of change

I am so frustrated. I have known a person since I was 16 years old. He was one of my best friends for SOOOOO long and for a time, I called him a Brother. Granted, people change, but with his many changes in life (he tries on different masks at different times, so I’m not even sure any more which or if any are the real him?) it’s come to my attention that his opinions of me & my opinions (which he used to respect sooo highly!) have changed right along with his masks.

When I was 16, I was raised seriously Catholic. My parents lost a child before me, and God & their Church helped them survive it, so I can respect them going gung ho into a faith that made them better in the end and kept them functional for their 2 surviving children. They were only ever pushy about their faith to their kids, not other people, and as my father has since explained, he wants me to believe in SOMETHING. The what/where/who/how is far less important to him. But to believe in nothing, to have no faith in anything at all, is a sure way to end up alone and drowning in despair. Which I do agree with now, at 32 years old. And yes, I do believe in something. Not the ‘God of my father’, but I have faith, nonetheless.

But at the time, they were pretty strict with their raising of me, between the religious stuff and them simply refusing to lose another child to life’s randomness and/or a teenager’s naive decision making skills. Again, I can respect that now that I’m a mother too.

This friend of mine, let’s call him Chuck for the sake of conversation… ;) He wasn’t raised anywhere near the way I was. He had no dad pretty much, mom worked her ass off, his Gramma tried with he & his 2 younger brothers, but he was alone a LOT.

But at 16, we were as close as teens can be (without sex). We dated twice during high school, actually, but that’s a whole second part of this story… (I never slept with him, thank you very much!)

But Chuck asked me “why” I believe in God, and challenged me that I shouldn’t believe in something “just because my parents told me to”.

At the time, (and it’s still true), I responded that my sister had died and I refused to believe she was just rotting away in the ground. To this day, after 32 years, I still feel her with me sometimes, when I need support most and feel most alone, it’s like if I turn around fast enough, I’ll see her standing behind me, helping to hold me up. I literally feel like someone else, her specifically, in the room with me. And there have been times that I am honestly shocked, as logical a being as I am, to NOT find her where I felt her, just outside the bounds of my peripheral vision.

So I answered him, that because of this, and because I do believe this world has some sense of balance to it (given a long enough time line, though, and most aren’t willing to wait that long to believe), that THAT is why I believe in God. NOT because my parents “make” me.

He kept on at me, trying to convince me that there is no God, for years, and for years, I never relented.

Fast forward a decade or so, and now this friend is a pretty “reformed” Christian! Blows me away, that he went from super hard-core-vegan goth rebel who hates any form of authority & you’re a lesser being for submitting to “the man” personality, to this button-up tie-wearing cubicle-working white collar preachy Christian? To me, that’s a pretty big leap, even if it took about a decade to get himself there.

So now, he acts as if nothing I ever say could be coming from an intelligent thought. Even though he suddenly believes in the God of my father, now. He even once denied to my face that he ever didn’t! I gave him what-for on that one! Liar.

But now, with this new change of his, I must be an idiot all of a sudden. Because I disagree with his bigotry of anyone LGBT (heads up to my good friend who fits within that description and knows who I’m referencing here today! DO NOT come out to THIS person EVER or you’ll just get ig’nance back), that because I disagree with his stance that rape victims should be forced to have the baby (and I really, really, really do disagree) cuz all abortion is 100% wrong, that because I disagree with him I must just be some ditzy dumb girl who just believes whatever she reads or is told, who just jumps on any bandwagon with no thought behind it, who doesn’t really care about anything but her own selfish interests now. Funny, because when you ask him why he believes what he now believes, he always ends up quoting his pastor to me… Instead of a real answer. Well, that or he ends up attacking what I said instead of answering my question. Hmmm….

It baffles me that he could assume such things, having known me as long as he has, having respected me for as long as he had.

I cannot tell you how many times, while I was engaged and then married to my husband (it’s been 9 years of marriage next month, we have an amazing daughter and hubbs is still truly the love of my life, not everyone can say that…), that he attempted to convince me that I should leave the man I love for him. That despite him deciding to end both our attempted relationships (IN HIGH SCHOOL) himself, that I should give him one more chance.

I cannot count how many times I heard him say “but the third time is the charm”. I occasionally would reply, sorry hun but it’s not ‘3 strikes you’re out’ with relationships with me, you only get 2 tries and you gave up what you had both times. (I mean, you should have seen how badly he broke my heart the first time, and who he DUMPED ME FOR??!?! Dumbass.)

I’m thinking perhaps he’s angry with me for THAT, for being the one who got away, for being really intelligent and NOT HIS. His blatant animosity towards me peaked when he got serious with the girlfriend he was dating while still begging for me to take him back…

I asked him once if he truly loved her, was passionate to be beside her daily, that kind of thing. Because from the outside looking in, I didn’t see it, but that I believed it could still be there as many people simply don’t make those feelings as public as others do. But that I wanted him to tell me he loved her deeply, and then I would believe it and support them fully (this was back when my opinion mattered to him).

Since that comment, he has pushed me away, hard. He has been argumentative and often times, just plain mean to me. Judging me for assumptions he made, that sort of thing.

And I wonder, did my comment strike a chord, my old friend? Did I say something you really did NOT want to hear, and from someone who knows you & really does care? Or at least, did. Now I see him as this faker, who has two faces depending on the audience or his mood or his setting. I have lost all respect for him, his opinions, even though he is still a highly intelligent human being.

But he’s changed too many times and now I wonder if he even knows who he himself is, since it is so very hard for me to see the real him any more either. Perhaps he has the same problem.

I hold out hope for him, knowing how great he once was. I’m not sure if she is to blame, or it’s just plain him, but either way, I am pretty much just saddened by it all.

I mourn the loss of a good human being in this world, one who could have made this place just a little bit better. And I grieve that I mourn someone who hasn’t even really died. At least not physically.

But I suppose that is the shadowy dark side…

…of change.

no withdrawl without a deposit first

All I wanted was for my girl to have a great birthday party. And I guess from her eyes, it was. It just sucks so hard right now knowing from adult eyes, just how much was shitty about it too.

I guess I just don't get it, how kids so young could find so much JOY in destroying things that belong to another. No wonder kids don't care if they bully another kid into killing themself. We're raising whole generations based on "oh just go buy another on your credit card". What about respect? What about other people's FEELINGS?

You're so busy worrying about what you are entitled to, what someone else owes YOU, that you forget you can't withdraw from a bank account you don't deposit into. We all owe one thing to each other - COEXISTENCE. You are owed nothing by a system you do not yourself feed into.

I spent so much friggin money this weekend, trying to make sure everyone had a great time. I put in hours of effort into decorating & planning & cooking. And I invited people into my HOME. And they trashed my stuff, the things I'd saved up for my GUESTS were destroyed by just a few, in the name of "FUN", and I might have even been stolen from (a present for my CHILD, for pete's sake!)

