It dwells in my thoughts when I am alone. There is this isolation that seems to be a part of my life. Since childhood, I remember this feeling of loneliness. A feeling of wanting someone who just wants to see me grow into an amazing person.  An aching feeling of needing relationships with people who want to impart their wisdom and invest in me as a person.  And that loneliness, it just goes on and on. Even now, at 35 I find myself left with very few close friends who I don’t have enough contact with… And family, well, the word itself just hurts to say sometimes. And don’t get me wrong, my husband has been a God-send. He has made me stronger in so many ways. And he is my best friend. But getting quality time is so hard. Although, once we have it, it is a place where we feel at home in each other’s hearts.

So, now to get to the good stuff… I read a book called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by a guy named Don Miller. It’s kind of a life changing book. He talks about how each of us has a story and it is up to us to write it out. The choices we make with our lives are ours to make. For instance, the sedentary couch potato is depressed because he has found no purpose. But a person who knows they have power over what is written in their story ends up writing themselves a good story. They also know that nothing on this earth will bring the euphoric peace that can only come in the next life, therefore freeing them of the burden of waiting for it to come along. And that allows them the freedom to make things happen as a collection of moments. Sometimes euphoric moments.

So, I have the keys in my hand so to speak… I am a big girl now and I know what cards I have been dealt.  I know that people aren’t going to come rushing to my side to heal this splintered heart. They aren’t going to encourage me and love me because I am so deserving of it, or even out of guilt. The ugly truth to this sad matter of the heart is that I have to make my life in to what I want it to be… Like any hard working person.  I need to dig deep and find the richness of what life truly is; and spread it around by opening my heart to others, by reaching to them with no expectations no matter how desperately I just want them to come pursuing me.  Our time here on this planet is ours… We decide most of what will come of us… And I am going to write a story of my life… A great story.  One where the relationships in it have quality.  I never wanted to lead my life in to this community I so desperately admire in others lives, I simply just wanted it to be built-in.  But THAT is not the story I was given… I was dealt a different hand.  So, I must live out what I want my story to become.  And one day I will look back and know that I had the power to make my life what I want it to be.

Life is an endless process of growth.  Growing physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Sometimes we grow backward.  Sometimes we have to get re-nurtured in order to grow-up more.  At least, that is the case with me.  I am on a constant journey of trying to figure out my life… Inside and out.  I seem to want wholeness all the time. “A creature of comfort” could be on my epitaph.  I am realizing, in my maturing mind, how often I seek this place of euphoric rest.  And I have been through stages of seeking this comfort with food, with friends, in my art, in time alone, in spa treatments, in time spent with my husband, in seeing my kids have fun, in controlling things that I feel are being done unjustly.

Side note: once I drove through a crowd gathering for a fight  in a Wendy’s parking lot.  I just wanted the pain, whoever’s pain it was going to be, to be stopped.  And me, in my Dodge Omni, felt invincible (yes, I see the sheer irony in that).  The crowd simply reformed after my attempt to be like Moses and part their sea.  My friend in the car convinced me I could not do anything to help the situation and really shouldn’t ever attempt doing that again.

But back to the comfort thing… Constantly, I try meeting the needs of this little girl who stuffed down her needs for so long…  Who felt that there was too much going on in her house with her siblings and parents to reach out for all she wanted… needed.  And so now, here I am in my thirties finally realizing that my crazy habits of seeking comfort are just to appease this deep down yearning.  The walls set up kept the hurt from happening and keeps anyone from getting too close.  Which leaves me lonely… a lot.  A bitter sense of being left to fend for myself in a tragic and unsafe world.

But now, now, I hear the voice, not just the echo.  I know it’s there loud and clear.  And now the light will shine on it.  And soon all that I poured into soothing me can be poured into others.  Someday, I will be healed.  Someday, I will pass along this goodness to someone who needs to hear it.  Someday, I will arise from the ashes and gaze around at my new world.  Because I survived… And overcame an engulfing storm that hid me in its depths… but didn’t win.

But I want to talk about my “in between.”  My suburban, middle-class family that lands somewhere in the middle of harmony and chaos.  The family I was born into tried its best with what they had.  My parents did what they could at the time to raise and rear five very different children.  And five very different people we are.  There were rebellious ones.  Goody-goodies.  Ones with higher educations.  Others who had settled with choices that had serious life long consequences.  But in the end we have each become successful in our own right.  But back then we had our share of problems…  But we never got too close.  We never really shared our hearts.  And we never really learned what a relationship that is supportive, kind, and constant looked liked.  And we are all splintered because of it.  I was born into a family of people just trying to get by.  They all are like that.  We don’t strive for excessive success.  We don’t have giganic expectations of ourselves.  And we use that same thinking in our relationships with each other it seems.

