September 16, 2006, we used to to say it'd be easy to remember because our area code was "916" and so was our anniversary. So far it's worked, neither he nor I have forgotten. I've not really taken notice of it, however. It's something I think about the day before and then suddenly realize it was yesterday. It doesn't sit on my head until I get angry with it or sad with it. Thankfully it keeps to itself. This year I was up at my boyfriend's house sanding the school's wooden sign that I'd taken as a project. I got covered in redwood dust, I sweat, I felt proud of what I'd accomplished. The day prior I was debriefing with my sweetie about being thankful for all of it. Then I called Ethan and told him too, albeit through some tears.
I'm happy just now. There are many things I would change, these are mostly trappings and so not really important. I'd not go back and change anything though. I'd marry him, I'd make babies with him, I'd go bankrupt with him, I'd live in tiny weird houses and clean up dog diarrhea from the carpet with him. And while I'd never ever want to go through it again, I'd even have him leave me. I love the changes that I see in myself since this all began. I clearly remember who I was when we were married, who I was when I held baby Rosanna in my arms who I was when I called him to find out where he was and learned that he was sitting next to her and they hadn't kissed yet. And then, having had a major life-spolsion, going on so very many dates- a necessary experience that shifted my world view dramatically and permanently.
I am so different than I used to be! I love it. I would absolutely change my children's confusion and hurt. To take that away I'd do almost anything. And yet I also am reminded often to trust. So I do (it's more rewarding and less stressful than the alternative) and I imagine a way in which this betrayal will serve them in their lives, I imagine how it's all perfect. This struggle was sent to me to give me an opportunity to "level up", to remember that I am a powerful woman who makes things happen and to practice being love even when it seems impossible. I'm working, working, working on these things daily. I'm communicating even when it feels dangerous and reaping the rewards, I'm loving through the seemingly unlovable moments and I'm noticing how much that changes things.
What an awesome practice field my life is.
Monday, September 17, 2018
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Tucked Away
Away, tucked away in layers of cotton and breath.
I so hurriedly herded and encouraged and needed you there.
I held your half grown self firmly against me, absorbed your heat, your smell, your relentless adoration.
My heart pricked with the shame of my shortcomings.
Out from her mouth spilled the verbal commitment of her heart to me, her appreciation of her existence. And I no longer wanted to give her to the night.
I needed her to know how sorry I am for showing up to this task with a nearly empty tank.
It's not ok.
I should be able to do it anyway.
I wanted to wail at her feet and beg for the day back- to not yell, to not speak harshly, to hold hands, to be still and listen, to be on the floor and catch all the moments that cannot be retrieved in these mourning hours of the night.
I wanted to promise that by tomorrow I will have it figured out.
I will be outfitted, somehow overnight, with the gear I need to be that mom.
Maybe I just don't have the correct candle scent warming and filling my nostrils,
maybe the motivational quote on my computer screen isn't potent enough,
maybe the GMOs in my snacks are impacting my brain function.
Whatever it is, I wanted to promise her to have it solved and resolved by 8am tomorrow.
Of course I don't actually share any of this.
Look at her.
She sees only perfection in me.
Why would I trouble her world when all of this only exists in mine.
She falls from my grip like a felled tree, vibrating the bed frame, sending the creatures surrounding her into the air, collapsing the pillow up around her face.
I so hurriedly herded and encouraged and needed you there.
I held your half grown self firmly against me, absorbed your heat, your smell, your relentless adoration.
My heart pricked with the shame of my shortcomings.
Out from her mouth spilled the verbal commitment of her heart to me, her appreciation of her existence. And I no longer wanted to give her to the night.
I needed her to know how sorry I am for showing up to this task with a nearly empty tank.
It's not ok.
I should be able to do it anyway.
I wanted to wail at her feet and beg for the day back- to not yell, to not speak harshly, to hold hands, to be still and listen, to be on the floor and catch all the moments that cannot be retrieved in these mourning hours of the night.
I wanted to promise that by tomorrow I will have it figured out.
I will be outfitted, somehow overnight, with the gear I need to be that mom.
Maybe I just don't have the correct candle scent warming and filling my nostrils,
maybe the motivational quote on my computer screen isn't potent enough,
maybe the GMOs in my snacks are impacting my brain function.
Whatever it is, I wanted to promise her to have it solved and resolved by 8am tomorrow.
Of course I don't actually share any of this.
Look at her.
She sees only perfection in me.
Why would I trouble her world when all of this only exists in mine.
She falls from my grip like a felled tree, vibrating the bed frame, sending the creatures surrounding her into the air, collapsing the pillow up around her face.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
A Gift
I'm pretty aware of the effect my mind's wanderings has on my overall feeling of wellness. Letting my mind settle into all the ways I am pissed at my circumstance results in mindless eating, grumpier responses to my children, blah-ness. The opposite tends to be true as well: tending to the awesomeness begets more awesomeness in all the ways.
I received a gift today. I am certain I receive them every day, and this one was obvious. This is my journey to reprogram my mind to pay attention to the gifts and therefore create a shift in my life toward the possibilities. For the purposes of this journey I am choosing to assert that the gifts are not happenstance. It's more fun and meaningful that way.
Today my girls and I arrived at the river a full ten minutes early. This is significant because by all calculations, based on commitments from earlier in the day plus the added time it takes to accomplish most anything when you add children to the mix, we should have been late. I actually had a conversation with myself a few hours prior just to acknowledge that today we weren't going to be on time and that, this time, that could be ok.
So there we were, before all of our friends arrived, chairs set up, kayak in the water, sunscreen applied, be-hatted: ready. It was quiet. The sand was hot from being undisturbed all morning, soaking up the heat. The three of us had ventured into the first few inches of sublimely cool water, and I was taking it all in. When I looked downstream I saw I hawk meandering through the sky toward us. Not even really in the sky, I'd say, but following along the canyon and river 100 feet or so above the water. I pointed the raptor out to the girls, and took an other moment to observe it myself. It wasn't a turkey vulture for sure, definitely a prey bird. But something wasn't familiar about it. By the time it was nearly overhead I lost it, "OMIGOODESS!!! A BALD EAGLE!!! GIRLS!! GIRLS!! LOOK!!!" A freaking bald eagle!!! I knew they existed in the canyon but I'd never seen one, and this dude was right overhead. It was surreal. I implored my children: this was something that most people never get to see, like ever. Rosanna replied, "And WE got to see it!"
Today I am thankful for that gift. For the moments aligning to put us where we were, with our eyes looking, our little family together and peaceful all of us ready to receive it.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
JUST LIKE HIM
I, like you no doubt, have heard the Adele song hundreds of times. "Someone Like You" emerged when Rosanna was little and I was moved by it. Her voice was powerful and thick with emotion, she took me along her journey of heartache and longing and I felt as though she were telling my story. I get emotional like that. In fact, just last weekend I fought back tears when I overheard a man reminding his wife of her ring size. He knew it more readily than she did. This is the kind of love I want. Anyhow- I was listening to that song again today, reminiscing how little RoRo would sing it with me in her lispy 2 year old voice, and it occurred to me that the song is even more sad than it seems.
Think on it for a tick: she is still so stricken by this love lost that she seeks the man long after the romance has died. So long, in fact, that he is completely over it and is taken aback that she has shown up again. Despite this, she croons to us that it is no biggie, not to worry, she'll find another JUST LIKE HIM. **Girlfriend**: unless we're looking to relive the situation that caused you to write an epic-ly moving and wildly popular love song- I suggest we shift our focus to someone NOT like him. OR she is making deeper observations about the nature of human beings to choose the same situation over and over again through different people/scenarios while still incurring the same results- thus "finding someone like you" is inevitable.
That's really not why I sat down to write this evening. I sat down to give myself a genuine high five. I heard a piece of the song differently tonight and it gave me a moment of reflection: I have chastised myself for the amount of pain I suffered while my world was disintegrating. I had, pre-Ethan, built sturdy walls around my vulnerable parts and, as a result of work and love and trust, I had let the man in. I hated myself a good deal for not being smart enough to stay walled up, while at the same time knowing that "walled up" isn't a way I want to live. Ethan, knowing me better than me, insisted that loving is my nature. He told me I couldn't shut it down even if I wanted to. He saw in me things that I refused to, he lifted me up (ironically, during the time when his actions were stomping me down) and promised that who I am is amazing. I am acknowledging some of this now, and this little snippet of the song brought it into new light:
"Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead
Nothing compares, no worries or cares
Regrets and mistakes, they're memories made
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?"
Regrets and mistakes, they're memories made
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?"
I heard it like this: it's all perfect. There is no choice but to live through all the moments, without endless second guessing and analyzation, the result isn't promised- so we just live it. Then! this song comes on, and I was like, "HELL YEAH":
"I hope you fall in love and it hurts so bad- the only way you can know is give it all you have....."
SO -you guys- IT HURT SO BAD. Just thinking about the hurt is making me cry again. From this I can discern that I freaking gave my all. I am so proud that I gave my all. What a waste if I hadn't. I am so proud that I hung on to my marriage and made gargantuan attempts to make it right. I am so stinking proud of myself for the stubborn clinging and no-shit honoring of a commitment. I'm also proud of the moment I decided that I was worth more than what I was fighting for, so I took out my scissors and, through mind-numbing sobbing, cut loose the life I was promised.
For record, it still hurts...just not as bad.
