I wanna live in a magazine

You know how sometimes you bust out a CD you haven't listened to in forever and while you are listening to it, you wonder why, why, why it's been so long since you last listened to it?
Today I busted out Magazine by Jump, Little Children and I feel like I've wasted time NOT listening to this CD.
Every single song on this CD could be on the soundtrack to my life. In just a few notes of any of the songs, I am immediately transported to a small, sloping, humid apartment with crappy furniture and very little hanging on the white walls, one fan blowing the heavy, hot air around uselessly; I can smell fresh brewed coffee mingling with my roommate (and best friend)'s green tea shower gel. There is the comfort of having my best friend in the next room, both of us anticipating the next weekend, the next cigarette, the next gathering of friends, the next lemon drop, the next crazy story to add to the "do you remembers." There is the crappy, stressful job with the minimum wage pay, the worry over bills, the frustration with dumb guys, the usual family sagas, the first (and really, only) fight with Sarah, but my memory has stained it all with a rosy glow, a feeling of comfort and happiness, a feeling of being loved, of being surrounded by friends, all of us poised and waiting for "real life" to begin while living in the moment.
That was a great summer. I've never been able to understand people who said they loved high school but maybe for them, it was like that summer was for me. I wouldn't want to stay frozen in that time period but listening to this CD lets me revisit the best memories of that summer. It makes me crave cheap champagne, cigarettes, coffee, and freezer pops. It helps me remember the me under the wife and mother, the dreams I had, inspires me to revisit those dreams.

Ode to 27

This week I turn 27. Unlike my husband, who mourns the death of the passing year at each birthday, I have never been the kind of person who freaks out about my age. But there is something about 27 that is making me feel things I have never felt before; it is becoming some sort of milestone for whatever reason.
I met my husband on my birthday eight years ago. I had dropped out of college, was living in my own apartment, had taken a job as a hostess/busboy at an all night diner, and was careening wildy out of control. I have no idea who I would have become if I hadn't met him that day, what roads I would have traversed. He walked into that diner that night and smiled up at from under a mop of curly hair and before I knew his name, I was in love. Love at first sight seemed a little story bookish for the pattern of my life but there it was, my own Prince Charming.
A month or so later, we got up the nerve to talk to each other and one of the first things he mentioned was that he was a Christian. I had mixed feelings about that. At 13, I had gotten saved a "starter" church in my hometown and church became my haven from my homelife. I really did love the Lord but at that time it was more about guaranteeing that my life wouldn't be the same as my parents'. The reality of my "faith" was shown when I went off to a Christian college and almost immediately fell in with the rebellious, rowdy crowd. Before the end of the school year, I was acting as my "lost" contemporaries, drinking, smoking, skipping class, going to dance clubs, looking for trouble. I left before the end of the second semester, preferring to do my partying where I couldn't face disciplinary action. When I met S., I was getting in pretty deep and loving it, living for the moment, no plans for anything beyond the next party. Athough if you had asked me at the time, I would have said between shots that I was a Christian, I knew deep down inside that the way I was living was wrong. Even in that cloud, I could see God giving me this rope, sending this Christian guy into my life, and I took it.
Just after I turned 20, we were married. It was a few years before we both truly turned our lives over to God and were commited to a Christian marriage. It's been a rollercoaster so far but we are growing, each of us in our own walk as well as together. We're commited to giving our children a Godly example of marriage, a heritage of faith.
Here we are, intact, almost 7 years later. Our path has been so incredibly different from that of our peers. We got married much younger, we struggled through my husband going to college, we had children before anyone else, but by God's grace, we've survived and are only getting stronger.
I guess my biggest issue right now with turning 27 IS how different my life is from those around me. I was an A student in high school, graduated in the top 10, and my life has turned out so differently than I planned all those years ago. I love my life, I love my husband, I love my children and I don't want to feel as if I have to defend my choices. My peers have all finished college, have careers, are just considering getting married, won't have children until they are in their 30's when they are financially secure and able to provide the best. Sometimes, however unintentionally, they make me feel as I have made the "wrong" decisions.
I guess all this rambling is to say that if, at 27, I'm the youngest mom on the block, that if everything my husband and I have faced together makes our bond stronger than those who waited, that if all comes down to God guiding me back into His will when I was running full force away from Him, I'm ready to face it. Once upon a time, in jaded foolishness, I didn't care about tomorrow, wanted nothing more than to "go down in a blaze of glory", and then God gave me the best birthday present of all-a second chance.
I think I"ll make that my focus this year--being joyful in a merciful, forgiving God of unlimited chances. Happy Birthday to me.

