Since I've challenged myself to write more often and have absolutely no patience for writing a lengthy fanfic, short story, or starting my own novel at the moment, this blog is going to encompass all of my weekly ramblings. Tonight's installment is brought to you by the fact that I actually have a hard time telling those closest to me how I feel. While I think G knows what I am about to share with all of you, I am hoping that seeing it in the open will prove to him that I actually do think he is amazeballs.
Amor Fati
Lucky.
I feel incredibly, beautifully lucky.
When I look back at all of the things we've been through together, I am awestruck at how we've survived it all. You think I have Amor Fati inked on my right wrist because of The X-Files and in part that is true. The larger part however is that it's a constant reminder that no matter what happens to me in this life, the moments I have of pure happiness are worth all of the pain and suffering to get to them.
You are the most amazing person I've ever met and being with you has been the greatest experience of my life. You fill my world with immeasurable joy. You give me the courage to fight harder, to fight longer, and to believe that anything is possible. You remind me that it's okay to play in the rain and that life is so much more than just going through the motions. You're the part of me that I spent half my life missing and you will never know how much that means to me. Everything I've done, everything I've been through, every stumble along the road towards this life I now have with you...I'd do it all over again if it got me to right here. I love you, and not because you're the father of my children. I love you because you're the most fun I've ever had and I don't ever want it to stop.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
Winter in the Mountains...Like a Boss
Garrett will say that this entire weekend is my fault. I'm sure it makes him feel better about the aches and pains and freezing temperatures, and really, the second night of near hypothermia was my fault, but I digress.
We woke up at 6am (seriously) on Saturday morning to head up to the trail head at the Elkmont parking area in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We were loaded up with 25lb packs and ready to tackle the wilderness. It's worth mentioning that this was only the second time we'd gone hiking with these packs and we were about to set out on a 3-day hiking excursion in the back country. On our test hike the weekend before, I accidentally spilled our ramen, so Garrett was convinced if we were going to die this weekend, it would be my fault.
The first sight we spotted along the trail head as we made our way up a slow incline of a hill was a grouping of dilapidated cabins being reclaimed by the forest around us. The kids thought it was amazing, but G and I were still getting adjusted to the fact that we were about to haul these packs 8 miles into the back country. We were counting the miles to the nearest city, the nearest hospital, and the nearest Mellow Mushroom and Starbucks (Pigeon Forge by the way). We continued along the Goshen Prong trail, excitement building as the sun warmed the trail ahead of us. The 8 mile trek was rough with the packs, but the payoff at the end would be a campfire and a lot of relaxing.
We made it to camp around 5pm and spent about a half hour looking for the perfect place to set up our new ultralight tents. We were the only people in this part of mountains and we would later learn there was a good reason why. Garrett set about getting the tents together while Dante, Julien, and I went on the hunt for firewood, rocks, and began to build a campfire area. After that, we headed down to the river to filter 4 liters of water to last us the night. By the way, Mountain water is cold. Ice cold. The kids and I headed back to camp where Julien quickly learned how to work the bear cables and had his pack raincovered, and hung in no time. In fact, he had to teach me how to use the rigging system. I mentioned before we were looking forward to relaxing? Well we quickly learned there is no relaxing in the back country. When you have to carry everything in on your back, walk to water, filter your own water, make sure there is not a single crumb of food on you or in your tent, hang your bags, food, and toiletries and then spend an hour getting a good fire going then hunting for enough wood to keep it going, there is absolutely zero relaxing at a back country campsite. Cooking takes on a whole new art with a single burner, a fire, and a few lightweight metal bowls and spoons. If you spill, you start over. If you have leftover food, you have to bury it, then you have to carefully wash your bowls. If you are not hungry, you have to force yourself to eat or you're going to hate yourself in the morning. The most humorous part was convincing the kids to poop in a hole and then use a trowel to cover it up. For the bears? they asked. No. So we don't step in it.
Things were going well as the sun began to set and the moon and stars came out. The temperatures were dropping but they were manageable. We were so exhausted that everyone was falling asleep in front of the fire by 8pm. Julien decided to go to the tent early and read a book. He was snoring half an hour later. By 8:45pm, we all decided to turn in, too tired to think and knowing we had a 7 mile hike the next day to the next camp site. Things were going well until 12:30am. The air turned so bitterly cold that we all woke up, shocked. Garrett came to check on Julien and I as I got up to put more layers on Julien and zipped him back up into his bag then hugged him next to me. For the next 4 hours, Garrett and I sat up completely unable to sleep and seriously contemplating starting a fire in the middle of the night to stay warm. Legit, laying by the fire cowboy style and we came very, very close to doing it. For hours we waited for the sun to make its appearance as the kids slept completely unfazed and somehow not freezing in their bags. I don't even think I slept 2 hours that night.