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Un-understandables
You can all relax now, I've officially identified the most ridiculous part of being a parent: comforting your precious babies through the voluntary absence of the other parent.
I've probably said this in the past, and I used to see my Dad once per year, for a month in the summer. I'd miss him fiercely all year, then feel trepidacious leaving the comfort zone of my mom. I'd love being there, a state away, with my Dad. I was so grown up. I did things I'd never do in California, mostly that meant being by myself for stretches of time unheard of in my Mom's care. I could go anywhere, do anything, plan my day and then do something else. No one was there to say no, or yes. If I rode my bike allllll the way across town, then there I'd be, with the consequence of now needing to pedal all the way back. When it was time to load me back onto a California bound plane I would be stressed outright. We'd be late, my luggage barely being tossed into the plane's belly, the front desk person throwing annoyed looks. I'd be stressed because if I was late my Mom might decide that this was the last unacceptable flaw to my summer visits and I'd not be allowed to see my Dad again. I'd be stressed because my Dad's roommates and friends would be standing there in the airport in their river shorts and ripped/no shirts, scraggly and tanned, to say goodbye to me too and I didn't want them to see how sad I was. How near I was to bawling. I was so very sad to be leaving my Dad for nearly a year and I hated missing him. That feeling, it's a very specific one, and it's impact hadn't punched me in the face in long while.
A year and a half ago this very feeling showed up on my child's face when her Daddy told her he'd be no longer living here. You should know that this feeling is the worst feeling I had as a kid- complete helplessness. It is wanting something that is vital to your life force, something that you are incomplete without, and having people you love take it away. It's incomprehensible. There is a tight squeeze around my heart- it pumps harder, my throat closes up, painfully and I sweat. My feet chatter on the ground and I can't stop chewing the insides of my cheeks. I talk about random things. Nothing makes me feel better. Suddenly here it was again, this time on the face I love the most. I was looking at myself, losing my dad and feeling like this couldn't be so. Then all of the reasonings and thoughts to make the situation be less devastating pour out of her, because there must be a mistake. We adults must have overlooked the obvious solution, if we could just let her fix/mend/behave these wrenching consequences away. I'm not sure I've ever been so angry. Besides knowing that divorce was not going to be a part of her life, I'd never imagined needing to defend my daughter from this old feeling. I was in a panic, enraged, desperate to get her past the moment where the world changed. I later wrapped my whole body around her, having coached her into some measured breathing, still feeling the tremors of a meltdown move through her, and I imagined all the yuck of the world trying to get past my cocoon, trying to stain her loving heart. In my mind I succeeded in all the right ways, but the worst offender wasn't outside, he was in. And I have no say in that.
She is having these attacks of reality more often lately. She lays in bed, holding back scathing accusations at the world about not seeing her Daddy enough, and eventually they spit out of her bright red, crumpled face. Two or three words at a time I get the story. I agree with all of it: the unfairness, the un-understandables, the inquiry as to why. She told me last night that she felt like she was going to explode. She told me tonight that it felt like, "I cracked my head open again, only my heart feels cracked not my head". I see it in her eyes and in her defensive body language. She is in it. She's there, where I was, and she is feeling so helpless and out of control and longing. I squeeze her and she wraps her legs in knots around mine. Maybe if I squeeze her just so, it will wring all of this ick out of her tender heart. I keep her there until she is asleep. Heavy. Twitching. At peace.
Thursday, July 6, 2017
New day, new male cow excrement
Remember those weeks where you just wanted to bury yourself in bed and let the throbbing tragedy be muffled by your heavy, depressed slumber? Yeah, that. I just watched my entire paycheck be gulped down by a bill that I spent the previous hour frantically making phone calls to avoid. The ding of my phone notifying me that my account is now hundreds of dollars overdrawn brought me back into the comforting arms of my bed. Children still needed through my tears. So and so looked at me this way. I can't find my fairy house. Look at this octopus I made with bendy straws. Why are you crying.
I lie to my children a lot. I carefully picked over the real reasons I was crying, an exercise that dove me deeper into the sadness. The final response- after it was weighed for the possible level of inquiry it would illicit and the amount of life altering thought processes it could set off, was that, "I'm sad about the way I wish things could be." My eldest accepted that answer, responded, "I love you Momma" and left the room.
A friend told me that these challenges are being given to me in this life because I am being called to "level up". On the path to enlightenment there are obstacles and navigating them is the test. I don't like it. I am very, very attached to the way I want things to be. I've let go of the physical manifestations- the house, the yard, the marriage. Now I just want the peace. I want a break from defending my children's growing up against the chaos that disguises itself as faithful, truest love.
On that note, I also want to say: faithful truest love doesn't ask you to be someone you're not. It doesn't fight for you to have angry relationships with other people. It doesn't leave you in lurches of sadness while it goes off and shares it's body with another before coming back to you. It doesn't require you to tippy toe about, just in case it is having an insecure moment.
I'm not delusional about what love looks like. I think it allows for all parts of oneself to be perfectly present, even the yucky parts. I think the results can't be that you are left questioning and stressed and turned upside down and wondering what essential parts of yourself need to be remedied. No. That is not it at all.
I lie to my children a lot. I carefully picked over the real reasons I was crying, an exercise that dove me deeper into the sadness. The final response- after it was weighed for the possible level of inquiry it would illicit and the amount of life altering thought processes it could set off, was that, "I'm sad about the way I wish things could be." My eldest accepted that answer, responded, "I love you Momma" and left the room.
A friend told me that these challenges are being given to me in this life because I am being called to "level up". On the path to enlightenment there are obstacles and navigating them is the test. I don't like it. I am very, very attached to the way I want things to be. I've let go of the physical manifestations- the house, the yard, the marriage. Now I just want the peace. I want a break from defending my children's growing up against the chaos that disguises itself as faithful, truest love.
On that note, I also want to say: faithful truest love doesn't ask you to be someone you're not. It doesn't fight for you to have angry relationships with other people. It doesn't leave you in lurches of sadness while it goes off and shares it's body with another before coming back to you. It doesn't require you to tippy toe about, just in case it is having an insecure moment.
I'm not delusional about what love looks like. I think it allows for all parts of oneself to be perfectly present, even the yucky parts. I think the results can't be that you are left questioning and stressed and turned upside down and wondering what essential parts of yourself need to be remedied. No. That is not it at all.
Saturday, July 1, 2017
Imagined Life (written mid-May)
What makes a particular day hard? I don't get it. Why is it that tonight I am sitting here with the tightness in my throat and a burning ebbing in my eyeballs. Nothing has changed. And then why do I fire up the Adele Pandora station, letting the musical mood draw my tears to spilling over?
It's a weird thing to think about him as once my partner and lover. I cannot imagine being naked with him. Yet I did it all the time, for years. Where did that feeling disappear to? Was I really a part of that story? Maybe it was just a novel that I read voraciously over and over. I read it so that it became a part of who I was. But since I wasn't really there, it makes sense that I don't have that specific experience to call on.
He is here sometimes and he hugs me like he is coming home from so far away. His body feels like a place I want to stay forever. I feel loved, held, cherished, appreciated. He smells like home. He feels like home. He is still the man who left us. How can I possibly feel so much peace in his arms. It makes no logical sense. And then he leaves again.
It's a weird thing to think about him as once my partner and lover. I cannot imagine being naked with him. Yet I did it all the time, for years. Where did that feeling disappear to? Was I really a part of that story? Maybe it was just a novel that I read voraciously over and over. I read it so that it became a part of who I was. But since I wasn't really there, it makes sense that I don't have that specific experience to call on.
He is here sometimes and he hugs me like he is coming home from so far away. His body feels like a place I want to stay forever. I feel loved, held, cherished, appreciated. He smells like home. He feels like home. He is still the man who left us. How can I possibly feel so much peace in his arms. It makes no logical sense. And then he leaves again.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Saving Myself a Little
I am trying to be in a relationship. Ha- "trying" to be, maybe that's the problem. Anyhow, I am noticing things. Noticing the places where I begin to feel uncomfortable. Noticing that these places are revealing a pattern. I often visualize the needing person, pulling, pulling, pulling. How unattractive that is. How it leaves no other option but to resist. This reminder gives me relief for a bit. Pulling is hard work. Then I settle back into the pulling. However, the awareness is growing and I am confident that standing upright will win out the more I practice.
Tonight I was noticing. I noticed how few texts I received from this new possibility of mine. I noticed how our chance meeting at the grocery store, his sweet interaction with the kids, resulted in no further reaching out tonight. I sat here and figured out all the reasons why: I was too pushy for sex and now everything's fucked. The sight of me flopped into a camping chair by the lake all day in my bathing suit was enough to send him packing. My awkward conversation starters, an attempt to break into him further, were off-putting and lame. My skin is too damaged, the up close make-out sesh was too gross- I'm better off being seen from a distance. As you can see, I have all the answers.
Then there's the me that isn't willing to listen to all that bullshit, she's my best girlfriend. She's the part of me that isn't going to let all that bullying settle in, make itself comfortable and sabotage what could very well be a good thing. She points out that he has, more than once, mentioned how captivating my eyes are. He has also made at least three future (we're talking a few months out) dates with me that I now have on my calendar. He has mentioned that our age difference is something I should think about, because in 20 years it will be much more noticeable. He has driven me the 30 seconds home to my mom's house every time I've come over, even though I've pointed out how easy it'd be for me to walk. He has treated me on every outing. He has defended my honor in a parking lot shenanigan. He talks to me endlessly. I mean, really. It would seem that the guy likes me.