Really? Is my having you over to my HOME just an excuse for you to forget you had kids & go get drunk & smoke cigarettes? Sorry if you LIE to your children that you smoke, but that doesn't mean you get to just leave them unparented for long enough to go around my 1 acre yard breaking all 40 helium balloons decorating it long before the party ends. Balloons that were going to be sent home with YOUR KIDS as GIFTS for them!

And to go all over my yard doing that much damage must have taken awhile, so where the FUCK WERE YOU?

By the way, they came at my sliding glass door with that giant stick they used to break them all, and you better be damn thankful I stopped them at that point, because that big of a stick would have shattered my door (or another kid's HEAD, hello??). Honestly, I should have let them swing it and bust my door so maybe for once, JUST FOR ONCE, you would have a negative effect on YOU THE PARENT for leaving your kids unattended and cracked out on sugar. You could have paid the hundreds if not a thousand bucks to have that whole glass slider replaced for me. Would that have been worth hiding from your kids for an hour of "relief"?

A birthday party should be FUN. Not destruction.

Even my husband's favorite outdoor game was destroyed by kids, again in the name of "fun". He was really really bummed out when he figured it out the day after. WHY ARE YOU RAISING YOUR KIDS TO FIND JOY IN TAKING THINGS AWAY FROM OTHERS??? What the hell seeds are you planting for the future, here???

Honestly, we'll see if I even HAVE a party for her next year. Or the invite list will vastly change. And I am certainly NOT offering up MY HOME for someone else to break stuff all over it next year. I have the best yard for parties ever. And ya'll gone & ruined it. I feel used. I feel like my child was jipped out of her BIRTHDAY joy. So you could drink another beer & lie to your kids about your nicotine habit & hide from them as if it didn't matter they were parentless and let their horrible behavior be someone else's problem for awhile. Only, they caused enough damage for your short reprieve from them to STILL be effecting me, here, days later. Enjoy that.

But I guess selfish kids come from selfish parents, right? So maybe I should stop letting my child be around those kids, then. For both our sakes. Cuz I'm done.

denial, motivation & a couple of rainbows thrown in for good measure

So no amazing news this month... I was so looking forward to being pregnant again, even though it's annoying as hell. Now I know what all the sacrifice is really worth, looking at my almost-4-year-old daughter every day. And, like a good American, I want MORE of that. :) But not this time, apparently. Life has other plans for us right now, so it claims. Perhaps she's just giving me a month to get some shit in order. I hope this delay is just a short one, though. I have the baby itch pretty badly!

But I have a lot to figure out just now without that I suppose... My car is so hurtin' and I really need to step up and just invest in something else finally. Jump ship before the boat sinks, as it were. But I hate giant decisions, especially those effecting MONEY, although I can pretty much guarantee I am NOT alone in that!

But I have indeed been feeling slightly more life-motivated these days than normal, so I'm trying to maintain it as long as I can...

We were blessed to be given some furniture by someone more fortunate than us, who can afford all brand new furniture & was just going to give a gorgeous dining room set & bedroom set to Goodwill! All we had to do was pick it up for it to be ours, so of course we did! It took some nagging of the husband and a whole lot of house-reorganization (including getting rid of a whole mess of other furniture in our house that was functional but ugly & old as sin, also hand-me-downs but from close to a decade ago, so really needing replacement) but the house looks far better already!

So now that has motivated me to go through all kinds of other stuff... Emptying junk drawers in the house that just collect random stuff so nothing ever goes where it actually NEEDS to (like into the trash can or out to my husband's shed, already full of do-hockies & thing-a-ma-bobs), to go through clothes that should go to Goodwill to free up bureau & closet space, to go through tupperware that have no matching lids, to go through my entire pantry/storage closet to get rid of anything I possibly can, etc....

I have no idea how long this wave of motivation will last, so I'm just surfing it the best I can while I can. I even brought a giant bin of memories up from my basement to see what I can get rid of (or now display in my "new" hutch!). I had forgotten that I have a couple really nice knick-knacks that I received as wedding gifts that I'd just wrapped up & stored away since there was never a safe place to display it until now. (Waterford Crystal, baby!!)

So I guess I'll just have to wait for now, and live vicariously through friends with babies or about to burst... (sigh) But I'd love to have something new to talk about with my sister (instead of her latest boy blunder or life explosion o' drama), I'd love to have something to really look forward to & to keep me motivated getting things done... There's nothing like needing to plan for the arrival of a baby to get your ass in gear, let me tell ya! :) They call it "nesting" but really it's just "OMG get shit done while you still CAN!" prep. :)

In the meantime, work is work, they call it work cuz it's never fun, but it's tolerable enough to get paid and I do with with mostly good people. One coworker in particular drives me absolutely batty, but she's well intentioned so what can you do, right? It's virtually impossible to find anything to do where you like everyone you do it with, at least from my experience. But people here say "thank you" and "good morning" and ask about your kids now and then, which isn't always the norm. Now & then my boss brings me some random dessert from his lunch out, or a coworker offers me a toy for my kid that was their kid's toy but has been grown out of... So mostly generous folks, so I guess I'll stay a bit...

I always fear the "what if" though, what if someone offered me something else tomorrow? Would my friend who got me this job suffer somehow for that? What if I did get pregnant next month, and I tell my boss only to have him flip out or try to deny maternity or eff me over somehow for it? What if I mess something up so badly that it ruins anything good I've done to date? But then there are the good what if's. What if my husband found a job like one he's had in the past, that did indeed financially allow me to leave my job and focus on raising our daughter for almost two full years? What if we won the lotto tomorrow? ;) Oh those 'what if's always jumping in when you want them the least. :)

But this weekend is my baby's 4th birthday so I guess today I should just focus there. My best friend from college is coming from the Cape, to stay all weekend with her daughter (a year younger than mine) to help with the party & to just plain visit. I'm pretty excited. The "theme" of the party is Rainbows, so I've been making tissue paper flowers (woohoo for being a daycamp counselor all those years, I'm good with random cheap crafts that look way more awesome than they were hard to make) in each color for decorations, as well as paper rainbows to hang from our ceilings. Here are images from the interweb that are similar, so you can see what I've been doing! :D



And aren't these COOL?


Ok I'll leave it at that. Gotta job to do... Til next time...

to stop... that i may begin

inspiration has been failing me, and so i wonder, have i not been listening correctly? usually when it suddenly stops, it's because i have tried to usurp control over something that is meant to use me, not vice versa. usually because i try to control something that is created and born of chaos and imagery and symbolism and metaphor, and here i am trying to give it concrete word and form and grammar. here i am demanding of it dialogue and punctuation. and so i ask in what way i may change to be more open to the metaphor of meaning, the metaphor that is the ebb and flow of my life's tidal phases? i ask to stop, so that i may yet again begin.


All This And Heaven Too
by Florence + The Machine:



"And the heart is hard to translate,
It has a language of its own,
It talks in tongues and quiet sighs and prayers and proclamations,
In the grand days of great men and the smallest of gestures,
In short shallow gasps!

But with all my education,
I can't seem to command it,
And the words are all escaping me,
And coming back all damaged,
And I would put them back in poetry,
If I only knew how,
I can't seem to understand it,

And I would give all this and heaven too,
I would give it all if only for a moment,
That I could just understand the meaning of the word you see,
'Cause I've been scrawling it forever,
But it never makes sense to me at all.