Once the sun finally made its appearance, we were so exhausted and frigid that it took over an hour to get a fire started. My fingers were like rocks and I just walked around numb, collecting firewood. An eternity later we had a roaring fire and forced ourselves to eat, figuring the calories might warm us up. The kids of course were bounding around the campsite, drinking hot chocolate, and acting like this was the best time they'd had in their lives. Garrett and I kept joking about how we were idiots for doing this in March and suddenly realizing why no one else was on this mountain.
By the time we broke camp, the sun was rising in the sky and the temperatures were fast on the rise. We made our way back down the trail to head toward our second campsite though Garrett and I kept talking on the trail about the weather and that if the weather was as bad as the night before, we probably needed to just head home. As we got halfway to our next destination, we passed a group of back country hikers who believed the weather for the night would be better than the night before, and in their defense, it was a lot warmer that day than it had been the day before. The deciding factor was a blister forming on my foot and the realization that the next campsite was only 1 mile from where we were currently and the car was 6 miles away. We made the decision to risk it, and go set up camp. In retrospect that was a bad decision and Garrett is not going to let me forget it.
After another exhausting day of hiking in the mountains with 25lbs on our backs (no we never do anything easy), we finally reached another back country campsite and began to set up camp. We were cautiously optimistic and fought with getting a fire started and were pleasantly surprised we got it going faster than the night before. Everyone pitched in and began collecting wood, setting up tents, drying clothes, and making food. We were super careful about crumbs, trash, and food as we had heard a bear on the way in a few hours earlier. We hung our packs on the bear cables (Julien was super excited about that again, though when the cable snagged, Dante had to put Julien on his shoulders in order to un-snag it) and began to settle in next to the fire, exhausted. By 8pm we could feel the air getting cooler but it wasn't as cold as the night before so we were pretty excited about that. The excitement was short lived however because even though we fell asleep around 9:30pm, warm and snug in our tents, the wind picked up and by 2am the air was filled with a bitter, wet cold. I piled every layer I had on Julien and shoved him into my bag with me then covered him with his bag as well. I spent the night freezing while hugging him next to me, checking his skin to make sure it was warm to the touch throughout the night. By 4am I gave in to sleep and slept surprisingly better than the night before though I'm pretty sure it was exhaustion and not comfort that took me into dreamland.
As the sun rose, I heard the bear cables and looked out to make sure it was Garrett and not a bear fighting with our packs. The headlamp gave away the fact that a human was across the clearing and not a bear, so I threw on some jeans and a t-shirt (Julien had every other bit of my clothes on, along with his) and found my jacket buried under him to put on. I started collecting firewood and boiling hot water as Garrett started building the most difficult fire of his life. To his credit, he didn't complain about the fact that I'd made him spend another night in the frigid mountains...in the winter. I have never been so thankful for boy-scouts as I was this morning and I'm dead serious. Garrett is a phenomenal woodsman. He ties knots and all sorts of useful shit. That man could start a fire in 30 below zero in a driving wind and let me tell you, as independent as I am, that was downright sexy as hell. The feminist in me cried a little.
I'd like to mention here that my firstborn son complained the most about going into the wilderness, mainly because we made him hike uphill with a 25lb pack on. Actually it was closer to 26, but told him it was 25. Once we got started, that kid was like a freaking machine. He hikes faster than all of us and slept through two frigid nights without once getting up to go pee and without a single complaint. He slept more than the rest of us combined and was more than happy to go collecting firewood or whatever. He even helped me pump water, which let me tell you is probably the worst job of any.
So, Garrett had the fire started and Dante and I returned with water when a family of deer snuck into our camp, the youngest of which was obsessed with Julien. This thing followed him around the camp. This was actually Julien's first real experience with wildlife in the back country. I say first real experience because we failed to mention the bear the day before. We had been walking along the trail and heard rustling in the woods next to us and very clearly, and I do mean VERY clearly, heard a bear making its presence known. When Julien asked what the sound was, I lied and told him a plane was somewhere overhead. "Oh it's the engine!" he exclaimed. Exactly Julien, an engine.
Around 10am we broke camp to head back to the car. In fact it was exactly 10am, though Gman argued it was later. I told him based on the sun in the sky it was most certainly 10am and he laughed at me thinking I was being ridiculous. I made a bet with him that not only was it 10am but that we would make it back to the car around 1pm. By the way, the reason we were guessing the time? Not a single one of our cell phones had power, not that it mattered because there was no signal, and none of us had a watch. We were legit telling time by the sun all weekend.