Tonight I decided to explore a meditation that is intended to facilitate healing the parting of soul mates. My ability to descend into gut crushing sobbing at the loss of my marriage is so raw that I figured it couldn't hurt. Some of my inner commentary is new since he left, much of it is old, but there is some nasty new stuff. It has a lot to do with staying safe. I guess most of that crap is designed to keep a person safe, because at some point it made sense to protect myself using these shields. But over time they have devolved and become diseased and now just serve to keep me down, keep me quiet, keep me small. One of these barriers shows up like: offering my physical self while keeping my heart tucked away. It is DEFINITELY NOT SAFE TO SHARE YOUR HEART. Big ouchies are on the horizon if you do! Beware!
Surprisingly enough, keeping my heart out of things leads to those things being devoid of feeling and meaning. Those things that are not nurtured by the heart are the things that die. I have littered the past year and a half with hardly felt connections. A few of those men were certain I was the one. But they just couldn't quite get to me, They couldn't name what it was that was just out of reach, while I knew fully that I wasn't available for such grand gestures. I wasn't playing my full hand. No sir. Not gonna.
Anyhow, this meditation. I sat in my bright blue spinning computer chair with the meditation up on my computer screen. I reread it. I closed my eyes. I got grounded. I felt the heaviness of my body in the blue cushion, I felt the pressure of my feet on the carpet, I felt the chair against my bare back and I exhaled and sank in further. Then, I called out for her. She knows me better than anyone. She's gorgeous. She comes like a glowing hippy goddess from the edge of the woods and joins me in the meadow. This time she has a fawn with her. She is beaming, so happy to see me. We settle in the bright, new, soft grass. She looks to me. It occurs to me I just want to be held. For the briefest second I resist this- it's not written in the meditation. Then I figure if it came to me, I must need it, and so I ask her to just hold me for a moment. She does. I get small, curled into her lap, head resting on her chest. And then I lose it. I am sobbing. It's so sudden and so complete that I'm in a bit of awe at the shift. And so I sob, deep and fully. I feel like I could vomit from the heaving in my belly. This goes on for a few minutes before I'm finished. I had no intention of feeling all of that, and because I did I want to ask, "What in the hell was that?!" but I decide to trust in the process and keep moving forward, I tell her I want her help with some healing. I tell her I am open to more than just her help, if there are others then please, come help too. At that a breeze blows in the sweet smell of sugar pine and warmed grasses, the feeling of the sun becomes apparent on my shoulders and I am certain this is a response to my invitation. An image of my dad even appears, inviting me to be his daughter again and feel my sadness against him, to let him take my burden, to let him take care of me in ways he probably longs to. This brings on the tears again, but this time I can keep moving forward. In her lap still, sweet air in my nostrils and warmness covering my body, we explore the etheric cord that Ethan and I share. The cord is looking pitiful, to be honest. There is a weak golden light still moving through, connecting us. However it is badly damaged. Most of it is dark and decomposing. It pulses red and angry occasionally and when I have finally followed it to him, he is sitting on his beach, knees to his chest, looking sadly out onto the kelp littered bay. And so I begin to push bright, golden light from myself through to him. The light is powerful and strong. It heals and heals and heals all the way up to him where it is slowed momentarily from actually filling him because of a black plug just before his heart. But it gets him.
I don't want to say I know how this will manifest in my life. I do know I want to do this again and again. I want to heal and exist in a loving space that isn't cluttered with my past upsets and inability to live peacefully in his choices. I feel tired now. Lighter and heavier all at once.
Tonight I was noticing. I noticed how few texts I received from this new possibility of mine. I noticed how our chance meeting at the grocery store, his sweet interaction with the kids, resulted in no further reaching out tonight. I sat here and figured out all the reasons why: I was too pushy for sex and now everything's fucked. The sight of me flopped into a camping chair by the lake all day in my bathing suit was enough to send him packing. My awkward conversation starters, an attempt to break into him further, were off-putting and lame. My skin is too damaged, the up close make-out sesh was too gross- I'm better off being seen from a distance. As you can see, I have all the answers.
Then there's the me that isn't willing to listen to all that bullshit, she's my best girlfriend. She's the part of me that isn't going to let all that bullying settle in, make itself comfortable and sabotage what could very well be a good thing. She points out that he has, more than once, mentioned how captivating my eyes are. He has also made at least three future (we're talking a few months out) dates with me that I now have on my calendar. He has mentioned that our age difference is something I should think about, because in 20 years it will be much more noticeable. He has driven me the 30 seconds home to my mom's house every time I've come over, even though I've pointed out how easy it'd be for me to walk. He has treated me on every outing. He has defended my honor in a parking lot shenanigan. He talks to me endlessly. I mean, really. It would seem that the guy likes me.
Tonight I decided to explore a meditation that is intended to facilitate healing the parting of soul mates. My ability to descend into gut crushing sobbing at the loss of my marriage is so raw that I figured it couldn't hurt. Some of my inner commentary is new since he left, much of it is old, but there is some nasty new stuff. It has a lot to do with staying safe. I guess most of that crap is designed to keep a person safe, because at some point it made sense to protect myself using these shields. But over time they have devolved and become diseased and now just serve to keep me down, keep me quiet, keep me small. One of these barriers shows up like: offering my physical self while keeping my heart tucked away. It is DEFINITELY NOT SAFE TO SHARE YOUR HEART. Big ouchies are on the horizon if you do! Beware!
Surprisingly enough, keeping my heart out of things leads to those things being devoid of feeling and meaning. Those things that are not nurtured by the heart are the things that die. I have littered the past year and a half with hardly felt connections. A few of those men were certain I was the one. But they just couldn't quite get to me, They couldn't name what it was that was just out of reach, while I knew fully that I wasn't available for such grand gestures. I wasn't playing my full hand. No sir. Not gonna.
Anyhow, this meditation. I sat in my bright blue spinning computer chair with the meditation up on my computer screen. I reread it. I closed my eyes. I got grounded. I felt the heaviness of my body in the blue cushion, I felt the pressure of my feet on the carpet, I felt the chair against my bare back and I exhaled and sank in further. Then, I called out for her. She knows me better than anyone. She's gorgeous. She comes like a glowing hippy goddess from the edge of the woods and joins me in the meadow. This time she has a fawn with her. She is beaming, so happy to see me. We settle in the bright, new, soft grass. She looks to me. It occurs to me I just want to be held. For the briefest second I resist this- it's not written in the meditation. Then I figure if it came to me, I must need it, and so I ask her to just hold me for a moment. She does. I get small, curled into her lap, head resting on her chest. And then I lose it. I am sobbing. It's so sudden and so complete that I'm in a bit of awe at the shift. And so I sob, deep and fully. I feel like I could vomit from the heaving in my belly. This goes on for a few minutes before I'm finished. I had no intention of feeling all of that, and because I did I want to ask, "What in the hell was that?!" but I decide to trust in the process and keep moving forward, I tell her I want her help with some healing. I tell her I am open to more than just her help, if there are others then please, come help too. At that a breeze blows in the sweet smell of sugar pine and warmed grasses, the feeling of the sun becomes apparent on my shoulders and I am certain this is a response to my invitation. An image of my dad even appears, inviting me to be his daughter again and feel my sadness against him, to let him take my burden, to let him take care of me in ways he probably longs to. This brings on the tears again, but this time I can keep moving forward. In her lap still, sweet air in my nostrils and warmness covering my body, we explore the etheric cord that Ethan and I share. The cord is looking pitiful, to be honest. There is a weak golden light still moving through, connecting us. However it is badly damaged. Most of it is dark and decomposing. It pulses red and angry occasionally and when I have finally followed it to him, he is sitting on his beach, knees to his chest, looking sadly out onto the kelp littered bay. And so I begin to push bright, golden light from myself through to him. The light is powerful and strong. It heals and heals and heals all the way up to him where it is slowed momentarily from actually filling him because of a black plug just before his heart. But it gets him.
I don't want to say I know how this will manifest in my life. I do know I want to do this again and again. I want to heal and exist in a loving space that isn't cluttered with my past upsets and inability to live peacefully in his choices. I feel tired now. Lighter and heavier all at once.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
It's Almost Here Folks!!
I've been through enough inner work to know that when I am feeling judged it is really just me judging myself. And let's say that I'm wrong, that someone out there really is judging me, well shame on them. They can go fly a kite (or some such thing). But here I am feeling the need to justify, or explain some things away. Really, also, to dump out this Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout-sized pile of feelings onto a blank computer screen.
I do my best to disappear on the weekends. Emotionally and physically. I want to vacate my week life, set it down and come back in 48 hours. I wouldn't say single moms are heroes (it's not a dig, I just am not sure that's the right word for it), and I am hardly that 'single mom' anyone ever talks about, but it's f*cking hard and draining to sustain two rambunctious, thriving, needing people through a week without that other person struggling right along side me. And not just any other 'one'. The one who made them also. The actual only other person who can relate to them in the way I can, who can share a sideways glance with me that holds an entire story that we can giggle about without words passing.
And so I go. I am not around for hanging out. I am not around for work. I am not around to experience any parts of my weekday life. I really, really need to go away. I need to check out. It feels imperative to my survival.