And it talks to me in tiptoes,
And sings to me inside,
It cries out in the darkest night,
And breaks in morning light.
But with all my education,
I can't seem to command it,
And the words are all escaping,
And coming back all damaged,
And I would put them back in poetry,
If I only knew how,
I can't seem to understand it,

And I would give all this and heaven too,
I would give it all if only for a moment,
That I could just understand the meaning of the word you see,
'Cause I've been scrawling it forever,
But it never makes sense to me at all.

No, words are a language,
It doesn't deserve such treatment,
And all my stumbling phrases,
Never amounted to anything worth this feeling,
All this heaven,
Never could describe such a feeling as I'm having,
Words were never so useful,
So I was screaming out a language that I never knew existed before."

surreal cereal bowls of clouded sun

for all I know you're in there now
for all I know you're not
it is in this waiting, this
anticipating
it gets to me every time.

the two week drag
between knowing and un
'tween fantasy and fun
surreal cereal bowls
of clouded sun.

i really wish
i wish i knew
if your kiss can
be my new dish
or is it much too soon?

oh the things we want
so badly very bad
they end up owning us
even if we never had

but in that way
i'm ok to pray
for wanting but more love
in every breath of my air.
i really hope
you're in there.

a blessed loser

I'm not sure what I'm feeling. So when I feel that I think to write. But then I doubt myself, and then deny. But today I'm just going to do, not doubt.

I feel like the most blessed person in the world. And yet I feel like the biggest loser too.

Blessed:
Yesterday I almost died. I came around a narrow curve and there was a car in my lane coming straight at me. He'd been trying to pass another on-coming car. I still can't figure out how we didn't hit, not at all, and how I didn't flip my car trying to avoid his. I feel protected after that.

And because of it, my husband went off last night about how if that guy had indeed killed his whole family (my daughter was in the car) he'd have brought a gun into the courtroom & shot the guy dead. He wouldn't care what happened to him after, since everything he loved was already gone. Then he got teary & told me that I'm still the best decision he's ever made in his life. Then we tried to make us another baby. ;)

Loser:
I don't know what's up with my thoughts lately, but every word I say I feel like someone is criticizing it, or it's not good enough, or it was the wrong thing to say, or someone rolled their eyes at my comments. Every choice I make, my brain bashes later for one reason or another. Every person I interact with must think I'm crazy, or think I share too much, or that I'm an idiot for finding joy in something so foolish, or that I am just too young & naive simply because I try to not become jaded the way they have or in the areas that they have.

Why am I seeing myself so critically? I know what certain people who care about me would say. That I'm wrong, and I'm great, and they need me and love me. And yet, on days like this, knowledge like that isn't really helping.

And so I just keep holding on to my husband's words last night. He's the one who counts most, right? He's the one I chose to be around day in and day out, to talk to multiple times every single day, to wake up to and fall asleep beside, who's hand I want to hold 86,927,432.77 times in my life. ;)

He's my inspiration, my strength, my biggest pet peeve and my most vocal supporter. He grounds me when my head is in the clouds, he holds me up when I'm weak. But he also drives me absolutely crazy, as any good roommate would. As anyone who really really knows me would. Because I allow myself to be vulnerable to him, as part of my trust in him. Sometimes I want to smack him, sometimes I want to have a thousand of his children, I guess it all depends on what kind of day we each are having.

Interesting that I was so desperately unsure what to write about today, in my quest to find some sense of balance within this "I am a blessed loser" battle within me, that is exhausting me in all ways. And interesting that I ended up going on and on about my husband instead. And how much I love him. And I guess that answers my debate.

He & I both got a glimpse of how short our time together could be, if life wanted it to be short. And he & I both saw a truth, and blessed be that it was the same truth for us both. That what we have is a gift. So I'm going to try to hold onto that above all today.

Now watch, he'll probably be some stinker tonight now that I've raved about how great he is... ;) He always seems to know when I've bragged about him, and then proves me wrong. hahaaa :) But he's mine, and I am his. And we have our daughter, and maybe another kid will come. Our little family is the greatest blessing of all.

I guess I should stop worrying about other people thinking I'm a loser, since my family alone makes me the biggest winner.

tending the garden of my mind

In the end, I really only have control over my own head. I can't control what life throws at me, I can't control what other people do or choose, I can't control if my body stays healthy or gets sick, I can't control whether or not someone loves me or has the wrong impression of me, I can't control almost anything outside of my physical form and can't control most of my physical form itself.

But I can control my head, my thoughts, my brain. I like to see it as my own personal playground. If I want to fantasize about being on a tropical beach for a few minutes to escape work stress, who'd know? So therefore, no one can judge or criticize me for it, so why not?

As difficult as it may be to actually LIVE those words, that I can control my thoughts, it really is under my control. Most of my faults are all up in that head, some are too big to handle right now, yes, but others, not so much. And if I try to take on one of those faults at a time, or deal with a few small ones slowly over time, then I'm constantly getting better, and that's all I can ask of myself, right? If I'm always trying, always traveling, then I've never given up, so hopefully people won't give up on me in return. We can only ask of ourselves to be better, not perfect.

My dad told me many times that if in our lives we come further than our parents came, that alone is a success. His grandfather was illiterate (direct from Lithuania, be glad the man could speak English, let alone try to write it...), his father could read & write but never got past high school & was a violent drunk. My father amazes me in that he not only graduated college, he also stopped the generations of alcoholism that plagued his family with his life. So that my life could be without. He said, just take one step more than I took, and I will be more proud of you than any parent could be. You don't have to be perfect, but be better than those that came before.

Another amazing piece of advice I was given years ago, in my journey to continually make myself better, was to stop trying to change who I am. If there is something about myself, about my thinking, that I want changed, stop trying to force myself to stop that behavior and stop criticizing myself for the behavior every single time it occurs. Instead, try only to recognize every single time the behavior/thought/choice arises within me. To notice it every time it occurs and only notice, acknowledge, recognize it for what it is. Not try to change it, just to be aware of it.

The idea is that maybe we don't like something about how we react or what we say or do, but we're actually doing/reacting/behaving in that manner far more often than we even admit to ourselves. That if we try to force a change willfully, we will be blind to half the times we're really even doing it. But by simply putting forth the effort into NOTICING doing it, instead of wasting our efforts on the harder mission of "changing" it, we will notice ourselves doing it WAY more than we ever imagined. That we blind ourselves to our faults, not intentionally, but we just do. And by simply acknowledging just how often we REALLY are doing what we want changed, that recognition alone will help our brains wrap around the behavior & in the end, without effort, we will find ourselves making that choice or reacting in that way less and less. It's the seeing that provokes the change, not the effort of trying to force the change.