Everyone placed their bets on what time we would reach the car, with Julien and Dante choosing times somewhat close to mine while Garrett chose the incredibly unrealistic 4pm. I still think that in his mind he figured if we reached it at 1pm, somehow that gave him extra amazing hours to play with. We began hiking the 6 miles to the car, elated that our 25lb packs were more like 22lbs at this point. It may not seem like much but after several days in the wilderness, 3lbs lighter was a godsend. It took everything in me not to just ditch things on the trail to lighten the load. Garrett and I walked for miles, the blister on my foot getting worse as Julien and Dante bounded down the trail like energizer bunnies. While I limped half the distance, Garrett went on and on about how I had tried to kill us all.
After living in Los Angeles, we don't deal so well with cold so certainly going back country camping in March was...shall I say, ambitious. When we saw the dilapidated cabins we knew we were closing in on the parking area and began to see day hikers who looked at us like we were absolutely nuts. We were trudging out way down the trail singing a mixture of the Banana Boat song and Country Roads. I'm fairly certain they thought we were certifiable. At one point just before we reached the parking lot, a family stood in the middle of the trail taking selfies. Garrett leaned into me. "I will cut a bitch..." and I was right there with him. I did not just walk 20 miles to get blocked by some day hikers out there for a half mile excursion. Plus, I couldn't let Garrett win. Any delay in time would mean I wouldn't win the bet. Julien began counting every footstep at this point, announcing how many steps left to the car. Minutes later we collapsed against our SUV, threw our packs on the ground, and nearly fell to the earth ready to kiss it. Mark, my amazing step dad who had put up with us for three days, announced the time. 1:10pm. I had won.
20 miles, probably 21,000 calories burned and I'm not sure what a pop-tart and 2 slices of pizza add up to but I'm too tired to eat anything else tonight. While we probably won't do this again until late April or early May, I will say that this was the best birthday week I've ever had. All of these adventures we have? It's what life is all about. We all have to work, we all have to pay bills, go to school, go through the motions of life but this weekend? This weekend was about going back to our roots and realizing that at the end of the day, it's family. It's family and knowing that hard work, perseverance and teamwork means that no one gets there alone.
We woke up at 6am (seriously) on Saturday morning to head up to the trail head at the Elkmont parking area in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We were loaded up with 25lb packs and ready to tackle the wilderness. It's worth mentioning that this was only the second time we'd gone hiking with these packs and we were about to set out on a 3-day hiking excursion in the back country. On our test hike the weekend before, I accidentally spilled our ramen, so Garrett was convinced if we were going to die this weekend, it would be my fault.
The first sight we spotted along the trail head as we made our way up a slow incline of a hill was a grouping of dilapidated cabins being reclaimed by the forest around us. The kids thought it was amazing, but G and I were still getting adjusted to the fact that we were about to haul these packs 8 miles into the back country. We were counting the miles to the nearest city, the nearest hospital, and the nearest Mellow Mushroom and Starbucks (Pigeon Forge by the way). We continued along the Goshen Prong trail, excitement building as the sun warmed the trail ahead of us. The 8 mile trek was rough with the packs, but the payoff at the end would be a campfire and a lot of relaxing.
We made it to camp around 5pm and spent about a half hour looking for the perfect place to set up our new ultralight tents. We were the only people in this part of mountains and we would later learn there was a good reason why. Garrett set about getting the tents together while Dante, Julien, and I went on the hunt for firewood, rocks, and began to build a campfire area. After that, we headed down to the river to filter 4 liters of water to last us the night. By the way, Mountain water is cold. Ice cold. The kids and I headed back to camp where Julien quickly learned how to work the bear cables and had his pack raincovered, and hung in no time. In fact, he had to teach me how to use the rigging system. I mentioned before we were looking forward to relaxing? Well we quickly learned there is no relaxing in the back country. When you have to carry everything in on your back, walk to water, filter your own water, make sure there is not a single crumb of food on you or in your tent, hang your bags, food, and toiletries and then spend an hour getting a good fire going then hunting for enough wood to keep it going, there is absolutely zero relaxing at a back country campsite. Cooking takes on a whole new art with a single burner, a fire, and a few lightweight metal bowls and spoons. If you spill, you start over. If you have leftover food, you have to bury it, then you have to carefully wash your bowls. If you are not hungry, you have to force yourself to eat or you're going to hate yourself in the morning. The most humorous part was convincing the kids to poop in a hole and then use a trowel to cover it up. For the bears? they asked. No. So we don't step in it.