And no, I won't be there with my kids at the weekend birthday parties. He will. I won't show up for those few hours to be there. I want to. I love the community, the family and love that is being with my tribe. But then I am back in my week. And my kids are too. If you knew the heartbreak that happens for my babies when I pop in for a moment of their weekend, you wouldn't question it. It sends them into a tailspin. Maybe not right away, or maybe in that moment. They aren't ready to deal with that. I am not going to require them to. They are still too raw. So am I.
And so I'm not there.
And guess what else?! Thursday I'm a free woman!! Divorced! Have I told how wrecked I am? How vulnerable, exposed and generally terrified I feel? I am coming up on a solid week of hovering on a meltdown. I can't see old baby photos without crying. I can't see or talk to Ethan without crying. I can't listen to someone gripe about their husband without crying. I can't listen to half the music on the radio without crying. The way that electric guitar hovered on that note a moment longer- crying. I am afraid if I really give in to the crying that is waiting for me, I'll be sucked into a deep pit and never be seen again.
You know what else is neat? Some horrid person thinks I should be over it. She thinks I am being dramatic and invasive. As if my own personal feelings of failure plus the impending doom I feel is waiting for my children as they grow in a broken home isn't plenty on it's own- no I want to stick myself in the midst of the relationship that f*cks with my brain the most. What a hilarious assumption. An entire third of my life was committed to this man. We created new human beings together with our bodies. We cried and loved and laughed and struggled and were in awe together.
How sad for her that she hasn't had that experience. Otherwise she wouldn't accuse me of being a horrible person for not being 'over it'.
I do my best to disappear on the weekends. Emotionally and physically. I want to vacate my week life, set it down and come back in 48 hours. I wouldn't say single moms are heroes (it's not a dig, I just am not sure that's the right word for it), and I am hardly that 'single mom' anyone ever talks about, but it's f*cking hard and draining to sustain two rambunctious, thriving, needing people through a week without that other person struggling right along side me. And not just any other 'one'. The one who made them also. The actual only other person who can relate to them in the way I can, who can share a sideways glance with me that holds an entire story that we can giggle about without words passing.
And so I go. I am not around for hanging out. I am not around for work. I am not around to experience any parts of my weekday life. I really, really need to go away. I need to check out. It feels imperative to my survival.
And no, I won't be there with my kids at the weekend birthday parties. He will. I won't show up for those few hours to be there. I want to. I love the community, the family and love that is being with my tribe. But then I am back in my week. And my kids are too. If you knew the heartbreak that happens for my babies when I pop in for a moment of their weekend, you wouldn't question it. It sends them into a tailspin. Maybe not right away, or maybe in that moment. They aren't ready to deal with that. I am not going to require them to. They are still too raw. So am I.
And so I'm not there.
And guess what else?! Thursday I'm a free woman!! Divorced! Have I told how wrecked I am? How vulnerable, exposed and generally terrified I feel? I am coming up on a solid week of hovering on a meltdown. I can't see old baby photos without crying. I can't see or talk to Ethan without crying. I can't listen to someone gripe about their husband without crying. I can't listen to half the music on the radio without crying. The way that electric guitar hovered on that note a moment longer- crying. I am afraid if I really give in to the crying that is waiting for me, I'll be sucked into a deep pit and never be seen again.
You know what else is neat? Some horrid person thinks I should be over it. She thinks I am being dramatic and invasive. As if my own personal feelings of failure plus the impending doom I feel is waiting for my children as they grow in a broken home isn't plenty on it's own- no I want to stick myself in the midst of the relationship that f*cks with my brain the most. What a hilarious assumption. An entire third of my life was committed to this man. We created new human beings together with our bodies. We cried and loved and laughed and struggled and were in awe together.
How sad for her that she hasn't had that experience. Otherwise she wouldn't accuse me of being a horrible person for not being 'over it'.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Oregonia Lumps
There is a place I covet in my mind that brings serenity and release. I didn't know this was so until I was led through a sort of meditation and was prompted to rediscover this place behind my closed eyes. Since then, I return to that place weekly, eyes closed, and feel the feels, touch the touches, smell the smells and hear the sounds. I shared about this place to my male comrade who simply asserted that we ought to go there.
Well of course. We ought to go there. How completely obvious and yet hidden from view this option was. A few weekends ago was THE weekend, and after a half day's drive, we were practically there.
I was born in Oregon. I like to fantasize that this gives me some sort of divine right to call myself a native, to say to people that I am from there. Alas, I can't really pull that off. Funny thing- as a kid I became quite concerned when the Beach Boys "California Girls" song would come on that perhaps I wasn't a California girl because I was born elsewhere. I was assured I could be grouped in with the CA girls. Now, I pine for it. It sits there above my state, being all gorgeous and lovely, taunting me and calling me like a Siren. And here I'm stuck. Now more than ever. Unwilling to leave family, anchored by my children's needs for stability in this shitty chaos.
Mountain air is not the same as town air. Have you noticed that warm has a smell? I want to know
why the smell of warm dirt and Sugar Pine haven't been made into a candle so I can play pretend at home. The goal: find THAT place, the method: HIKE. Pounding down the trail together we kicked up red dirt, brushed past the vibrant green soft tips of baby pine trees and listened to the high creaking of towering old trees. It was occasionally too much, leaving me tearing up more than once with a hard, painful lump in my neck. It took miles, mis-steps and releasing the idea that my 20 year old memories would serve me directionally, but eventually we made it. It wasn't obvious at first. In fact we were there a bit before my breath caught and I smacked my companion on the shoulder exclaiming, "OHMIGOSH, this is IT!". And it was. The place from my memory, my serene place of release and calm was right there laid out glistening in the sun rays and bending in the breeze.
Of course, nature could care less if my memory was of a meadow with a bit of a pond/lake in the far reaches. Nope. Nature said, "You've been gone twenty years, things change." The water had expanded and become truly a lake. It swamped the trail in one spot and completely overtook the cabin that sat in meadow-turned-lake-bottom. Regardless, it was there. I tried to lose myself in the shimmering surface of the water and the awe of this vast transformation, but the mosquitoes are thriving there and my collection of welts was becoming a bit unbearable. So we left.
Our hiking totaled about 14 miles. My shins and hips complained for a few days afterward. I hesitated washing the dirt off my body, wearing it like a proud badge of Oregonian honor. The next day we met up with a man who I haven't seen since I was....5? Maybe 7? We got to share stories a bit and I sat in the weird reality of being an adult with kids, the very scenarios that we could remember are happening to our children now and WE are the facilitators. I was left wanting more, to stay forever.
I felt that way for the whole week after returning home. I was a bit mopey. Emotional. Stuck. I get a little relief that it is right there, just North. I can drive there in a day.
Well of course. We ought to go there. How completely obvious and yet hidden from view this option was. A few weekends ago was THE weekend, and after a half day's drive, we were practically there.
I was born in Oregon. I like to fantasize that this gives me some sort of divine right to call myself a native, to say to people that I am from there. Alas, I can't really pull that off. Funny thing- as a kid I became quite concerned when the Beach Boys "California Girls" song would come on that perhaps I wasn't a California girl because I was born elsewhere. I was assured I could be grouped in with the CA girls. Now, I pine for it. It sits there above my state, being all gorgeous and lovely, taunting me and calling me like a Siren. And here I'm stuck. Now more than ever. Unwilling to leave family, anchored by my children's needs for stability in this shitty chaos.
Mountain air is not the same as town air. Have you noticed that warm has a smell? I want to know
Our hiking totaled about 14 miles. My shins and hips complained for a few days afterward. I hesitated washing the dirt off my body, wearing it like a proud badge of Oregonian honor. The next day we met up with a man who I haven't seen since I was....5? Maybe 7? We got to share stories a bit and I sat in the weird reality of being an adult with kids, the very scenarios that we could remember are happening to our children now and WE are the facilitators. I was left wanting more, to stay forever.
I felt that way for the whole week after returning home. I was a bit mopey. Emotional. Stuck. I get a little relief that it is right there, just North. I can drive there in a day.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
At some point
It's been a year. A whole stinkin' stupid year. Fabulous things happened. Maddening, devastating things happened.
My brain takes breaks from trying to "figure it out" more often lately than it used to. Still, in the time that has passed, I have taken on and considered all the aspects and sides of my scenario. I've sat myself right down in his and her ripe, nasty, selfish tennis shoes, looked out onto this shit storm and found traces of empathy. It's hard to see at first, and it only shows up when a certain light hits it- and then don't look away, or you'll lose it. Inevitably the inner examination arrives at our children and empathy becomes a foreign language.
I lay on my bed last night, the perfect pillow combo under my dome and a cat curled up at my shoulder- in short I was peaceful. In the other room one of the kids turned over and I heard the bed knock the wall. That's all it took, well, all it takes. The thought of my perfect child ignited a downward spiral: I think, "I could never, ever willingly leave my children." It would take a police effort to keep me away five days a week. I can't be empathetic when he calls midweek because he "misses them". No shit you miss them. They are fantastically funny and brilliant, they love deeply and completely, they are a beautious blending of two glorious people. Of freaking course you miss them. But he chose this. Even after all the conversations of the implications (and those prophecies coming true), he chose it.
It just freaking blows MY MIND. And still, here I am, loving the crap out of him. It's something that has been ingrained into my being for thirteen years. I have no plans to stop. I don't want to participate in the stereotypical, adverse, "my stupid ex" conversations. I want to share a big house with our kids and live in separate wings. I never want to shuffle them about. I want us to recreate what this shittiness usually looks like and turn it into something less awful. Why not? Well, my bitterness and self-loathing and resentments and suffocating layers of failure are a road block. I can go days ignoring it and speaking new truths about myself. Every fourth day or so I get swept up in heavy storms that batter and beat at my heart.