Flasback Friday

My three year old (almost 4 as she informs me with every passing day) has an incredible memory. She can recall events, large or small, down to the smallest detail from when she was about 18 months old. I wonder if, as we age, and our minds fill with the daily grind, with worries and responsibilities, we lose this ability to remember things like our second birthday cake or the fireworks over Niagara Falls on a summer night, a ride in a purple car or planting flowers in a small garden.
My earliest memory is hazy. When I conjure it up, it actually takes on that dream-in-a-sitcom cloudiness.
I was three and it was my dad's birthday. We lived in a basement apartment with a tiny avocado green kitchen. On the drop leaf table was a German chocolate cake with coconut frosting, my dad's favorite. I remember standing on a chair, quivering with excitement, leaning as close to the candle on the cake as I dared while my brother, my mom, and I belted out "happy birthday", punctuated by winter coughs and sniffles. I remember my dad blowing out the candle and teasing me about not sneezing all over his birthday cake.
Drop curtain. This moment in time is suspended for me. I have no recollection of making the cake with my mom or what time of day it could have been, what anyone was wearing, whether or not there were presents. Logically, I know my dad's birthday is at the end of January, that it was his 22nd birthday, that my mom would have had long sandy blonde hair and it would have been in the evening. But none of that is part of the memory, this little snippet of time and I really have no way of knowing how accurate my version is.
It's a happy memory and for that I am thankful.

Mother's Day

Since many of the blogs I read are written by "mommybloggers", I've been consuming tons of essays on motherhood this week. This morning, I unintentionally (started with one and couldn't stop) exhausted the list of collaborators to Kara's (cape buffalo.blogspot.com) Mother's Day "bloggect". And, as an aside, I have to agree with Panthergirl of The Dog's Breakfast--can't you make something simple, Hallmark? Something that says "Happy Mother's Day" without the poetry and the flowers or even the "simply stated' cards that have happy moms and fields of flowers on the front?
As a mom, motherhood is always on my mind. That may sound like a ridiculous statement, a statement of the obvious but it's the truth. I worry constantly about my abilities as a mother. Am I doing enough? Cuddling enough? Discipling enough? Creating enough art? Playing outside enough? Eating healthy enough? The list goes on. Some call it "mommy guilt" or the "mommy complex". You bring these little creatures into the world and then you spend the rest of your life agonizing about making the right choices for them.
Motherhood is an outward symbol of simplicity, the picture of madonna and child, the natural foundation of the human race, and yet it is such an incredibly complex role. I don't think being a mother today is any harder than it ever has been, even with the dangers in our world. Since the moment Eve fought through labor to bring her first child into the world, with no medical staff, no pain medication, no birth plan, not even one other woman to tell her what to expect, motherhood has been a struggle. Women have feared dying in childbirth, watched their babies die of unexplained illnesses with no doctor or antibiotic, born 13 or 14 children in a lifetime, worried about predators, stayed with abusive husbands, been outcast for infertility. In some respects, it's gotten easier with the formation of vaccines, strengthening of medical technology, with good schools and more choices for families. But being a mother is hard, always has been hard, always will be hard.
Of course, Mother's Day bring to the forefront my relationship with my own mother. It's far too heavy and complex to get completely into but let's say I didn't have a good example growing up. One of the things I promised myself when I found out my first child was a girl was that I would have a good relationship with her. I wouldn't be the opposite of my mother, I'd simply forget everything she ever taught me, every harsh word, every confusing moment. I had no way to know that my oldest daughter would be born with my mother's eyes, the same crescent shape, the same dark coffee color and no way to know how incredibly hard that would be at times. I can't forget my mother when I look at my little girl, instead I have to concentrate on the best of my memories, the softer moments.
That's my intention this Mother's Day. To concentrate on the softer moments, to remind myself that yes, I am doing this huge job, trying to help shape the lives of two beautiful little girls who will someday grow up into women who will go out into the world and make their own choices, maybe have their own children. It's overwhelming at times, complex and confusing. But tomorrow I plan on smiling into the dark coffee eyes of my three year old, rub the still bald head of my ten month old, breathe in their smells, bask in their beauty and revel in being "mommy".

Reboot

I started this blog way back in January with the intention of writing a little every day or at least, most days. One of New Year's Resolutions was to come back to writing, to go back to the hundred words a day, to give myself a push back in the creative writing direction.
But life happened and this resolution was quickly dropped. My marriage was shaken, my identity was shaken. Everything I had trusted and held sacred was brought into question.
Somehow we managed to dig our way back out from under the rubble, not to the same place we were before but to somewhere entirely different. Part of me wishes it hadn't happened and another part of me is glad it did. We sought counseling, have become aware of our patterns and behaviors, have made a concious effort to communicate and rebuild our trust.
All of that, is however, a different story. I laid aside my desire to start writing again. I am going to try again.