Things were going well as the sun began to set and the moon and stars came out. The temperatures were dropping but they were manageable. We were so exhausted that everyone was falling asleep in front of the fire by 8pm. Julien decided to go to the tent early and read a book. He was snoring half an hour later. By 8:45pm, we all decided to turn in, too tired to think and knowing we had a 7 mile hike the next day to the next camp site. Things were going well until 12:30am. The air turned so bitterly cold that we all woke up, shocked. Garrett came to check on Julien and I as I got up to put more layers on Julien and zipped him back up into his bag then hugged him next to me. For the next 4 hours, Garrett and I sat up completely unable to sleep and seriously contemplating starting a fire in the middle of the night to stay warm. Legit, laying by the fire cowboy style and we came very, very close to doing it. For hours we waited for the sun to make its appearance as the kids slept completely unfazed and somehow not freezing in their bags. I don't even think I slept 2 hours that night.
Once the sun finally made its appearance, we were so exhausted and frigid that it took over an hour to get a fire started. My fingers were like rocks and I just walked around numb, collecting firewood. An eternity later we had a roaring fire and forced ourselves to eat, figuring the calories might warm us up. The kids of course were bounding around the campsite, drinking hot chocolate, and acting like this was the best time they'd had in their lives. Garrett and I kept joking about how we were idiots for doing this in March and suddenly realizing why no one else was on this mountain.
By the time we broke camp, the sun was rising in the sky and the temperatures were fast on the rise. We made our way back down the trail to head toward our second campsite though Garrett and I kept talking on the trail about the weather and that if the weather was as bad as the night before, we probably needed to just head home. As we got halfway to our next destination, we passed a group of back country hikers who believed the weather for the night would be better than the night before, and in their defense, it was a lot warmer that day than it had been the day before. The deciding factor was a blister forming on my foot and the realization that the next campsite was only 1 mile from where we were currently and the car was 6 miles away. We made the decision to risk it, and go set up camp. In retrospect that was a bad decision and Garrett is not going to let me forget it.
After another exhausting day of hiking in the mountains with 25lbs on our backs (no we never do anything easy), we finally reached another back country campsite and began to set up camp. We were cautiously optimistic and fought with getting a fire started and were pleasantly surprised we got it going faster than the night before. Everyone pitched in and began collecting wood, setting up tents, drying clothes, and making food. We were super careful about crumbs, trash, and food as we had heard a bear on the way in a few hours earlier. We hung our packs on the bear cables (Julien was super excited about that again, though when the cable snagged, Dante had to put Julien on his shoulders in order to un-snag it) and began to settle in next to the fire, exhausted. By 8pm we could feel the air getting cooler but it wasn't as cold as the night before so we were pretty excited about that. The excitement was short lived however because even though we fell asleep around 9:30pm, warm and snug in our tents, the wind picked up and by 2am the air was filled with a bitter, wet cold. I piled every layer I had on Julien and shoved him into my bag with me then covered him with his bag as well. I spent the night freezing while hugging him next to me, checking his skin to make sure it was warm to the touch throughout the night. By 4am I gave in to sleep and slept surprisingly better than the night before though I'm pretty sure it was exhaustion and not comfort that took me into dreamland.
As the sun rose, I heard the bear cables and looked out to make sure it was Garrett and not a bear fighting with our packs. The headlamp gave away the fact that a human was across the clearing and not a bear, so I threw on some jeans and a t-shirt (Julien had every other bit of my clothes on, along with his) and found my jacket buried under him to put on. I started collecting firewood and boiling hot water as Garrett started building the most difficult fire of his life. To his credit, he didn't complain about the fact that I'd made him spend another night in the frigid mountains...in the winter. I have never been so thankful for boy-scouts as I was this morning and I'm dead serious. Garrett is a phenomenal woodsman. He ties knots and all sorts of useful shit. That man could start a fire in 30 below zero in a driving wind and let me tell you, as independent as I am, that was downright sexy as hell. The feminist in me cried a little.
I'd like to mention here that my firstborn son complained the most about going into the wilderness, mainly because we made him hike uphill with a 25lb pack on. Actually it was closer to 26, but told him it was 25. Once we got started, that kid was like a freaking machine. He hikes faster than all of us and slept through two frigid nights without once getting up to go pee and without a single complaint. He slept more than the rest of us combined and was more than happy to go collecting firewood or whatever. He even helped me pump water, which let me tell you is probably the worst job of any.
So, Garrett had the fire started and Dante and I returned with water when a family of deer snuck into our camp, the youngest of which was obsessed with Julien. This thing followed him around the camp. This was actually Julien's first real experience with wildlife in the back country. I say first real experience because we failed to mention the bear the day before. We had been walking along the trail and heard rustling in the woods next to us and very clearly, and I do mean VERY clearly, heard a bear making its presence known. When Julien asked what the sound was, I lied and told him a plane was somewhere overhead. "Oh it's the engine!" he exclaimed. Exactly Julien, an engine.