I have this weird weekend life now. It is so far away from my life. It's foreign. Yes, it involves a boy. The arrangement is largely fun and takes me away from the Mom person I know myself as and throws me into a world where we can go anywhere and do anything, even if the sun has already gone down. If I don't think about it too much it is fun. I'm sure you've guessed that I am not very successful at quieting my brain chatter. The result is always, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!". It usually hits me after I find myself looking at myself, like hovering just outside of me I get this wide view. It's jarring and so completely off track from the vision I'd had for my life that I break. I feel my insides curling in, my nose tingles and my eyes get hot and blurry. I feel like a sandbag was dropped on my head and shoulders. Every little thing screams, "This is not right. You are in the wrong place. Just get up and leave. Go home. Repair your family." As if that's even a possibility. It's difficult for me to admit out loud that I want him back. Being together is easy, we fit well and comfortably together. The awkward and difficult personality differences are known and navigable. I can count on us being in alignment with nearly everything.
Ha- I just looked up and read the little sign I printed for my desk:
"At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening."
My brain takes breaks from trying to "figure it out" more often lately than it used to. Still, in the time that has passed, I have taken on and considered all the aspects and sides of my scenario. I've sat myself right down in his and her ripe, nasty, selfish tennis shoes, looked out onto this shit storm and found traces of empathy. It's hard to see at first, and it only shows up when a certain light hits it- and then don't look away, or you'll lose it. Inevitably the inner examination arrives at our children and empathy becomes a foreign language.
I lay on my bed last night, the perfect pillow combo under my dome and a cat curled up at my shoulder- in short I was peaceful. In the other room one of the kids turned over and I heard the bed knock the wall. That's all it took, well, all it takes. The thought of my perfect child ignited a downward spiral: I think, "I could never, ever willingly leave my children." It would take a police effort to keep me away five days a week. I can't be empathetic when he calls midweek because he "misses them". No shit you miss them. They are fantastically funny and brilliant, they love deeply and completely, they are a beautious blending of two glorious people. Of freaking course you miss them. But he chose this. Even after all the conversations of the implications (and those prophecies coming true), he chose it.
It just freaking blows MY MIND. And still, here I am, loving the crap out of him. It's something that has been ingrained into my being for thirteen years. I have no plans to stop. I don't want to participate in the stereotypical, adverse, "my stupid ex" conversations. I want to share a big house with our kids and live in separate wings. I never want to shuffle them about. I want us to recreate what this shittiness usually looks like and turn it into something less awful. Why not? Well, my bitterness and self-loathing and resentments and suffocating layers of failure are a road block. I can go days ignoring it and speaking new truths about myself. Every fourth day or so I get swept up in heavy storms that batter and beat at my heart.
I have this weird weekend life now. It is so far away from my life. It's foreign. Yes, it involves a boy. The arrangement is largely fun and takes me away from the Mom person I know myself as and throws me into a world where we can go anywhere and do anything, even if the sun has already gone down. If I don't think about it too much it is fun. I'm sure you've guessed that I am not very successful at quieting my brain chatter. The result is always, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!". It usually hits me after I find myself looking at myself, like hovering just outside of me I get this wide view. It's jarring and so completely off track from the vision I'd had for my life that I break. I feel my insides curling in, my nose tingles and my eyes get hot and blurry. I feel like a sandbag was dropped on my head and shoulders. Every little thing screams, "This is not right. You are in the wrong place. Just get up and leave. Go home. Repair your family." As if that's even a possibility. It's difficult for me to admit out loud that I want him back. Being together is easy, we fit well and comfortably together. The awkward and difficult personality differences are known and navigable. I can count on us being in alignment with nearly everything.
Ha- I just looked up and read the little sign I printed for my desk:
"At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening."
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Sundays are for wailing
There is a moment lately that I hate.
It happens on Sunday nights. I come home to my children (after being gone for the weekend so they may have time with their dad without being shuttled around), in time to love on them a bit and help get them to bed, They get to have both of their parents read to them, snuggle them into their covers and then leave them to slumber. However, on Sunday nights they wail. They know their daddy is leaving after he closes their door. My six year old pouts at me, accusingly, "Why does daddy only get to see us two days a week and you get us five days?". Her look is volatile, angry, wounded. I tell her I agree, it isn't fair. She flails back into her pillow, sobbing.
I hate him so much on these nights. I am called back to comfort the casualties. They are inconsolable. And there is nothing I can do to make it better. This is the part that makes me insane. This is the part that leaves me silently crying along side them in the dark. I'm helpless. I can hold hands, rub backs, provide squishy, comfy stuffed animals, but I can't fix it. I send him angry texts, imploring him to think about what he has done to his perfect, amazing children. I regret it almost immediately.
Eventually their melt down exhausts them to sleep. It's quiet and the rage I felt is lessening, but a punching bag would be ideal right now. I realize it's a futile effort, and I try to see his side. Every time I come up short. I just couldn't leave my children, my family, my life for another person (this scenario, of course, doesn't involve abuse). I would fight and fight and fight to see my children more than just on the weekends. As a matter of fact I did. I fought and fought and took on new, uncomfortable shapes and agreed to awful, unthinkable solutions and became a shadow. I disappeared into an ugly dark place that had me unable to eat or smile or sometimes even get out of bed.
While it is undoubtedly the one thing I knew would never be a part of my story- I am getting a divorce. The paperwork is cold, impersonal and daunting. Seeing my precious children's names on a legal form makes me want to vomit. Sitting for an hour and a half to hand over a pile of papers to a clerk who then questions why I would fill out such-and-such form (well, because that legal help desk over yonder told me to) has the tears that were welling up begin to spill over. She doesn't care much. I finally leave and take time to ugly-cry in my car before I can drive away.
This process sucks and has repercussions beyond oneself, we all know this. He is learning the round about way, experiential learning is what I believe it's called. I just never expected to have to protect my children from their father's "learning process".
It happens on Sunday nights. I come home to my children (after being gone for the weekend so they may have time with their dad without being shuttled around), in time to love on them a bit and help get them to bed, They get to have both of their parents read to them, snuggle them into their covers and then leave them to slumber. However, on Sunday nights they wail. They know their daddy is leaving after he closes their door. My six year old pouts at me, accusingly, "Why does daddy only get to see us two days a week and you get us five days?". Her look is volatile, angry, wounded. I tell her I agree, it isn't fair. She flails back into her pillow, sobbing.
I hate him so much on these nights. I am called back to comfort the casualties. They are inconsolable. And there is nothing I can do to make it better. This is the part that makes me insane. This is the part that leaves me silently crying along side them in the dark. I'm helpless. I can hold hands, rub backs, provide squishy, comfy stuffed animals, but I can't fix it. I send him angry texts, imploring him to think about what he has done to his perfect, amazing children. I regret it almost immediately.
Eventually their melt down exhausts them to sleep. It's quiet and the rage I felt is lessening, but a punching bag would be ideal right now. I realize it's a futile effort, and I try to see his side. Every time I come up short. I just couldn't leave my children, my family, my life for another person (this scenario, of course, doesn't involve abuse). I would fight and fight and fight to see my children more than just on the weekends. As a matter of fact I did. I fought and fought and took on new, uncomfortable shapes and agreed to awful, unthinkable solutions and became a shadow. I disappeared into an ugly dark place that had me unable to eat or smile or sometimes even get out of bed.
While it is undoubtedly the one thing I knew would never be a part of my story- I am getting a divorce. The paperwork is cold, impersonal and daunting. Seeing my precious children's names on a legal form makes me want to vomit. Sitting for an hour and a half to hand over a pile of papers to a clerk who then questions why I would fill out such-and-such form (well, because that legal help desk over yonder told me to) has the tears that were welling up begin to spill over. She doesn't care much. I finally leave and take time to ugly-cry in my car before I can drive away.
This process sucks and has repercussions beyond oneself, we all know this. He is learning the round about way, experiential learning is what I believe it's called. I just never expected to have to protect my children from their father's "learning process".
Thursday, March 31, 2016
I am suffering.
The first weirdest part about Ethan moving out was grocery shopping. I know, that threw me off too. It was because I was the only adult to shop for. So many of my choices revolved around what he would want. I think I was a good wife.
Now my grocery shopping feels indulgent. Sort of like when I was young and I would go shopping with my Mom, and I would think to myself, "When I grow up, I am going to buy tubes of cookie dough and just eat it raw! And then I'll eat a whole package of Oreos!!!" I had it all figured out, obviously. And it's sort of the same. If I see something I like, I buy it. It doesn't matter if he would like it, because, well, he isn't here.
It took weeks before I didn't feel like crying in the grocery store.
Mostly it's the vacant space where he once was. It's the complete silence after the girls are asleep. The frightening thought that if I don't have music on or talk to the dog, that the silence will chase me into my own head and I will be bombarded with debilitating thoughts of how I could have done something different. It's dark in there. So very dark and, so far, there is no bottom. I've spent hours rolling around in my bed, kicking blankets, throwing pillows and sobbing until I could hardly breathe. Then thinking, "If I weren't able to breathe, and I died, no one would know for hours because my kids are asleep and no one is here to know if I am still alive." Which sends me further down the wretched rabbit hole. At some point I am calm again, and still there is no man here to hold me and kiss my forehead. There used to be one here every single night for nearly ten years.