That's not only difficult to put into words right here, but also crazy difficult to actually achieve. But to me, everything is based on the phrase "GIVEN A LONG ENOUGH TIME LINE". My goal in life is to be who I want to be, who I am PROUD to be, by age 87. I have no idea why that age specifically, but on my death bed, I want to be proud of who I was. Whether after I die I will meet God, be reincarnated, disappear from existence, or something totally different, the details matter not if I lived a life I am proud to have lived, a life I loved, enjoyed, and a life that will continue on after my physical form is gone, through the memories I helped create and the lives I have touched. I don't understand why people waste energy on trying to figure out what happens when you die, when you have a whole life to live right here in front of you. Do the best you can with what you have means living your LIFE, stop fighting & killing over stuff we'll never get to know 100% for sure. Maybe that's the POINT of not knowing what comes when we die, so we can get OVER IT and MOVE ON with what's right in FRONT OF US.

So in honor of that, and in honor of my obsessive personal need to CONTROL things to feel safe, secure, and like a successful human, I just try to control my HEAD. When I start to fall asleep and I am bombarded by insecurities or fears or worry or anxiety or regret for what I did or didn't say or did or didn't do... I now try to note that I am doing something I want to change. And then I ask myself one simple "mantra" of a question (mantra, in that I hold onto this question as one of my saving graces in life, since it has helped me sooo much and allows me to sleep a lot more than I ever would without it...). I ask myself "Can you do anything about this RIGHT NOW? Right now, while you're laying here in bed, if you got up right this second, could you really do anything to fix this, or control this? What could you do about it RIGHT THIS SECOND? ANYTHING???" The answer is pretty much always NOPE. So the follow up question is this... "Then why are you worrying about it?" I can't explain to you exactly why this works for me, but I share in it the hope that maybe it'll work for someone else too. If even one person gets one extra night of sleep because I shared, then I can die happy at 87. (See what I'm doing here??)

When I get toooooo self conscious, or start replaying situations in my head after they're over, and I start criticizing myself for things I did or didn't say, or start assuming people were thinking this or that about me, or must be thinking this or that about me now, that's one of my biggest issues in life. One of my greatest battles. Granted, I admit now that I never expect to be fully free of this (I feel it's just one more piece of the human condition cuz every single person I've ever met does this too, at least sometimes. I think it's built into us so that we are then able to evolve ourselves. I don't think we were hardwired to do this just to feel like crappy people, but to then recognize what we want to change about ourselves.) BUT, if and when I can catch myself having these thoughts, about how I'm not good enough or reacted wrong or whatever, I first try to tell myself, you're probably being overly critical of yourself. Then I try to allow myself to really think about the situation (if I have the internal strength to do so at that moment, which a LOT of the time, I just don't. Again, I have to stop judging myself for THAT too!) as real and logically as I can, and really let myself consider if my behavior WAS incorrect, or if I DID say anything offensive, who was there to hear it & how they feel about me (my family & friends knowing the real me & loving me both despite of and because of my faults vs strangers who don't know or love my quirks).

I cannot be blind to when I am wrong, but I also cannot simply tell myself I'm horrible because of it. If I reevaluate a situation and do believe I was wrong for some reason, instead of just sitting on the "you're a jerk" or "you're stupid" or "they hated you" concept that I have the tendency to just keep & focus on, I then really try to ask myself, "Ok then, what would/should you do NEXT TIME?" I go through the situation again in my head, replaying it but changing it for how I WISH I had handled it, what I WISH I had done or said or not done or not said. Then I tell myself, "Ok, then that's what you'll do next time." and focus on THAT, not the "bad Hope" thoughts that my brain would rather hold onto. Because just telling myself "No, bad, wrong" isn't going to change ANYTHING. And then next time, I'll be stuck feeling like a jerk yet again. Why put my energy & effort THERE, when I can focus on what the 87 year old me would be PROUD OF on her DEATH BED in that situation.

Again, far easier to say than do, but I try. And trying is all I have. Cuz I'm stuck all by myself in this brain of mine, in these healthy or unhealthy thoughts, no one will ever fully understand exactly what my life feels like, why I make some of my choices, or who I am COMPLETELY. No one but me (at least that I am allowed to be aware of, in this life, in this moment, in this reality we all share). So if this brain is my home, and I am here alone, then it is MINE. Then it will be what I make of it. And if I sit and allow myself to let this brain be a landfill of regret and judgments, then my external life will mirror that.

But if I try to tend the garden of my mind like I care for, weed, water and till the garden in my backyard, then my life will mirror THAT. And I love the hope and life within a tended garden. Why on earth would I choose to simply let be what doesn't have to be, when I really do have a choice. Even though, that choice, is the harder one to make. Wallowing in misery is harder, though. At least to 87 year old me.

BBQ out the bad

Please let me trip all over myself
fall face first upon my sword
just to give you that feeling
of having that very last word

Please let me just fly, dear,
to the wayside, way aside
sideways to your desires, love,
where you think I ought reside

Don't think, no, don't stop to see
thinking might just mean,
oh my, to show you anew
so very differently

Are not you so angry now
angry at everything you want
aren't you so picture perfect
swimmin' in that swamp

A t.v. show embodied
a sitcom humors' sad
but over here in poverty
we BBQ out the bad

but stand back while I
swan dive into this muck
simply 'cuz you beg for it
for sh*t to turn to f*ck.

verbarrhea

I am so overwhelmed by such double standards. You speak, I listen. You complain, I try to console. Things you ramble on about often mean nothing to me and it is a waste of my precious little time to nod & smile as you go on for days about how you are the victim.

But I do, because I feel it would be unkind of me to not. That I would be rude or hurting feelings if I did not participate in the occasional banter.

And yet when I speak, regardless of it being a reply to things you say or a whole new topic, you act as if you are too important to waste your time on me. That any opinion I have is invalid simply because I am not you. You dismiss things I know for fact to be true, simply because you were not taught that. But if we each studied completely different things, and I would consider information you have that I was not taught as likely to be correct, since that was your life goal to study it, then why on earth would you just assume I'm an idiot about anything I spent good money to learn and what I now earn good money to use daily in my life?

Why is it ok for you to treat me so much less than you expect to be treated? Ever consider this is why your life is so unhappy and why your eyes turn green with even one glance at my happy little family photo? Why you seem so unsure and so much you do is simply a reaction to your own self esteem issues? I am tired of this game. This game I play with so very many, and each in their own way.

If you tell me you're so glad I'm in your life and tell me how wise I am when you are at your lowest and need me most, how can you then come back later and tell me how naive I am simply because you have no use of me in that moment.

What ever happened to being kind to each other and treating others the way you'd want to be treated? To not doing something or saying something to another that you yourself would find hurtful or unkind or disrespectful?

Simply because we are told we are unique, that we are each beautiful and deserving of everything we have potential for, that we need to "be ourselves" and be true to our inner voices, that does not give you the right to behave however you'd like. That does not mean that you can use someone else and then dismiss them like a servant.

It means be a servant to all and in that serving you will find your true self, your power, your happiness and earn respect from those around you. It means taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves, so that you will be taken care of in your own moment of inability or falling. It means simply be kind, for those around you are fighting battles in their own lives or own souls that you have no idea they are fighting, so who are you to judge shoes you yourself have never even tried on, let alone worn around for a bit.