Around 10am we broke camp to head back to the car. In fact it was exactly 10am, though Gman argued it was later. I told him based on the sun in the sky it was most certainly 10am and he laughed at me thinking I was being ridiculous. I made a bet with him that not only was it 10am but that we would make it back to the car around 1pm. By the way, the reason we were guessing the time? Not a single one of our cell phones had power, not that it mattered because there was no signal, and none of us had a watch. We were legit telling time by the sun all weekend.
Everyone placed their bets on what time we would reach the car, with Julien and Dante choosing times somewhat close to mine while Garrett chose the incredibly unrealistic 4pm. I still think that in his mind he figured if we reached it at 1pm, somehow that gave him extra amazing hours to play with. We began hiking the 6 miles to the car, elated that our 25lb packs were more like 22lbs at this point. It may not seem like much but after several days in the wilderness, 3lbs lighter was a godsend. It took everything in me not to just ditch things on the trail to lighten the load. Garrett and I walked for miles, the blister on my foot getting worse as Julien and Dante bounded down the trail like energizer bunnies. While I limped half the distance, Garrett went on and on about how I had tried to kill us all.
After living in Los Angeles, we don't deal so well with cold so certainly going back country camping in March was...shall I say, ambitious. When we saw the dilapidated cabins we knew we were closing in on the parking area and began to see day hikers who looked at us like we were absolutely nuts. We were trudging out way down the trail singing a mixture of the Banana Boat song and Country Roads. I'm fairly certain they thought we were certifiable. At one point just before we reached the parking lot, a family stood in the middle of the trail taking selfies. Garrett leaned into me. "I will cut a bitch..." and I was right there with him. I did not just walk 20 miles to get blocked by some day hikers out there for a half mile excursion. Plus, I couldn't let Garrett win. Any delay in time would mean I wouldn't win the bet. Julien began counting every footstep at this point, announcing how many steps left to the car. Minutes later we collapsed against our SUV, threw our packs on the ground, and nearly fell to the earth ready to kiss it. Mark, my amazing step dad who had put up with us for three days, announced the time. 1:10pm. I had won.
20 miles, probably 21,000 calories burned and I'm not sure what a pop-tart and 2 slices of pizza add up to but I'm too tired to eat anything else tonight. While we probably won't do this again until late April or early May, I will say that this was the best birthday week I've ever had. All of these adventures we have? It's what life is all about. We all have to work, we all have to pay bills, go to school, go through the motions of life but this weekend? This weekend was about going back to our roots and realizing that at the end of the day, it's family. It's family and knowing that hard work, perseverance and teamwork means that no one gets there alone.
Friday, March 7, 2014
The Beginning
It
starts the way almost everything starts, with a moment. A single,
defining moment that sets the stage for everything that is to come. It's
amazing to think that something that happened so long ago can have such
a lasting impact. Amazing to think it can brand your soul with a pain
that runs so deep that when it surfaces, you forget to breathe. My
entire life I’ve fought it, dreamed about it, struggled with wishing for
things to be different and embracing who I’ve become because they
weren’t. Would I still be the same person? Would I go about my life with
another purpose?
When I was little I had only one goal, to get out.
Everything in me pulled me forward to escape a reality I was barely
surviving in. I learned early on that my capacity for enduring pain was
high, but it left me with little trust and a lot of independence.
Everyone in my life was just kind of floating, desperately clinging to
anything they could to make sense of their own lives, their own
struggle, and I was caught in between their worlds. There was a lot of
hurt and pain to go around and after that day, the course of my life was
forever altered, every relationship I was to have, foreshadowed.
I
walked into the courthouse that day holding hands with the woman I
thought was a superhero, and I loved her with a ferocity that I cannot
begin to put into words. She was my whole world. The first and hardest
lesson I ever learned in life was on that day as we walked out of the
courthouse, my hand in hers. I could feel her trembling, could sense the
giant chasm forming in her soul, and when she lifted me into her arms
and I held on tight, tears slipping down my cheeks, I knew then that
superheros couldn’t possibly exist.
He peeled my fingers from her coat,
one by one, and nothing was ever the same after that. Deep inside
there’s a part of me that has never left that day. It replays in
sickening, heartbreaking detail and it doesn’t matter how old I am when
the tears begin because I’m not just crying for that day. I cry for
every day after that where it’s a struggle to have a connection
with the woman who let go of me on those stairs. I cry for the man I
grew to hate for putting his anger and pride above my pain, and I cry
because deep down, I’m still that five-year-old little girl, her whole
life being ripped away from her.
Every story has a beginning, and this is mine.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Unicorns and Rainbows and Maybe a few Tears
It's been such a long time. Over five years of my life and it's like not a day has gone by. I see her face through the screen of a computer and I talk to her through the clicking of keys on a keyboard, and if I'm lucky and have a chance to take a breath, I hear her lilting accent through my headphones during a Google chat.