But there is this little girl in me.  The one who walks through that house of unspoken, and maybe even to them unrecognized, division and feels neglected.  It was just who we were.  And she looks up at all these people and wonders why there was never time to share our hearts.  Why there is hardly ever a phone call… a text… an email even now all these years later.  We are like these ships in oceans so far apart its like nothing else is out there but each of us alone.  Alone.  It is sad for me.  It is what my heart longs for.  And unless we send out a distress signal, an SOS if you will, ain’t no one gonna come lookin’ for ya.

See I have this erie feeling… One day the glue that is our parents will no longer be what holds us together.  They will be gone we will be left with our splintered, unattached selves and then we will become those siblings who simply just catch up every few months… instead of once or twice a year which is what it is now in some cases.  And that would be an improvement.  But I want more.  I want them to walk with me today… and every day.  I want them share in my joy or pain.  And I in theirs.  But I am mostly sad because I am probably the only one who really needs this.  And as the fourth born I resent the older three for not seeing this need.  My younger brother, while different from the others, and the one I could most easily trust my heart with, does make some effort but nothing comes naturally easy as far as consistent communication.  And maybe he resents me for not being a better big sister.  Although, I did try.  In high school and college I would take him out with me I tried to make who we were different than who the others were, but somewhere it was all lost.  Somewhere in the roll and rhythm of daily life we lost what we had.  Maybe its my fault.  But I miss it.  He lives so far away from me now.  All the way out in California.  So far and so costly.  And lately, I have just wanted to hug him.  Share my life with him and his sweet wife.  And become a regular part of his.

So, I sit now in a mess of wet, waded up tissues wondering how you make a family that barely knows each other become close.  I used to think that my friends could be like family to me.  And sometimes they are.  But its just not the same.  Nothing is thicker than blood.  And when you know that your family loves each other, but never takes the time to really know each other, you end up feeling lost inside.  You end up feeling incomplete… so deeply.  And what I want may never be attainable.  But I want to become a new person in this area. I want this part of the puzzel to fit into place to fill this gaping sadness that sometime engulfs me.  I want to take this one challenge, the greatest of our lives, and be excessively driven to see it happen.  But life is fluid and my brain may be the “fluidest” thing around.  Things are always swishing around up there.  I can say this with complete honesty because a lot of the time I get side-tracked from a task, which is so like my mom.  But what can I do?   Right now I am so in touch with this raw emotion, enough to even lay it all out and actually put it on paper, that I feel like I can take it on wholeheartedly.  But then the sadness grips me again.  Because I know I have tp be the first to change.  Isn’t that the famous quote we all hear, “Be the change you want to see in others”?  But the truth of the matter is time will go by.  Old habits and deep rooted feelings are simply too strong.  Already I feel defeated.  I just can’t see how change will be made.  And the little girl inside who wants to be asked specifically questions about her life, her day, her heart, just cries and longs for this change… For this care… For this love.

Change is not easy….  But it isn’t impossible either.

There is something creeping over me today.  It feels like a nice dose of emotional swinging.  I feel a little lost inside.  I am intune to that unquenchable feeling of dissatisfaction rising up and starting to irritate me.  I haven’t done much creating lately.  And it is starting to make me crazy.  I want to create but, well, all the excuses in the book keep me from doing it.  The house is never caught up.  Dinner is never planned.  School is never long enough.  And, quite frankly, it is too darn cold!  I could paint, I could draw, I could make jewelry, but my hands are dry and uncomfortable.  I could keep complaining, but that may make my few readers actually stop coming by, so I will stop there.  But art is an unquenchable thirst in me… Always.

As you can see my blog is on a default, unoriginal, setting.  It’s other setting was unsettling.  I can’t figure stuff out on it to update pictures and stuff.  Plus, it just got boring to me.  There is a lot more I want this blog to be, but it just isn’t there yet.  Eventually, when my super tech-savvy husband and my reluctant self have some free time we want to devote to this ever ongoing “blog-battle,”  it will evolve into that which it was meant to become.