It means dealing with the fact that you are not the single most important thing in your own life. Even our ancestors thought the sun revolved around the earth. Perhaps we are still all learning that life lesson, just in a newer form. Perhaps, we never will.

step up, damnit.

Little do you know, but your child will soon open up to you. Open up in a way you can't even imagine. And now is your time. It's your time to prove how unconditional the love of a parent can be. Now is your time to step up.

I worry that you will disappoint him. That you will be unwilling to see past yourself. That you will turn everything into how it relates to you. What will others think, of you. What stress will this add, to your life. And that saddens me, and I hope more for you, tentatively.

I hope that you saw but did not say. That you felt but did not push. That you know but are simply waiting for lips other than your own to speak the truth that has existed this whole time.

I hope you can live up to the amazingness that is within your child. I hope that your child finds strength in you, and is not forced to see your weaknesses.

Step up, damnit.

blood of my blood

I woke up this morning to seven, yes SEVEN, text messages from probably my single best friend in the world.

She thanked me for always listening, for walking with her, beside her, in front or behind, but always together.

She reminded me that I am always with her and she with me, no matter what, we are never alone.

She said that because she has me, she'll always be on top.

And that she was sending her strength to me at that single moment in time, but offered me no reason why. Simply knowing that I would know the "why" without needing her words to define it.

Why is because she can see without even opening her eyes.
Why is because she can read without ever seeing a single serif, without a single true word, she can read between my lines.
Why is because she knows me better than I know myself.
Why is because she can feel my intonations, my unique connotations,
why I pick the words I do, why I order them, rhyme them or simply deny them.

Why is because she knows when there are tears beyond dry eyes and quiet lashes.
Why is because she is my sister, my blood,
my sweat and my tears, my smiles and joys, my pain and my pride.

Why is because
she cares.

We were made to go together like Marley & Reggae baby. I know you are not a believer, but you are part of the reason I have any faith in God, because no one but God could give me the gift of you & your love.

I thank you deeper than any ocean, for knowing me and loving me and walking beside me every single day. For seeing past what I show simply because you just know.

This onion-layered girl loves you to the core of my core. You are the blood of my blood, the moon of my stars. xo

my pretty little formulaic rhythm

There are the days I feel on top of the world. I have the best husband and daughter a woman could ask for. My parents are alive and healthy, still mostly happily married, working part time despite their retirement and traveling all over the place.

My family has a roof overhead, heat in the winters, cool air in the summers, food in a fridge and fairly clean water for drinking. I have friends for whom I care deeply and seem to care for me as well. I have an unconditionally loving dog to greet me every night, I am able to see the sun with my own eyes and feel it's light and heat warm my skin, and I am healthy enough to work and walk and sing and play.

Other days I feel like the gum beneath someone's shoe, stepped on and stretched too far. Stuck, unstable and precarious, knowing I could be tossed aside in a heartbeat at the moment someone notices my presence. Some days feel useless, some feel heartless, some feel numb and some just ironically harsh.

What I am trying to do is put all these days into one basket, my life. How to balance and reconcile so many days, so different and so fierce, into one sweet bank rec on a computer full of numbers and codes. But life won't let me. Too many viruses on that computer, too many variables effecting my pretty little formulaic rhythm. Perhaps that's why I obsess over things like Phi...

http://www.goldennumber.net/

http://www.natures-word.com/sacred-geometry/phi-the-golden-proportion/phi-the-golden-proportion-in-nature

Today, I guess today can be described by just plain out of sorts, out of energy, out of patience, feeling disconnected to all, feeling alone yet responsible to those who in any way depend on me despite feeling like I'm about to drop everything I'm trying to juggle with them or for them if even one drop of rain should add to my baggage.

I wonder how much of this is hormonal, if, when I hit certain days of my cycle, I will just get "down" and need to anticipate that better.

Or what if I am effected by the turns of the earth, the phases of the moon, the flares of the sun, or the alignment of planets I cannot see with my fallible human eyes?

What if I am somehow in a place I was not supposed to be at? What if I am picking up and feeling the fears and disconnections of people with whom I am closely tied? What if this is all I'll ever be?

It's funny how many people tell me their feelings & thoughts and simply assume they are and will always be alone in those thoughts or feelings. To hear "you are not alone" has such differing reactions. Some are offended that they are somehow no longer "unique" in their pain, and try to compete as if their pain is more valid, is worse, or should be held in higher regard somehow. Others suddenly gain relief, to not be alone means this too shall pass, or someone out there might understand, or in some way get hope from those words. Some people deny that anyone could possibly understand, as if they must be alone simply because they are who they are, as if we are not all human, we are not all emotional and self conscious every single day, as if we don't all judge ourselves or question the things we are told or feel or know to be true.

I know that I am not alone, in oh so many ways. I have my sweet little family, my extended blood family, I have my "Famylie" (a group of very close friends with whom I have spent years creating a new family, a family of choice, a family of coexistance and non judgementalism, a family of love where many had no family at all) and most importantly, I have my faith.

Trust me, it's not your faith or any faith you've ever heard of before. It's a faith based on years of personal searching, of intimate introspective debates, of evolutionary decades of life each different in its discoveries and travels, a faith tailored to only fit me. My higher power speaks to me in words no one else could understand, but speak she does, not when I ask her to, but when I need it most. My higher power has nothing to do with your God. She may have some things in common, but she is not "God" as our society defines her in any way. And she is mine, and I am hers.

I do highly recommend to you that you find your higher power, it need not have a name, it need not have a face or a definition. But to have something to believe in that is larger than yourself, something that can never die, that you never need fear of leaving, something that is wishing the best for you and believes in you when you find it impossible to believe in yourself or anything else, THAT is what faith provides.

Religion lost it's purpose along the way, and so we are forced to re-find that something for ourselves, to save ourselves.

I wonder what Jesus would say about each of us becoming our own saviors. I personally think he'd adore the idea. But that's just MY faith talking. And it's ok if yours isn't mine. As long as it works for YOU.

PS how did this post evolve so randomly? I'll take it.

Angry that I am angry.

I feel so very angry inside today. Not even sure what on earth to type. Just kinda want to type.

Let's start at the beginning I guess, which is... I feel angry. I am full of it.

Angry at myself for my countless list of stupid useless criticisms and judgments.

Angry at victims who are full of whined excuses and devoid of common sense reality.

Angry at people who take one look at me and assume they have me alllllll figured out.

Angry at people who should know me so well, and yet still feel entitled to demanding more of my time or effort than my own family gets to have.

Angry at life for being hard, confusing, stressful, tiring and never ending.

Angry at my pillow for losing it's poof.

Angry at the sun for hiding for too many days in a row.

Angry at my car for needing new tires.
Again.

Angry at my husband for making me wait for things that I, too, know I should wait for.

Angry at those I care about for making foolish decisions that hurt themselves and I am helpless to fix them.

Angry at money, for it's control over my life, for it's lack within my life, for it's boastfulness all around me, though I can never quite get to it.

Angry that I am required to be away from my daughter as much as I am, just to be able to feed her and keep her warm.