The amazing part? When we talk it's like nothing at all has changed. We're older now, wiser now, and yet still somehow exactly the same as we were that bright sunny day outside of Virgin Records. I have these crazy, beautifully vivid memories of us that play through my head like a slideshow set to music; rap music for me and something a bit more sophisticated for her. Beaches and birthday parties, film sets and back patios. Making lemonade in the sunshine and eating cake in the sand. Always worried about paying bills, but knowing it was us against the world and that we don't give up, we don't back down.
I miss her. I miss her more than I ever thought I could. I miss that for a brief moment in time we were in the same space.
She represents all the parts of me that I try hard to still be: Fierce, frustrating, and utterly extraordinary.
Her birthday is today and since she's thousands of miles from here, these words will have to bridge the gap. She's my constant, and my touchstone. She keeps me honest and makes me a whole person. We can talk about zippers on jackets, what nail polish colors mean, and whether a unicorn's eyes are brown or green, and somehow it all sounds completely normal.
So Happy Birthday to my Avita. I love your face, always.
The amazing part? When we talk it's like nothing at all has changed. We're older now, wiser now, and yet still somehow exactly the same as we were that bright sunny day outside of Virgin Records. I have these crazy, beautifully vivid memories of us that play through my head like a slideshow set to music; rap music for me and something a bit more sophisticated for her. Beaches and birthday parties, film sets and back patios. Making lemonade in the sunshine and eating cake in the sand. Always worried about paying bills, but knowing it was us against the world and that we don't give up, we don't back down.
I miss her. I miss her more than I ever thought I could. I miss that for a brief moment in time we were in the same space.
She represents all the parts of me that I try hard to still be: Fierce, frustrating, and utterly extraordinary.
Her birthday is today and since she's thousands of miles from here, these words will have to bridge the gap. She's my constant, and my touchstone. She keeps me honest and makes me a whole person. We can talk about zippers on jackets, what nail polish colors mean, and whether a unicorn's eyes are brown or green, and somehow it all sounds completely normal.
So Happy Birthday to my Avita. I love your face, always.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
A crazy beautiful thank you...
The human spirit is this crazy, indomitable thing. It's beautiful and amazing, and completely and utterly surprising in its ability to drag itself out of the mud, dust itself off, and continue marching towards some unforeseen yet inevitable future.
Perhaps more surprising is the ability of those around us to catch onto that spirit and to use it to rally for our cause, not because they believe in it, but because they believe in us. It's that spirit that allows us to rally around each other.
Yesterday, Garrett and I sat thinking, "How in the hell are we going to do this? We left everything we knew and loved to come back to a place to make things better, so how the hell did it get worse?"
What a difference twenty four hours makes.
It occurred to me this afternoon that for all of the joy and pain we've been through to carve our way through this life, those around us have laughed, cried, and bled with us too. We're all just trying to make our way and be the best part of ourselves, and when we fall short, we fall hard. It doesn't matter the circumstance. It doesn't matter the fault. We see it as an ending and never a beginning. I went back to an email I was sent a few months ago in response to my last blog entry and it took the breath right out of me.
"Some of the most devastating setbacks later on turn out to have been essential turning points that led me to a much better path...we all need to persevere, and wait for the truth to reveal itself."
In the last twenty four hours I've had these beautiful, indomitable spirits step in and offer anything they could of themselves emotionally or otherwise to help me keep believing that what can be imagined can be achieved. That when one door closes, if another does not open, I can and should kick down the door.
So I want to say Thank You to my crazy, beautiful family and friends. The love I have for all of you fills my heart to the very brim and keeps me believing in every epic and amazing thing we plan to do.
Perhaps more surprising is the ability of those around us to catch onto that spirit and to use it to rally for our cause, not because they believe in it, but because they believe in us. It's that spirit that allows us to rally around each other.
Yesterday, Garrett and I sat thinking, "How in the hell are we going to do this? We left everything we knew and loved to come back to a place to make things better, so how the hell did it get worse?"
What a difference twenty four hours makes.
It occurred to me this afternoon that for all of the joy and pain we've been through to carve our way through this life, those around us have laughed, cried, and bled with us too. We're all just trying to make our way and be the best part of ourselves, and when we fall short, we fall hard. It doesn't matter the circumstance. It doesn't matter the fault. We see it as an ending and never a beginning. I went back to an email I was sent a few months ago in response to my last blog entry and it took the breath right out of me.
"Some of the most devastating setbacks later on turn out to have been essential turning points that led me to a much better path...we all need to persevere, and wait for the truth to reveal itself."
In the last twenty four hours I've had these beautiful, indomitable spirits step in and offer anything they could of themselves emotionally or otherwise to help me keep believing that what can be imagined can be achieved. That when one door closes, if another does not open, I can and should kick down the door.