I adored him. He has a warmness about him, he would always be touching my knee or my back. When I'd make dinner he'd come in and kiss the back of my neck as a thank you as I fixed up four plates. I'd rarely get to pass him by with out a pat on the butt or a grazing of his fingers. We share things that no one in this world can ever share with me: things our children say and do that are only funny to us since we have known them the best. Or inside jokes that have existed for so long and are so deep and layered that referencing them takes on a subtlety no one else notices, but we do.
Don't think that I am delusional. I get that we were thirteen years in and less than sparkly anymore. For me, there was never any other option. I have suffered through spans of our marriage, but I survived knowing that it was just my expectations that were causing me grief. Losing this man is the deepest kind of pain I've felt. It's the most violently I've reeled against an action in my life. I can actually feel my insides trying to get outside, like my blood cells are vibrating and expanding every time I feel him move further from me.
And what about my kids? My most perfect, beloved beatings of my heart, out walking around outside my body- a judge is going to order that it will not be my time to see them during certain days of the week. These two amazing people, who I am infatuated with, who (with his help) I freaking MADE with my BODY, are going to be taken away from me certain days of the week. For his disgusting behavior, now I am forced to miss out on pieces of their lives. It's so maddening that I want to disappear with them forever.
I am suffering.
Now my grocery shopping feels indulgent. Sort of like when I was young and I would go shopping with my Mom, and I would think to myself, "When I grow up, I am going to buy tubes of cookie dough and just eat it raw! And then I'll eat a whole package of Oreos!!!" I had it all figured out, obviously. And it's sort of the same. If I see something I like, I buy it. It doesn't matter if he would like it, because, well, he isn't here.
It took weeks before I didn't feel like crying in the grocery store.
Mostly it's the vacant space where he once was. It's the complete silence after the girls are asleep. The frightening thought that if I don't have music on or talk to the dog, that the silence will chase me into my own head and I will be bombarded with debilitating thoughts of how I could have done something different. It's dark in there. So very dark and, so far, there is no bottom. I've spent hours rolling around in my bed, kicking blankets, throwing pillows and sobbing until I could hardly breathe. Then thinking, "If I weren't able to breathe, and I died, no one would know for hours because my kids are asleep and no one is here to know if I am still alive." Which sends me further down the wretched rabbit hole. At some point I am calm again, and still there is no man here to hold me and kiss my forehead. There used to be one here every single night for nearly ten years.
I adored him. He has a warmness about him, he would always be touching my knee or my back. When I'd make dinner he'd come in and kiss the back of my neck as a thank you as I fixed up four plates. I'd rarely get to pass him by with out a pat on the butt or a grazing of his fingers. We share things that no one in this world can ever share with me: things our children say and do that are only funny to us since we have known them the best. Or inside jokes that have existed for so long and are so deep and layered that referencing them takes on a subtlety no one else notices, but we do.
Don't think that I am delusional. I get that we were thirteen years in and less than sparkly anymore. For me, there was never any other option. I have suffered through spans of our marriage, but I survived knowing that it was just my expectations that were causing me grief. Losing this man is the deepest kind of pain I've felt. It's the most violently I've reeled against an action in my life. I can actually feel my insides trying to get outside, like my blood cells are vibrating and expanding every time I feel him move further from me.
And what about my kids? My most perfect, beloved beatings of my heart, out walking around outside my body- a judge is going to order that it will not be my time to see them during certain days of the week. These two amazing people, who I am infatuated with, who (with his help) I freaking MADE with my BODY, are going to be taken away from me certain days of the week. For his disgusting behavior, now I am forced to miss out on pieces of their lives. It's so maddening that I want to disappear with them forever.
I am suffering.
Friday, September 4, 2015
For better or for WORSE
So there you are, all decked out in a heavy, gorgeous white dress with makeup perfected and hair that
has been heated, molded, pinned and threatened so as to make it just-so. You're excited. The thumping in your chest is fast and full. This is awesome. He is awesome. His smile is elusive and gorgeous and he looks like a freaking model in that suit. Hot damn- that man is about to be your husband! Won't your babies be gorgeous? Won't forever be a breeze if it's with that guy?
At some point you agree that, yes, whether you are sleeping between bedposts made of gold or shivering cold huddled in the nook of grocery store and it's newspaper stand- yes, you will stay together. You agree that in the peaks of fitness and the depths of addiction, you will stay true. And finally, the traditional summary, "for better or for worse" presents itself and you agree, but of course. A most definite hearty and enthusiastic confirmation that this union is the shit. You feel it powerfully, you judge those who have come before you and you know that you will not be like them. No, this is a love unlike the rest.
It takes time. It's always a disappointing and comforting lesson to be reminded that we are not different from each other. We are all the same. Our experiences are vast and immeasurably varied, and the bottom line is always that we are, at the core, all the same humans. There are plenty of ways to convince yourself that you are special and nothing like so-and-so, it's the way we behave on the outside that convinces ourselves of these dividers. It's the inside that is always, always the same.
I traveled forward into marriage on the high of the "better". Everything was freaking awesome! I relish big life changes, it excites me and motivates me. In that moment you can only imagine what "worse" represents. I didn't spend a lot of time considering it. In a vague way it meant to me being annoyed or disappointed. A feeling that may last a day or two but wouldn't permeate our bond. I could handle being annoyed and even disappointed. So that handled that. No biggie.
In a week, that heavy dress will have been stuffed in a box, dirt still having it's way with the hem, for nine years. Compared to some, we are still babies in this venture, but this year I feel like I am one hundred years in and am beat up, dirty and dragging small people through a dessert mirage- yes kids, this is real! This is wonderful! There is beautiful, clean water in abundance! This is the year our relationship was KO'd, this is the "worse".
I know it's going to be annoying that I don't spell out the details, but 1. it's not really fair to the man and, 2. I really just need to pour out my emotions on 'paper'. Y'all: the "worse" is worse than you think you knew in those wistful moments. For me it looked like days of sobbing with bits of being normal for the small ones. It looked like every blood cell in my body vibrating with rage and threatening to come out in ways that would have gotten me arrested. This is not me. But it was. I kicked the sofa. I powered it with the heel of my foot. I screamed with my whole into a pillow, over and over and over. I shook all the time. I cursed and wept in all kid-less moments. At some point I realized that this whole experience could end. Like really end.
That end had all kinds of ugly, complicated and heartbreaking new beginnings. Getting a divorce was never an option for me, yet I wasn't able to see continuing on either. I am not a patient person, I am a hypocrite in my need for others to make decisions now but insisting on time and space to make them myself. I became a person who was waiting and surviving the days. I knew it was time that we needed. This grand canyon-esque fracture needed time. Fucking time.
I can count on my family to be wise. Loving, supportive and wise. And so it was, this piece of advice that gave me the freedom to have all of the feelings and craziness I was going through, this piece of advice that made the valley (which feels more like a crevasse) that we are experiencing ok.
"Sometimes you just have to be committed to the commitment."
And WOOOSH, I was freed from all the guilt of hating him and despising him and the impossibleness of being near him. I could let go of my commitment to him- the person, for now, and be committed to that commitment. Words. A promise. I could hang onto that for dear life, squeeze it close and it could be the eye in the center of this overwhelming hurricane of breakdown. And it's working. It's only three short months later and we are not healed. We have a rough sketch of who we want to be now.
Freaking time.
At some point you agree that, yes, whether you are sleeping between bedposts made of gold or shivering cold huddled in the nook of grocery store and it's newspaper stand- yes, you will stay together. You agree that in the peaks of fitness and the depths of addiction, you will stay true. And finally, the traditional summary, "for better or for worse" presents itself and you agree, but of course. A most definite hearty and enthusiastic confirmation that this union is the shit. You feel it powerfully, you judge those who have come before you and you know that you will not be like them. No, this is a love unlike the rest.
It takes time. It's always a disappointing and comforting lesson to be reminded that we are not different from each other. We are all the same. Our experiences are vast and immeasurably varied, and the bottom line is always that we are, at the core, all the same humans. There are plenty of ways to convince yourself that you are special and nothing like so-and-so, it's the way we behave on the outside that convinces ourselves of these dividers. It's the inside that is always, always the same.
I traveled forward into marriage on the high of the "better". Everything was freaking awesome! I relish big life changes, it excites me and motivates me. In that moment you can only imagine what "worse" represents. I didn't spend a lot of time considering it. In a vague way it meant to me being annoyed or disappointed. A feeling that may last a day or two but wouldn't permeate our bond. I could handle being annoyed and even disappointed. So that handled that. No biggie.
In a week, that heavy dress will have been stuffed in a box, dirt still having it's way with the hem, for nine years. Compared to some, we are still babies in this venture, but this year I feel like I am one hundred years in and am beat up, dirty and dragging small people through a dessert mirage- yes kids, this is real! This is wonderful! There is beautiful, clean water in abundance! This is the year our relationship was KO'd, this is the "worse".
I know it's going to be annoying that I don't spell out the details, but 1. it's not really fair to the man and, 2. I really just need to pour out my emotions on 'paper'. Y'all: the "worse" is worse than you think you knew in those wistful moments. For me it looked like days of sobbing with bits of being normal for the small ones. It looked like every blood cell in my body vibrating with rage and threatening to come out in ways that would have gotten me arrested. This is not me. But it was. I kicked the sofa. I powered it with the heel of my foot. I screamed with my whole into a pillow, over and over and over. I shook all the time. I cursed and wept in all kid-less moments. At some point I realized that this whole experience could end. Like really end.