Angry that yesterday, I let her down.

Angry that I physically do not feel well, and that feeling is becoming more and more constant.

Angry
that I am angry.

Maybe curling up with said daughter when I get home from work will dissolve this anger. Her joy is too contagious for me to deny. Her love too unconditional, even if I cause her tears for any reason, she still forgives me with a hug and tells me I am loved. I will try to hold onto that right now. For her, I will try.

Perhaps I'll write a more hopeful blog tomorrow.

Shall not will not not.

Test me, yes.
Test me, do.

Push me, yes.
Push me right on through.

But deny me not the promises made.
I will trust the faith,
trust the game,
as long as you
just keep calling my name.

Your presence known you made me see,
sang to me in strangers' weaves,
but now you feel so far away
what a change in only a day,
only a day.

I gave to you my way to be,
I offered you unsurmountable seize.
Now you test if too this I may hold,
and test away, but leave me not cold.
Leave me not old if the souled will be sold.

Do not do not do not and I shall not shall not will not not.

Test me, yes.
Test me, do.

Push me, yes.
Push me right on through.

Teach me rules,
guide me within,
to hold onto breezes
blowin round the din.

I will doubt not in faith alone,
I guess this rest is too your test.
Test too hot for this small breast
and much too sharp
for the rest.

If you ask I will hold
and fear not forboding fold
because we made a deal
and you know what I feel
because your rainbow
could complete
this wheel

Do not do not do not and I shall not shall not will not not.

Test me, yes.
Test me, do.

Push me, yes.
Push me right on through.

To you.

Used tears in it's wake.

Logic says there is no need to cry. But the heart has very different opinions about the definition of "need". And so I take a page from the book of "advice to others" and spin it around to face myself, for once, as hard as that can seem to be, and put it all down. Not let it go, no, for that would be far easier said than done as so much else. But to put it down, as in to let my fingers dance faster than a pen could ever write, dance and click along the keys of this keyboard, dancing to release a sweltering melting as parts of me drip the chemical eating away at parts I had not known I carry. A sadness so deep, not even numbness could taint. A fear so clear not even fog could hide, as much as the hiding tempts. For to swallow this pill could stop the till, churning to evolve this field that I have faith You will sow. But the one-liner of my life, "given a long enough timeline" laughs in my face today, as I cry out to know just how far that might flow. The waiting, the waiting, the anticipating, now to come to hopeless head makes so much suddenly seem so futile and my breathing dries like used tears in it's wake. A sense I cannot make. Though I do know it, it is only reactive, yet my heart draws no such lines in the sands of my times, and refuses the logic that all love and support would then cite as reprieve. Oh for a reprieve to stand so simple. But there is nothing none can do, nothing one can do, but the One who is true could change up this weakened blue, if the She only knew how to fix me,
by fixing you.

Please. Please do. So that I might feel but all of the You's, as close to me as I know can be true.
I give ourselves, to You.


Take this from my heart, and replace it, with my Hope,

one more time.

Ich Bin Mir Nicht Leid.

Do you know how long it took to make that decision? Weighing it, removing from the table of options only to have you force my hand and put it back, time and time again. Do you understand how long I battled the choice I finally made? It was not made easily. It was not made quickly, not without guilt, not without loss, not without mourning. Of course, you'd never see such truth. And that is just one soft reminder of why I ended up on the side of the coin that I landed upon in the end. Because you cared, yes, but more about yourself. Because you tried, yes, but for all the wrong reasons. Because we were so close, oh yes, but too often, that intimacy was harness against me, side-swiping me with heartache I second guessed even having, because of you. And who would have thought we'd be here today. You'd never have believed I'd have stood so tall, so as to blind myself even to your shadows. You still likely doubt my resolve in this. But I have always been unwilling to be anyone's pavement, to be someone's constant justification, to be cause for harm I myself would never pay forward. Look at me now, sweeping up the people you've tossed away, into piles of love and gratitude and support. Look as us now, a famylie of faeries, only possible without the poison we'd unknowingly been feasting, with our well intentioned hopes and smiles. But I will fight the toxicity, even the single droplets of your seedlings, hiding in a mist of new joys. I will stand in my resolve to only focus on what's good for us, what brings the greatest love into all our lives. And I am truly sorry that sentence lives without you, as do we, but that is the end of my sorries and sorrow because of this choice. The relief of it reminds me daily why it was so overdue in it's fulfillment. A choice that took so very many years to come to final scales. And in this balance, I regret it not. Ich bin mir nicht leid.

the wetness of weeping

For as 'in love' with him as I still am after more than a decade, I cannot get you out of my head. You planted your seeds so deep within this core that none could even try to find the base root that would need to be destroyed to remove you completely. A root that does not kill in it's spreading, a root that twists & turns around and within everything, but never suffocates that which it encompasses. Too bad your love had not been the same...

I wonder often if you think of me. If you even remember.
I suppose you do, but I wonder if this newest lover of yours looks just like me, as all the rest have, since me. Funny, because I looked nothing like the one I replaced, all those years ago. A trend I began for you?

I watch your daughter grow, you know. Not ours, of course. Mothering your young was a priviledge I refused you, a priviledge that ruined us with it's impossibility, impossible to me. As much as I loved you, I would never have been able to explain to my children how I chose you for their father, how I chose the instability, the inconsistency, the depression, the risk taking, the drama, the narcissism, the addiction, the self destruction. 'Love' was not a good enough answer. Not to me, so how too for them?
I would never have been able to beg their forgiveness, as many I know have tried with their grown children, with the perfect vision of hindsight, and all in vain.

She is beautiful, and I know you don't even know it. Don't know her face, her smile, her laugh. Do you know why, at least? Why you left her? When all you really needed was to leave her mother? You left her the way you judged your own mother for leaving you, for "a better life", the life she promised with her absence and still was not able to give you in the end? Because that is what you are doing to her. Promising her better, when really you're just running away. But that's what you blamed your mother for, so why should it be different, right? Wasn't that the way you'd justify? With 'why bother'? Anything must be better than you, right? So sad you believed that, because I never did.

I guess I am thankful that you 'bothered' with me for as long as you did. You opened eyes that were unaware of their closed discontentment, eyes that were blind to their own blindness, eyes that screamed for the freedom the soul will never see, while confined to this skin, trapped within. But the eyes, they can escape, if only they are open.
But you never gave me the disclaimer - that eyes once opened will never again be closed, will never again stay dry for too long, for the wetness of weeping is what allows their movement, and the dry depths of denial only fog and blur all that is seen.

So funny that everyone told me I'd see, I'd see you for the real you one day. And they were right. But they never knew why. I saw you because you let me, only because you let me, and I saw more than even you knew was there. It's why I stopped making certain choices, choices that showed me more truth than I was ready for, choices that let me be blind to you, and blind to myself the way you taught me to be, by your blindness to yourself as my example of 'open eyes'. You never knew yourself, or you'd have believed in my love. But you denied even that too, in the end.