On a sidenote… I heard a great teaching on worship this weekend.  It really touched my heart.  There was song played by an Australian church by the name of Hillsong and the lines came alive in me.  They were complete truth and their statement they drove me to tears.  They went like this… “The same power that conquered the grave lives in me, lives in me.  The same love that rescued the earth lives in me, lives in me.”  IN ME??? That is awesome. It is amazing that the power of God sent to rescue this broken, hurting world lives in those who call Him Savior.  Seriously?  Wow.  I am in awe of this great God whose astounding love that reaches beyond creeds, beyonds boarders, beyond colors, resides in me.  His Spirit… His beautiful, merciful Spirit is what brings hope in this sad and backwards world.  I feel so priviledged to live in a country where I can worship Him freely.  Who are we that He should even want us back after all that we humans have done?  Who are we that He should even fight for us?  But He did… He really did.  For each and every one of us.  And even after seeing all that we are capable of He would do it all over again… He would humbly come to this lowly place and He would do it all over again if that was necessary.  But it isn’t.  He came once.  He lived here once among us stupid self-loving humans and grew-up in to a man who changed lives. Because no person is beyond the love He wants to give to each of us. No one.  And with God… the worshiping, the serving, the dwelling in His grace is an unquenchable thirst too.

I needed to remember this today.  I needed this dose of goodness and hope… See, I listened to NPR today… It was sad.  So very sad.  There was an interview with a Harvard Law professor, Jessica Stern, who has studied terrorists and their thinking.  The interview covered an article by her, “Mind Over Martyr.”  Whichshe discussed on the morning show.  In it she described an unbelievable truth that happens among some of the radical Islamic “Jihad” type groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Apparently, there is a regular ongoing torture done to the boys who join these groups: rape.  They are raped on a regular basis.  The article, of course is filled with a lot of interesting information about how terrorists think and what they use to keep their groups growing.  And in many cases they prey on the poor; offering education and jobs.  They use this as a tool to recruit and bring in members.  But the atrocious act of rape is obviously not something they tell them about.  Ms. Stern wrote that it is regularly done on Thursdays called “man-loving” day.  Because Friday is the day of prayer and when they are absolved of their sin.  And the soldiers who have witnessed this or have heard about it going on in places where they are not able to change it come home here and have to deal with the shock.  Several of them have thanked Ms. Stern for bringing it up in her article because so few people know about it going on.  This story brought one thing to my mind very clearly.  I am so very thankful for where God has put me in this world.  To be one of those parents who simply is powerless to do anything but endure the pain would be enough to kill me.  Do we ever realize how much safety we have?  There is much more we take for granted than just our cars, water, heat…  We can drop our kids off at a school and trust that they will be alright (of course using good judgement and precaution).  As women, we can go to the grocery store, mall, whatever, and know that for all intents and purposes we will be fine.  Not all of America is this safe I know that.  But are we remotely aware of what daily struggles the rest of the human race endures?  The world is so broken.  So scary.  So hurting.  Humans are full of unquenchable thirsts.

My heart rises up when I think that there is a great God who wants nothing more than to show us who He is and what He can do.  So often I loose sight of that.  So often I hide from the sadness of this world because it is just too much.  Too heart wrenching.  But this weekend at church I was immersed in a worship that pulled my spirit into a place of such awe.  And today I was thrown back into the reality of a world that lives in the darkest of places.  But I am so very thankful.  So very thankful… I know this great God.  His power dwells in my heart.  His grace guides my steps.  His mercy is never ceasing.  How can I not be thankful?

I wish I had oodles of time.  Time to just bust out big canvases and make paintings of all sorts of feelings and moments.  Time to just be quiet and create.  I have time now, but it comes in spurts.  And the few hours I take for the mural each week are becoming addicting.  I want to start make huge paintings on my walls at home.  The feeling of painting something as permanent as a mural is so cathartic.  Now if only I could get paid for it!  I did drop off some  mini oil paintings on mini easels at the Newark Arts Alliance near the Newark Co-op (yep, that’s plug so check it out).  I also drop off a few pairs of snowmen earrings.  It would be nice to make money with what I love to do…  And blessings people with art really is a passion I have.  I would give it all away but I need money for supplies to make more stuff.  All in due time I suppose.

Today is a mural day… Pictures to follow.  Thanks for reading and being interested in my yammering.

I wish I had the keys to unlock a lot of people.  The right words and the energy to reach out.  I wish I knew what made them tick and what it takes to get them to trust…

It seems I have friends that span the scope:

some who reach out to me with genuine care,

some who know I am always there,

some who catch up in a note or two,

and some who hold back through and through.

We hold out the keys

Some take them and run.

I hand you my heart

But the return is none.

I wonder and wait

You act cool and calm.

You live in your bubble

You find your balm.

The choices we make

Make us instead

We all take big leaps

And rethink what we’ve said

It seems there is always a time and place.

It seems we all fall in to the same grace.

A real friend is the one

Who holds our heart high

A true friend we let in

They know deep inside.

Sometimes we’re low

Alone once again

But mostly we all

Just need a true friend.

So, that’s my ditty… An itty bitty ditty.  Why not?