That end had all kinds of ugly, complicated and heartbreaking new beginnings. Getting a divorce was never an option for me, yet I wasn't able to see continuing on either. I am not a patient person, I am a hypocrite in my need for others to make decisions now but insisting on time and space to make them myself. I became a person who was waiting and surviving the days. I knew it was time that we needed. This grand canyon-esque fracture needed time. Fucking time.
I can count on my family to be wise. Loving, supportive and wise. And so it was, this piece of advice that gave me the freedom to have all of the feelings and craziness I was going through, this piece of advice that made the valley (which feels more like a crevasse) that we are experiencing ok.
"Sometimes you just have to be committed to the commitment."
And WOOOSH, I was freed from all the guilt of hating him and despising him and the impossibleness of being near him. I could let go of my commitment to him- the person, for now, and be committed to that commitment. Words. A promise. I could hang onto that for dear life, squeeze it close and it could be the eye in the center of this overwhelming hurricane of breakdown. And it's working. It's only three short months later and we are not healed. We have a rough sketch of who we want to be now.
Freaking time.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
So, you want a baby brother
Rosanna keeps telling people she is going to have a baby brother. Those people then look at me with wide eyes. I follow up with vigorous head shaking and silent concerns that maybe she knows something I don't. Then, sometime later, I get the flow of relief - if you know what I mean. So far, my kid ain't clairvoyant.
She also regularly asks if I can get pregnant. I tell her that I can, but that's not in the game plan right now. I told her to ask me again in a year. You guys: I will not be shocked one bit if she asks me in exactly one year. That's how creepy little kids are.
So all this baby talk has me wondering and thinking and considering. Emotionally, yes. Babies forever and ever. Not because pushing them out is so much fun, but because that moment when the little buggar is lifted from your crotch and placed into your arms is unlike any moment ever in the history of all moments. I want that moment again. And again. I also want to smell fuzzy baby hair and hold a person in the space between my elbow and my wrist. I want a small blob of squishy goodness sleeping with head rested in my neck and frog legs perched on my chest.
Practically, no. Sleep deprivation was one thing when there was no one else to take care of and that is no longer my scenario. And can you imagine three- I mean four people in four different phases of eating? One gets a regular plate, one gets stuff that's mostly mushable, one gets a dumbed down version of the regular plate and one gets baby food. Also we'd have to basically never fly. Affording 5 plane tickets might happen once, but we'd have to drive home.
Yeah, yeah, people have three (or nine) kids all the time. Ask me again in a year.
She also regularly asks if I can get pregnant. I tell her that I can, but that's not in the game plan right now. I told her to ask me again in a year. You guys: I will not be shocked one bit if she asks me in exactly one year. That's how creepy little kids are.
So all this baby talk has me wondering and thinking and considering. Emotionally, yes. Babies forever and ever. Not because pushing them out is so much fun, but because that moment when the little buggar is lifted from your crotch and placed into your arms is unlike any moment ever in the history of all moments. I want that moment again. And again. I also want to smell fuzzy baby hair and hold a person in the space between my elbow and my wrist. I want a small blob of squishy goodness sleeping with head rested in my neck and frog legs perched on my chest.
Practically, no. Sleep deprivation was one thing when there was no one else to take care of and that is no longer my scenario. And can you imagine three- I mean four people in four different phases of eating? One gets a regular plate, one gets stuff that's mostly mushable, one gets a dumbed down version of the regular plate and one gets baby food. Also we'd have to basically never fly. Affording 5 plane tickets might happen once, but we'd have to drive home.
Yeah, yeah, people have three (or nine) kids all the time. Ask me again in a year.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Oh, the 'fours'
So I have to say I mostly write (blog) when I'm stirred up. If you're looking for some picture of my day-to-day (and seriously, let's not be a weirdo, huh?) then this is not the place. If this is the only place you get input from me, then I may seem a bit like a drama queen: see my previous "stirred up" comment.
Luciana is nearly one whole year old. No, really. And I may have said this 10 times before, but I LOVE this age. It is my favorite. I might cry when it's passed. Scratch that- I WILL cry when it's passed. She's sweet, her needs are simple, she's snuggly, she's silly, her laugh is joy. I would have babies over and over if only to have this time with them.
Rosanna is four. She's FOUR. I love her, therefore she still sucks air. I think the person who coined, "terrible twos" was unclever and thought alliteration was more important than accuracy. I'm bitter. The "twos" are a memory, and the "fours" are fawful. Or farty. Fickle. Fitful. Fussy. Every conversation is laborious. Her ears absorb everything. I say to you, you do not know how sloppily you speak until there is someone to call you out on your inconsistencies and to mirror all of your lovely speaking habits back to you. She talks. Endlessly. She asks a question, keeps talking and then asks why you aren't answering her. She swings from mood to mood like a monkey in the trees. Her feelings are hurt, she's fine, she's found a new friend, they aren't friends anymore, she's fallen from the top of the steps and is ok, she's bumped her shoulder on the chair and is yelling in pain.
My grown-up brain is not wired to spin at this frequency. Not all the time. It freaks me out. I have the patience of a crotchety old dog being bombarded by a puppy. The effort it takes to be a 'good mom' is less and less available to me. And I don't know what to do about it.
Then there's Luci. She wants milk or she's tired. Those are the two biggest issues I face with her. Haha! "Issues". The kid doesn't even care if she sits in her own poop for a bit (not that I would do this purposefully...she's just not one to cry about a diaper change). Rosanna's challenges are really just the difficult side of some really great characteristics: outgoing, exuberant, inquisitive, thoughtful. I am grateful for these attributes (she says to herself over and over and over and over).
To all this I say: OYE.
Luciana is nearly one whole year old. No, really. And I may have said this 10 times before, but I LOVE this age. It is my favorite. I might cry when it's passed. Scratch that- I WILL cry when it's passed. She's sweet, her needs are simple, she's snuggly, she's silly, her laugh is joy. I would have babies over and over if only to have this time with them.
Rosanna is four. She's FOUR. I love her, therefore she still sucks air. I think the person who coined, "terrible twos" was unclever and thought alliteration was more important than accuracy. I'm bitter. The "twos" are a memory, and the "fours" are fawful. Or farty. Fickle. Fitful. Fussy. Every conversation is laborious. Her ears absorb everything. I say to you, you do not know how sloppily you speak until there is someone to call you out on your inconsistencies and to mirror all of your lovely speaking habits back to you. She talks. Endlessly. She asks a question, keeps talking and then asks why you aren't answering her. She swings from mood to mood like a monkey in the trees. Her feelings are hurt, she's fine, she's found a new friend, they aren't friends anymore, she's fallen from the top of the steps and is ok, she's bumped her shoulder on the chair and is yelling in pain.
My grown-up brain is not wired to spin at this frequency. Not all the time. It freaks me out. I have the patience of a crotchety old dog being bombarded by a puppy. The effort it takes to be a 'good mom' is less and less available to me. And I don't know what to do about it.
Then there's Luci. She wants milk or she's tired. Those are the two biggest issues I face with her. Haha! "Issues". The kid doesn't even care if she sits in her own poop for a bit (not that I would do this purposefully...she's just not one to cry about a diaper change). Rosanna's challenges are really just the difficult side of some really great characteristics: outgoing, exuberant, inquisitive, thoughtful. I am grateful for these attributes (she says to herself over and over and over and over).
To all this I say: OYE.
Monday, January 13, 2014
So it goes
Luci is 9 months old. She is long enough now that her head is just under my chin if she is perched on my lap. Lately I am finding myself mourning the loss of my first baby to toddlerdom and now, little-girlness. She is so tall, so articulate and so sassy (note to self: stop being sassy). She dresses herself, uses the restroom and repeats all the things you didn't intend for her to hear.
Now, with Littles on my lap, I am verging on tears. She might be the last baby that is my own, and despite my best efforts to slow her down, she is nearly an entire year old. I kiss her temple, my nose is in the sweet softness of her wispy baby hair and I breathe in. She smells like my baby. I stay here for as long as she'll let me, admiring, from my vantage point, the swoop of the bridge of her nose. Her lashes are long, her eyes are gentle and she sighs. I move to press my nose into her full, round cheeks. They are less round now, power crawling is her new hobby, but still so perfectly squishy. At this, she pushes her head toward me, mouth open and finds my cheek, blowing a perfect raspberry. God I love this child.
Rosanna smelled this way once. She rocked on her diapered bum in excitement and crawled clumsily after me across the house. I am terrified that I will forget how precious this time was. In the frustration of our daily interactions, I do.
Here's to being present.
Now, with Littles on my lap, I am verging on tears. She might be the last baby that is my own, and despite my best efforts to slow her down, she is nearly an entire year old. I kiss her temple, my nose is in the sweet softness of her wispy baby hair and I breathe in. She smells like my baby. I stay here for as long as she'll let me, admiring, from my vantage point, the swoop of the bridge of her nose. Her lashes are long, her eyes are gentle and she sighs. I move to press my nose into her full, round cheeks. They are less round now, power crawling is her new hobby, but still so perfectly squishy. At this, she pushes her head toward me, mouth open and finds my cheek, blowing a perfect raspberry. God I love this child.