So why is it that I cannot stop you from spinning my mind around? The growth that began there, with open eyes and desperately curious hearts, still grows. The death of love did not poison it. Maybe because I never thanked you, for the real me's emergence, the real me's strength, the real me's sight. Maybe because I never fixed you, never made you grow the way you did me, never opened your eyes to your own truth.

And so I am left with nothing but these mental weeds and the images of a fatherless little girl, still smiling as she grows too, as my new guide. You were always my guide, my shaman, my shephard and my sower of seeds. Now I chose to follow the lead of the child. To grow in ways I may not be able to control, to grow often times alone, but to smile as the growing glows.

And now even your inspiration leaves me with a new lovely twist of diction. "Sower" = one who sows. Sow is pronounced the same as 'sew'. At first I wrote "my sewer" in the line above. The metaphor is not beyond me. I doubt it would have gotten past you, either. You'd have loved it. Loved it, lived it and believed it as if I had misspelled it on purpose. As was always your way.

This time, the way is mine. A 'mine' that only exists, because of yours, because of you. Would you believe that too, if you knew? Or would I need to tattoo that as well as proof?

listen to the secrets
silence
is screaming to share.

a better day growing

fill my head with wonder and fancy
fly me away for awhile
fill my eyes with fiction and phonics
as dawn threatens her smile

in frightening forests
of clouds of raw cotton
cold wars of misery
& masters of wizardry
landscape of words
near never forgotten

fly me away
from these worries of day
such that my sleep
be no more a dream

and perhaps in the waking
shape could be taking
a better day growing
might seem.

Jabberish

Every so often, I write something in poem form with no meaning, just sounds. Cool words that sound melodic together, in whatever way my brain wants to purge them. I find it highly therapeutic and it often inspires more words to flow, if I begin with something like this when I first sit down to write. I dare you to read this one 3 times fast. ;)

torn asunder thunder
Mai Tai movie deals
perennial piranha's
prey on slowest eels
fantail farder freeing
feigning fleeting feet
igneous ignoramus
slinging slabs of sleet.

oh, and a separate little one-liner for you, out of a whole poem of CRAP that's not worth posting....

"prattling din
omission's sin
in hot air bags
of skin."

why we have friends.

"A narcissist and a sociopath walk into a bar..." Can we write this joke? So I can laugh about the insanity that's been thrown into my life cuz of family. This is why we have FRIENDS.

Let's just call him "Al".

My sister has been seeing this married guy who's seriously a crazy person (let's call him Al, for the sake of this post). Al got angry at her son once (7 yrs old) and carried him out of the house by his arm. He could have pulled the kid's shoulder out of socket easily. She threw him out for it, but took him back later. She's broken up with Al many times because he won't leave his wife, but she always takes him back. Al is a fireman and has high security clearance at a military base, and because she's in serious debt, Al informed her that his boss was going to begin a federal investigation of her. Apparently because the boss knew she & Al were sleeping together, this could compromise Al's security clearance. He could one day decide to sell government secrets to the highest bidder to pay off her debt. So he said. So she gave Al her social security number, because he asked for it. No one called her and she got no documentation saying she was under federal investigation, Al just said so and she believed him, got all scared & gave away her identity to this crazy person. Probably not the wisest choice. So that whole situation just faded away somehow and life went on. Every time my sister gets back together with Al, she vanishes from my life again for weeks or even months. She knows I don't approve and only comes to me when she wants me to support her leaving him again, or listen to her vent about his latest antics. Then recently, she posted on FACEBOOK of all places, that Al was waving a loaded shotgun in her FACE. After much prodding, the "truth" of the whole situation seemed to be that she went to his house (she was probably intoxicated somewhat, if I had to guess) and caused a big scene. Screaming at him, etc. His wife too, was home. My sister was told to leave many times, and refused. Now, if I were him, I'd have called the police at that point, or carried her out of my house, since he's very tall & strongly built, and she's tiny! But no, he went and got his shotgun, loaded it in front of her, waved it around and told her he could blow her brains out right here and now if he wanted to. Oh, and by the way, he was drunk. She tried to play this new insanity off like it was no big deal, but the friends and family of Facebook, thank God, would have none of that. She was basically peer-pressured into reporting him & filing for a restraining order, which she was granted. Because they'd been sleeping together for an extended period of time (regardless of him being married, living primarily at his wife's house, etc) the cops considered the situation domestic violence. Therefore, her choice to press charges or not later on was taken from her hands. Once reported, the police run with the complaint even if she backs down later and tells them not to. His guns were taken from him, as well as any permits he had to own firearms. I am not privy to if anything happened in regards to his job or security clearance there in relation to these criminal charges. And the restraining order was granted. Al (or someone acting like him) tried to contact her via Facebook. She told the police who then warned him to stop. So last night she calls & leaves me a bizarre voice mail. (I was sleeping and got it this morning) Someone texted her phone (from his WIFE'S PHONE, fishy....) saying Al left a note in her shed (on her home's property). She assumed Al sent the text himself. She could not find said note but called the police. The police did find the note, in her shed. It looked to be from Al & said he wanted to marry her, among other things. They arrested Al. This new situation sounds fishy as hell to me! If you were the wife, and knew your husband kept having this on-again off-again affair with some woman he knew from high school (Al & my sister first dated in college), and this woman showed up at your home freaking out in front of you, to the point your husband pulled out his gun, and then had the police brought in and all that nonsense, and then had a restraining order against him and everything, wouldn't you maybe be angry? Wouldn't you maybe want him out of your house, but if he's the type to pull out guns when drunk and confronted with girlfriend drama, you might be scared of him... What better way to get him out of your life once and for all, without actually standing up to him or ever being blamed for kicking him out, than setting him up to be arrested? I don't know, but I do know women who would be fully capable of this kind of ploy, and would do it guilt free if they were handed this exact situation. But back to it. So now my sister is regretting her choice to file for the restraining order, wishing she could just hold Al in her arms again because she "loves him". She's upset & crying & can't seem to rectify that they aren't meant to be, no matter how insane the situations keep getting, even though criminal charges are swimming around them, even tho he's physically threatened not only her, but also one of her kids. She seems to not care that she should be focusing on how her kids are dealing with the fact that she left their father for Al to begin with. That maybe they need their MOM. She's been flipping out on family members who won't support her "enough" through this, to whatever extent she seems to think she's entitled. And the only ones in all this who are faultless are her & Al. It leaves me drained, confused, and wanting to "destroy something beautiful", to quote Fight Club. It's odd to be SO angry yet so worn out and yet so worried all in one millisecond. It feels like I'm in a giant pool of water, that's churning viciously around me, sucking at my legs to pull me under. And I see her standing by the edge of the pool, holding a stick that could reach me to save me. And yet, she's looking away, playing with her hair. Waiting for someone else, even though she hears my cries for help. I feel myself slipping under, and can see her warped image, still on the edge, safe and able to come to my aid, but not noticing anything but herself, her own waiting, her own impatience, my drowning not even on her radar. But then, in this waking dream I can see, my instincts show me there is more to this scene at the pool and my drowning. As I sit with the image, I feel it change. I see her, from below the clear water, and then feel myself pulled upwards and backwards swiftly. I feel the cold water part behind me, and feel the arm around my waist, though I have no idea how it got there. I turn over my shoulder (turning over my shoulder is a weighted image to me, I've had many dreams were that feeling was massively important) and see. I see them. One holding me, barely staying above water himself, holding a thick rope in his other hand. The rope pulls us both to the opposite shore that my sister is on. Pulling the rope are my women, my sisters of the extreme, the family I chose instead of the one I was given. They are pulling with all their might, with no question in their eyes as to whether or not they will be able to save me, with no question as to whether or not they should. They are fierce, they are strong, they are flawless in their might and unstoppable in their determination for one thing - me. The arm around me is the non biological brother I had lost, without truly knowing his loss until he was refound. He leapt into the heaving freezing water, trusting the women on shore to save us both once he'd ensnared me in his arms of protective aid. They pull, together, one goal, one soul, one love. Once the two wet bodies are safe on land, all eyes turn to the woman across the shore, still holding the stick that could have saved, but didn't. All eyes rest on her lack of notice, still. With all the grunting and "Pull! Pull!" to unite the strength of those who saved me, she is still waiting for another to come over the rise, still playing with her hair, until that arrival. We let her wait. My Family lifts me to my feet, wraps me in warm dry comforting blankets, and walks, one on every side of my weakened body to catch me should I yet again fall, and we turn away from the pool. We leave the despair, and the woman, and go back to our path to travel, together. For you, my friends, I will hold on. But only for you.