So I want to say Thank You to my crazy, beautiful family and friends. The love I have for all of you fills my heart to the very brim and keeps me believing in every epic and amazing thing we plan to do.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Don't Give Up
Life is full of heartache. It's a lesson we don't learn until we are drowning in it, heaving with burning lungs as we desperately cling to tiny shreds of dreams we've spent a lifetime working toward. It's shocking at first, the complete and utter devastation that you feel. That devastation soon turns to anger, and after anger, guilt. First world problems. After guilt, a mind numbing sadness creeps in and takes you almost by surprise.
When you've spent your entire life working for something, slowly building it brick by brick, beating every obstacle that got in your way, how do you now cope when it crumbles beneath you?
Don't give up, they said, and they were right, only quitting feels like giving up and you're burning with shame. You're battered and bleeding, unsure of how to even make it through the day.
As you leave it behind you, watch it slowly fade in the rear-view mirror, the tears sting your eyes and trail hot down your cheeks. Your fingers tremble on the steering wheel as reality hits you hard. This is it. All the decisions and non decisions, they have all come to this. It's a heavy price to pay, and a heavy burden to swallow. You're leaving things behind, and far more things unsaid, but you know deep down that it's the only way this can go. That thought should give you comfort, but mostly it just makes you sick.
You reach the end of one chapter, and begin another. It's not at all what you wanted, and certainly not what you expected, but you make it what you can, because what other choice do you really have? The days turn into weeks, the weeks drift into months, and most of the time you can hold it together. The day-to-day is enough to not think, to not go into that place you've locked away. Every now and then you find a crack in your resolve, but you lift your chin up and you push onward. You don't give up.
Months approach a year and you know that date is coming. You fear it almost as much as you feared the day this started. You still tell yourself it was for the best, and part of you believes it. The larger part of you is still mourning the end of your future, at least the perceived ending of your perceived future. You watch those around you slowly succumb to the same fate, and the pain swallows you whole each time.
It's nearly the end of winter when you get the message that you both knew, and didn't know was coming. Your reaction is much harder than you expected. Your chest burns, the tears come, and you just sit staring out the window. Not this time, you say to yourself. Not again. You try to hold it in, to think about anything else, but all you can think about is everything that's happened over the last five years and it plays through your mind in stunning clarity. You zero in on that first moment, the one that might have changed everything, and you realize that you wouldn't do anything differently. Not if it got you to this place. Not if it got you the people that you know and love so fiercely.
It's not what you expected, and it's not what you wanted, but it is what it is. Life is full of heartache, but as you sit with your heart breaking, you re-live every moment you've had over the last five years, and you suddenly realize that without the pain, these bright, beautiful memories would somehow be less bright.
You learn a new lesson.
Not giving up has multiple meanings, and you're about to take a crash course in all of them.
When you've spent your entire life working for something, slowly building it brick by brick, beating every obstacle that got in your way, how do you now cope when it crumbles beneath you?
Don't give up, they said, and they were right, only quitting feels like giving up and you're burning with shame. You're battered and bleeding, unsure of how to even make it through the day.
As you leave it behind you, watch it slowly fade in the rear-view mirror, the tears sting your eyes and trail hot down your cheeks. Your fingers tremble on the steering wheel as reality hits you hard. This is it. All the decisions and non decisions, they have all come to this. It's a heavy price to pay, and a heavy burden to swallow. You're leaving things behind, and far more things unsaid, but you know deep down that it's the only way this can go. That thought should give you comfort, but mostly it just makes you sick.
You reach the end of one chapter, and begin another. It's not at all what you wanted, and certainly not what you expected, but you make it what you can, because what other choice do you really have? The days turn into weeks, the weeks drift into months, and most of the time you can hold it together. The day-to-day is enough to not think, to not go into that place you've locked away. Every now and then you find a crack in your resolve, but you lift your chin up and you push onward. You don't give up.
Months approach a year and you know that date is coming. You fear it almost as much as you feared the day this started. You still tell yourself it was for the best, and part of you believes it. The larger part of you is still mourning the end of your future, at least the perceived ending of your perceived future. You watch those around you slowly succumb to the same fate, and the pain swallows you whole each time.
It's nearly the end of winter when you get the message that you both knew, and didn't know was coming. Your reaction is much harder than you expected. Your chest burns, the tears come, and you just sit staring out the window. Not this time, you say to yourself. Not again. You try to hold it in, to think about anything else, but all you can think about is everything that's happened over the last five years and it plays through your mind in stunning clarity. You zero in on that first moment, the one that might have changed everything, and you realize that you wouldn't do anything differently. Not if it got you to this place. Not if it got you the people that you know and love so fiercely.