Rosanna smelled this way once. She rocked on her diapered bum in excitement and crawled clumsily after me across the house. I am terrified that I will forget how precious this time was. In the frustration of our daily interactions, I do.
Here's to being present.
Monday, November 25, 2013
THAT Mom
Would you like to know a surefire way to have your ego slap the sh*t out of your enlightenment? Just state out loud how you've got it figured out, that you've discovered a thick vein that will keep you tapped in and guess what? Your ego will have a hay day. EDIT: my ego will have a hay day.
Today I was THAT mom. I put my baby down on the floor of the pet store to find the right 'jacket' for our wisp of a dog and let her chew on the hangers. A few feet away my 3 year old didn't stop talking while finding furry balls to perch on top of her shoe a la Tinkerbell. I actually said, too loudly, "Rosanna, stop talking" so that a complete thought could skitter through my brain.
I showed up to purchase a table from a fellow civilian a half an hour late, and when I opened the rear portal to my van (I'm in my thirties after all) our dog was trying to clamber over the seats, my baby was sobbing and my 3 year old was.....talking. Yay.
Now it's 7pm. Bedtime. No one has eaten. Eating out is the only option. We arrive and I whip out a boob for the baby only to discover that half of my chest has been unsupported (see: nursing bra, unclipped) since the last time I fed her- 3 hours ago. And guess what else? The 3 year old has to go potty. Again. She JUST went...like we walked in the door and straight to the bathroom. So of course, now that the boob is out, she would have to go again. Fast forward to actually having food on the table. This lasted approximately 5 minutes before I decided that to-go boxes were the only way to deal with Fast Hands McGrabberson if I wanted to leave with the same number of children I showed up with.
Bonus: the dog didn't poop or pee in the car!
And now......they sleep. It is oh, so blissfully quiet. So freaking, awesomely, divinely serene.
Don't tell anyone, but I miss them just a smidge.
Today I was THAT mom. I put my baby down on the floor of the pet store to find the right 'jacket' for our wisp of a dog and let her chew on the hangers. A few feet away my 3 year old didn't stop talking while finding furry balls to perch on top of her shoe a la Tinkerbell. I actually said, too loudly, "Rosanna, stop talking" so that a complete thought could skitter through my brain.
I showed up to purchase a table from a fellow civilian a half an hour late, and when I opened the rear portal to my van (I'm in my thirties after all) our dog was trying to clamber over the seats, my baby was sobbing and my 3 year old was.....talking. Yay.
Now it's 7pm. Bedtime. No one has eaten. Eating out is the only option. We arrive and I whip out a boob for the baby only to discover that half of my chest has been unsupported (see: nursing bra, unclipped) since the last time I fed her- 3 hours ago. And guess what else? The 3 year old has to go potty. Again. She JUST went...like we walked in the door and straight to the bathroom. So of course, now that the boob is out, she would have to go again. Fast forward to actually having food on the table. This lasted approximately 5 minutes before I decided that to-go boxes were the only way to deal with Fast Hands McGrabberson if I wanted to leave with the same number of children I showed up with.
Bonus: the dog didn't poop or pee in the car!
And now......they sleep. It is oh, so blissfully quiet. So freaking, awesomely, divinely serene.
Don't tell anyone, but I miss them just a smidge.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
TLC Hoarders: brain edition
Coming home today I felt like I needed to exhale. A dramatic, cleansing release of breath that is paired perfectly with sweatpants and a flop upon the couch. These last two days have been a bit crazy, a bit nutty. Just look at the lack of naps two days in a row. Driving us home today from a sweet little holiday shindig, I was lost in a future scenario...the one where I counted the minutes until bedtime and would then have the house to myse- wait. We have a dog. GAH! The cat is pissed about the dog. The latest addition to my resume is: let the animals work it out, but don't let the dog get too beat up. Oye. I've only had this job for 24 hours and I'm already over it.
Anyhow, this line of thinking meandered around for a bit until I came upon this little tidbit: why the exasperation? Why go around acting like my current state is taxing and nigh on unmanageable? My acknowledgement, or my statement out loud (verbal, physical, see: eye rolling, sighing, etc.) that my life today is more than I'd like to be handling is making it true for me. The thing is, it's not true.
If I want to have a spotless house and take care of my other obligations today, then I could be stressed out. If I want to get the grocery shopping done today and take care of my other obligations, then I could be fed up. If I want to be crafty and make all of my Christmas decorations and have some time to be still, then I might be short tempered. So the question is, why?
"Tension is who you think you should be.
Relaxation is who you are."
Chinese Proverb
"Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than how you think it should be." Wayne W. Dyer
The path to freedom and happiness is letting go, it's being good with what the day brought and being thankful for it. I tend to do the opposite. I dwell on the things I didn't get done and the way my house doesn't look like a magazine cover. The funny thing is, nothing actually changes between those scenarios besides who I am then capable of being.
Mind: blown.
Anyhow, this line of thinking meandered around for a bit until I came upon this little tidbit: why the exasperation? Why go around acting like my current state is taxing and nigh on unmanageable? My acknowledgement, or my statement out loud (verbal, physical, see: eye rolling, sighing, etc.) that my life today is more than I'd like to be handling is making it true for me. The thing is, it's not true.
If I want to have a spotless house and take care of my other obligations today, then I could be stressed out. If I want to get the grocery shopping done today and take care of my other obligations, then I could be fed up. If I want to be crafty and make all of my Christmas decorations and have some time to be still, then I might be short tempered. So the question is, why?
"Tension is who you think you should be.
Relaxation is who you are."
Chinese Proverb
"Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than how you think it should be." Wayne W. Dyer
The path to freedom and happiness is letting go, it's being good with what the day brought and being thankful for it. I tend to do the opposite. I dwell on the things I didn't get done and the way my house doesn't look like a magazine cover. The funny thing is, nothing actually changes between those scenarios besides who I am then capable of being.
Mind: blown.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Blow it up
My friend Wendy is wise. She said to me one day that all kids are perfect and learning how to be in the world.
I do my best to let my kid be herself. Loud, overbearing, exuberant. These are all words that I own, that give me anxiety. These qualities say to me, "Be embarrassed, care about what others might think about your parenting, get that girl to stop drawing attention to herself". They aren't what my kid is. She is perfect.
How freaking cool is it that she can scream with excitement in a small coffee shop and care not about others' opinions. How freaking cool is it that she will insert herself into a stranger's family to seek out their similarly sized child and then steal that child away to frolic about, as if she'd known them her whole life. How freaking cool is my kid?
So why would I want to bring down the numbness, the separateness of my adulthood onto her? What a lame thing to do. By all accounts I am the one whose life is dull and lackluster, while her's is wild with vibrant colors and freedom to just "be". Why would an unbiased observer say to me, "Yes, Mrs. O'Hagan, your child is clearly in need of a dose of your life. The one where she dies a little. Yes, that's my opinion." Well, that just wouldn't happen. Quite the opposite would be true. That person would beg me, implore to my humanity that I see her for who she is: the most incredible person walking the earth. And they would ask me, why- why am I so willing to snuff out that inspiring beam of unfiltered light, when I could learn so much from it?
I could only answer with the sad realization that I have crossed over. I am that boring adult who I didn't understand as a kid. I am fully in the embrace of rules, politeness, manners and all other form of tippy-toeing. And it sucks. Those qualities have added nothing to the quality of my life. They may have inspired others to think kind thoughts about me, or perhaps to not have thought about me at all as I made no impression of myself. At this rate, I'll go to my grave with people saying how nice I was and that may be it. I won't have stood for anything. I won't have lived 'out loud' as they say. And for whom am I muting myself?
The moral of the story is that my kid is PERFECT. I hope she never learns to fit into this social structure and instead blows it up with her amazing self.
I do my best to let my kid be herself. Loud, overbearing, exuberant. These are all words that I own, that give me anxiety. These qualities say to me, "Be embarrassed, care about what others might think about your parenting, get that girl to stop drawing attention to herself". They aren't what my kid is. She is perfect.
How freaking cool is it that she can scream with excitement in a small coffee shop and care not about others' opinions. How freaking cool is it that she will insert herself into a stranger's family to seek out their similarly sized child and then steal that child away to frolic about, as if she'd known them her whole life. How freaking cool is my kid?
So why would I want to bring down the numbness, the separateness of my adulthood onto her? What a lame thing to do. By all accounts I am the one whose life is dull and lackluster, while her's is wild with vibrant colors and freedom to just "be". Why would an unbiased observer say to me, "Yes, Mrs. O'Hagan, your child is clearly in need of a dose of your life. The one where she dies a little. Yes, that's my opinion." Well, that just wouldn't happen. Quite the opposite would be true. That person would beg me, implore to my humanity that I see her for who she is: the most incredible person walking the earth. And they would ask me, why- why am I so willing to snuff out that inspiring beam of unfiltered light, when I could learn so much from it?
I could only answer with the sad realization that I have crossed over. I am that boring adult who I didn't understand as a kid. I am fully in the embrace of rules, politeness, manners and all other form of tippy-toeing. And it sucks. Those qualities have added nothing to the quality of my life. They may have inspired others to think kind thoughts about me, or perhaps to not have thought about me at all as I made no impression of myself. At this rate, I'll go to my grave with people saying how nice I was and that may be it. I won't have stood for anything. I won't have lived 'out loud' as they say. And for whom am I muting myself?
The moral of the story is that my kid is PERFECT. I hope she never learns to fit into this social structure and instead blows it up with her amazing self.
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