priorities

the things people choose to make their priorities will never cease to amaze me.

Hello, March.

I'm most definitely "in transition", as my former coworkers & affiliates at the Spiritual Life Center (West Hartford, CT, www.spiritlifectr.org) would say. My life is in transit, and change is a hard pill to swallow. But I'm getting better at it the older I get I guess... I quit smoking on Feb. 2nd, using the patch. I stopped putting on the patch Feb. 21st. So I'm over a week 100% nicotine free. I've also been sick pretty much all of February. Horrible sore throat thing for 3-4 days, then a day or two reprieve, then a vicious chest cold for a good two weeks or so. So I've been getting healthier for just under a week, slow & steady. I'm also taking a lot more vitamins now. D3 because my body stopped making it after I gave birth to my daughter (now 3 1/2 yrs old) and it causes tremendous joint pain & emotional instability within me to be out of it now, B12 for memory & brain function (new job needs good brain stuff!), Zinc because I keep getting sick (my daughter brings everything home from nursery school... esp the germs), Folic Acid because my OBGYN said I have to take it if we're not on a consistent form of birth control (I'll get to that part...), & B6 to stabilize my mood when my hormones get crazy. So that's a lot of change & stuff for one body to deal with in one month. And I have 2 female friends who have seriously dominent hormones who throw off my monthly female cycle when I see them at certain points of their cycles, who've caused my period to come early the past 2 months now. So in the past, something like an external influence causing my period to change it's normal comings & goings, is usually adjusted for by the body & my body clock readjusts to the new setting, instead of trying to go back to how it was the month or two before. So with all this going on, I really wasn't surprised when my period, due Feb. 18th, didn't show up on time. I'm calling 2/18 the date it was due using the assumption that my clock would reset itself to the adjusted cycles I'd had the past two months, thanx to my girls. ;) Both times I was around the 18th of the month, so I still think I should have been due to bleed around that time in Feb as well. But here I am, still waiting. No period. Twelve days late. That's just not something my body really does, bleed two full weeks later than expected. I don't think I've ever been more than a week late, regardless of my cycle's readjustments, regardless of dietary/exercise/drug-influence changes. I've now been around hormonal women about to have their periods, which would also normally set my own period off but has not. The only thing I can imagine would throw it that far off would be the nicotine withdrawl. I've quit many a time before (for 3+ years prior to and after the birth of my daughter was the longest to date, and the time period I'm trying to beat this time!) and never had such a massive impact. And no, my hubbs & I don't use birth control... I've actually been off any form of it for probably 8 or so years now. TMI alert, but he just pulls out. He's never had an ooops. That's still true to this day. And we did put in a concerted effort to conceive our daughter, it took 2 tries, but it was most definitely a planned conception. So for me to be knocked up accidentally is something my math major mind is still having a hard time wrapping around, that the odds would work out this way, but I guess we'll find out, and anything's possible. The last time I pee'd on a stick recently was Feb. 27th, when I went over to my friend Jess's place to visit her brand new baby girl, Jill. (born 2/18, ironically...) It was very clearly negative. That morning, I'd also taken a test, using "first morning pee" (which supposedly has the highest levels of the hormone a pee test is looking for to determine pregnancy) and that was also negative. That test "turned" positive after less than an hour, but I hear that's common & caused by an "evaporation line", not true hormone levels. I refuse to buy more tests yet, as I feel it'll be a waste of money. I either am pregnant, or I'm not pregnant. Testing right this second would probably still be negative since my hormone levels would still be crazy low. However, I'm dying to know, and it's driving me batty to not. ;) Because I'm a crazy person, so I've already looked online and although I had thought maybe I'd have a cool due date like 12/2012, I wouldn't. Dang it. ;) I'd be due around October 24th, but then my girl Nicki would love it, as her bday is 10/30... ;) I've also been thinking how I've had dreams in my life that always show the same thing in regards to my children. An older girl, and a younger boy. Every. Stinkin. Time. And my dreams were right-on regarding the older girl, my first born was indeed female. So now, crazy one that I am, I'm thinking if I were preggers (assumptive as that is at this point) then maybe, just maybe, this one will be the BOY from the dreams. :) Jeff & I had picked a boy name before our girl name last time I was pregnant, before we knew her gender. Max Anthony. But growing up, my name, Hope, had no nickname for it, and I always hated that part of my name, so I want my kids to have a proper name but also a nickname. I looked online and there's a "new" name gaining popularity since 2008. Just this year it has really taken off, according to the web. Maxton. I don't even know if I'd stay with Anthony, but I do kinda like this new Maxton option a great deal. So I guess we'll see. I think I just needed to write all this down so I can get my mind off it and get back to life for now. There's nothing I can change or control in this situation currently, so I need to just sit back & wait (yes writing that sentence is more to convince MYSELF than anything else...). But that is NOT something I'm good at yet, even after 30+ years of practice... ;) But we'll get there. So no matter what happens, this "scare" has been hugely eye opening for me. It's shown me just how much I do want another child. And that I'm not as scared as I thought I'd be at the idea of that happening right NOW. Even though our house is FAR too small. Even though my car's not going to last forever. Even though I just got this job. I'm not scared. I have this calm about the idea, that if we got through the hardships of the changes caused by our first born, we can get through anything. And it's shown me that I do believe my husband & I have been getting stronger & stronger lately. More of a "team". But of course, any time I say something like that, I get home & he's a rebellious 13 year old again ;) So knock on some wood, I guess, haha! :D I guess I should get back to work now, but I needed to put this all down. Literally AND metaphorically. Perhaps in a few days, there will be an update. I'm curious to read it. ;)