Whining

Things That Are Annoying Me…
A list of complaints because complaining is more fun than scrubbing the bathtub. And because sometimes counting your blessings and comparing your stupid gripes to people who have REAL problems just doesn’t make you feel better.

People without children who judge my parenting choices/abilities… in the spirit of, “I would NEVER put my kids in daycare, even if it meant eating peanut butter and jelly every day.” Putting aside career fulfillment or people who don’t work because it would cost more to put their kids in daycare than they brought home or even people who have to work to pay rent, what if it meant you couldn’t make co-pays at the doctor’s office or even have medical insurance? What about shoes and socks, winter coats, diapers and wipes, oh yeah and the peanut butter and jelly? To the particular person, I responded “I don’t feed my kids peanut butter and jelly. If they want sugar and lard, we make cookies.”

Wednesdays. I work a ten -hour day on Wednesdays and don’t see my husband at all. By the time I get home, I just want to put my kids to bed and then fall asleep on the couch. I hate the fact that the next day is not Friday but merely Thursday.

The girls in the apartment upstairs. They don’t party, they aren’t loud, they aren’t discourteous. But there are three of them and this means that no matter what time I get up in the morning, unless it’s before five or after seven (which is simply not do-able) there is someone in the shower upstairs. And this makes my shower do the scald/freeze thing that tends to make mornings a bit hellish. I have lain in bed, listening for the water to turn on/off and waited/hopped in the shower quickly but it never fails that as soon as I get a head full of shampoo, the scalding/freezing begins.

My hair.

My inability to remember anything. I have locked myself out of my apartment 3 times in the last week. I even had to call the after-hours maintenance service last night to come let me in because I distinctly remembered putting my apartment key back on the car key ring after picking the car up at the mechanics’, so I packed the kids up and left, only to come home and realize that I had only imagined putting the key back on.

Speaking of car mechanics. I know they have a skilled trade but the only person who should be allowed to charge me that much for an hour of labor, should have Ph.D after their name.

I’m done now.

Earthquakes

Since I'm pretty sure no one reads this (why would they?) but me, I feel a certain freedom to say what I need to say. There is an earthquake happening in my life. It had the warning signs, a strange feeling in the atmosphere, a gut instinct, even a few tremors. But it still hit me by surprise.
I don't know why it's such a surprise. The exact same thing happened only a few months ago. Nearly identical. But there are some things that even when we've prepared for them or tried to deny the warning signs, still hit with a force that shocks, that doesn't just throw us off balance, it knocks us across the room and dumps concrete on top.
My husband is a pain killer addict.
In July, just after the birth of our second child, things didn't feel right to me. Actually, it started even a few months before that. I tried to shake off this strange feeling of distrust but couldn't. When I was up at odd hours with the baby, I began logging onto my husband's email accounts, unsure of what I was looking for. An affair? Possibly but the other signs of an affair weren't there. I went through his jacket pockets, his jeans, all the while trying to put the strange feelings down to hormones or the lack of physical intimacy late in the pregnancy and into the early months of caring for a newborn.
Then one morning I found an email in response to one he had sent looking for vicodin since the online pharmacy he had been using had been shut down by legal authorities. It took my breath away. He had been having back pain and some slight depression over the summer and had seen a doctor but apparently that had all been a ruse to get more pain medication. He'd even been lifting a few pills from his dad, a Vietnam vet with chronic pain.
I wait a few days before saying anything, although he knew I had read the email-the type of account he was using didn't allow you to change the "read" to "unread" so he knew I had read it.
Then I thought we resolved it after a three days and nights of fighting, crying, and tearing each other apart. He agreed to see a counselor, went to some meetings, and seemed hopeful.
The last week or so, I've been having the same distrustful feelings. I've been trying to shake it off to his new hours, to the little amount of time we see each other but I began the checking again. And today I found an email in a trash can of a different account that he sent out looking for oxycontin.
Another earthquake.
I spent my childhood bouncing back and forth between my drug addicted, alcoholic parents before moving in with my grandparents. I will not go through this again 'nor will I put my children through this. But I love my husband.
I don't know what to do. As I write this, I am coming out from under the rubble, surveying the damage in disbelief, wondering what can be salvaged, and the despair is already setting in.
I am glad I'm a Christian, thankful I have a Saviour who will hold my hand and comfort me in my time of need, who will guide me and give me the wisdom I need to get through this. I guess I have to trust in Him and hang on. I need prayer. So if for some strange reason you come across this and read it, take a moment to pray for me.