It's not what you expected, and it's not what you wanted, but it is what it is. Life is full of heartache, but as you sit with your heart breaking, you re-live every moment you've had over the last five years, and you suddenly realize that without the pain, these bright, beautiful memories would somehow be less bright.
You learn a new lesson.
Not giving up has multiple meanings, and you're about to take a crash course in all of them.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Giving In
It is not very often that I write here and I know exactly why. To write means that I have to open up and pour out that part of myself that I try and keep locked away. It's not that I don't want to share these feelings, it's that if I open up, it will all tumble out and I'll feel as if I am spinning out of control towards an inevitability that I am not prepared to accept.
We're moving back to Tennessee.
No matter how I look at it, no matter how I try and justify it to myself or anyone else, it feels like quitting. I realize that it's quitting for very legitimate reasons, but what shreds my soul is the thought that after everything, after all we've been through, this didn't work out. Could we have stuck it out, forced ourselves to live this way, and somehow made it work? Of course. Would that have been fair to the two innocent human beings that we are responsible for? Absolutely not.
We've known sacrifice since we were 17-years old. It came with the territory of having a baby when we were still children, and we've spent all this time struggling to do the right thing. We worked, we finished college, we raised one son, and then two, and just when getting to the point of being able to say, "We did it" the economy collapsed, we found out my husband had a tumor, and suddenly nothing made sense anymore. Surgery followed, along with my husband dropping out of grad school, and even though every instinct told us to turn around then, we waited another year to see if any of this was possible. It turns out that possible can have multiple meanings. It really came down to a choice. We could choose to put ourselves first, or we could choose to put our children first. Giving up means giving them a better life, a life where when we go to a store, they don't have to be afraid to ask for a box of cookies, or an extra notebook for class. It's not that I want to buy them iPhones and designer clothes, I just want to not walk into a store and have to say to them, "I'm sorry, but we can only get what is on this list" every single time I go to the store for two years. I just can't do it anymore. I'd give anything up, to not have to see that look on their faces.
So here we are, the two of us angry, sad, relieved, all at the same time. It's not easy when we're both mourning. One path obstructed, one of many, yet this is the one we couldn't overcome. After a lifetime of overcoming insurmountable odds, this is the one thing we couldn't do.
It hurts.
It hurts a lot more than I thought it would.
I am grateful to everyone who helped us along the way; our family, our friends, our eternally patient bosses who are really more family than employers.
My children are worth walking through fire for, so I'm going to be sad, but I'm also going to be happy, because they deserve the world. One day they will go through obstacles, and some they will overcome, and some they won't. But it's our choice to give them the best possible odds, even if that means giving up on our own. At least for now.
We're moving back to Tennessee.
No matter how I look at it, no matter how I try and justify it to myself or anyone else, it feels like quitting. I realize that it's quitting for very legitimate reasons, but what shreds my soul is the thought that after everything, after all we've been through, this didn't work out. Could we have stuck it out, forced ourselves to live this way, and somehow made it work? Of course. Would that have been fair to the two innocent human beings that we are responsible for? Absolutely not.
We've known sacrifice since we were 17-years old. It came with the territory of having a baby when we were still children, and we've spent all this time struggling to do the right thing. We worked, we finished college, we raised one son, and then two, and just when getting to the point of being able to say, "We did it" the economy collapsed, we found out my husband had a tumor, and suddenly nothing made sense anymore. Surgery followed, along with my husband dropping out of grad school, and even though every instinct told us to turn around then, we waited another year to see if any of this was possible. It turns out that possible can have multiple meanings. It really came down to a choice. We could choose to put ourselves first, or we could choose to put our children first. Giving up means giving them a better life, a life where when we go to a store, they don't have to be afraid to ask for a box of cookies, or an extra notebook for class. It's not that I want to buy them iPhones and designer clothes, I just want to not walk into a store and have to say to them, "I'm sorry, but we can only get what is on this list" every single time I go to the store for two years. I just can't do it anymore. I'd give anything up, to not have to see that look on their faces.
So here we are, the two of us angry, sad, relieved, all at the same time. It's not easy when we're both mourning. One path obstructed, one of many, yet this is the one we couldn't overcome. After a lifetime of overcoming insurmountable odds, this is the one thing we couldn't do.
It hurts.
It hurts a lot more than I thought it would.
I am grateful to everyone who helped us along the way; our family, our friends, our eternally patient bosses who are really more family than employers.
My children are worth walking through fire for, so I'm going to be sad, but I'm also going to be happy, because they deserve the world. One day they will go through obstacles, and some they will overcome, and some they won't. But it's our choice to give them the best possible odds, even if that means giving up on our own. At least for now.
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