For almost 10 years I have been a stay at home mom. At first that is what I really wanted to do. I love kids and find them to be so great to entertain. But well, three kids later and I hardly ever find enough time to work on my creative gifts. It is partly my fault since I never established any “my time” on a regular basis.  I just took what I could get and too often I got the worn out hours at night.

Back to the creating… So I painted some little canvases and am excited to finish them. I used some water-based oil paints by Holbein. They were fun to work with but I think it is going to take a lot a of practice to really understand how to use them. I am so used to watercolor that oils are completely foreign. With watercolor you leave the white space of the paper for your light areas, but with oils you just keep building upon the colors and it is like working backward.  So, it is just more difficult and they take so darn long to dry! If I get anything finished I will post it.

Not sure if any of this makes sense… But there is some sort of therapy in getting to paint.  The smooth lines that drift from the brush…  The cool depths and warm finishes some paints leave are so deeply soothing.  I love painting.  I love seeing the gift God has so graciously given me get put to good use.  Today I got to do face painting at our church’s Water Fun Day.  I LOVED it!  I loved it so much that I think it would be a fun side business.  I am already looking into purchasing professional face paints.  It isn’t too costly and if people are in the market for a decent face painting artist, well, I can be at their service.  I have been needing a fun job and an outlet for YEARS.  And well, getting to paint for hours at a time just isn’t happening yet.  So, this little business would work out well.

“I recently heard about the horrific event that occurred at a Wal-Mart near Queens, NY.  An event that should at the very least send chills through your spine and cause you to second guess ever setting another foot in there again.

Everyone in America knows that you can find a bargain in Wal-Mart.  From clothes, school supplies, and DVD’s to whatever suites your fancy, you can find it a little cheaper there.  So, what do you do when hoards of shoppers, who have been given no structure or regulation for lining up and entering the bargain bin, camp out overnight waiting for the biggest Black Friday sales of the last past century.

You plan for craziness.  You plan for a stampede.  YOU PLAN.  But this Wal-Mart had no plan.  In fact, a man died when the angry crowd beat the glasses doors down and trampled his 280lb. body.  That is just too sad.  It is too wrong.  It is an abomination to humanity when a person is trampled under the feet of hundreds of people just going shopping… Selfishly consuming more things for their buck.  This tragic event is long forgotten after a day of headlines.  But I don’t think Wal-Mart will ever get a penny from me again.  (And yes, there is an argument over whether they should have ever gotten ANY of my pennies) I think the saddest thing about the situation is that the store where the event took place only closed for 3 hours.  3 HOURS?!  To what? Wash his blood off the floor?  That’s all… a 3 hour block of time to get over loosing an employee so some people can save a few bucks on junk.  After all, they couldn’t afford to loose the sales for the day.  Pathetic.”

So, I need something to reach for. I need to feel like I am needed in someway. I want to create. I want to be needed to create. I want to feel some freedom in my day and expectation in my talent.
I need time to produce projects and research and practice my skills. But time is the one thing I can’t get. It just isn’t available. Of course, I could find some time… like an hour here or there, but that is not enough to truly delve into an art form and really feel it flow.

Forgive me for this silly post… that is if anyone is still listening… I am hoping someone out there will again some day if they are not now. And maybe find me some work… Not that I have a lot to offer. I just want to make some money doing something I enjoy… Ideal job for all huh? Not a lot of money, just something to symboliize that I accomplished something. The money really isn’t the thing… The accomplishment is. The feeling that there is worth in what I create. In fact, if I could make paintings for orphans with no money, but a true sense of valuing something beautiful, and if it meant earning nothing but respect that would be worth something to me.

I have mush brain… I can’t think clearly to plan my life. I can’t help but wonder just how much brain-power I will ever have if I don’t have much now.

So, I am going to start with a new blog. Now if I can just actually accomplish this I would be getting somewhere.

I wanted to vote for Obama. I wanted to support the election of an African-American. In the end I did not help it happen, but I am glad we are where we are… I am glad for what has happened because of what it means.

The “tsunami” we are facing will be historical too. With so many democrats taking office we are in for a change… A big change. But I believe it will draw out a strength in Christians that has been sleeping for far too long. Prayer will be our saving grace, as it always should have been. I embrace this change, no matter what it brings. I celebrate with those of color who feel honored to call this day theirs. I believe God has put the man in office that He believes needs to be there. I am glad to live in this country for all the good it does stand for… no matter how hard it is to see at times…

ps> i know i lack eloquence, intellegence, and most of the facts… but this is the best i can do to share my opinion on a night where I can honestly tell my grandkids a story of being a part of history… significant history.

THE VIEW

Good food… Good conversations that course through me and bring me to life and reach into the things I have so little energy and time to talk of on a regular basis. And with my kids a thousand miles away… I had no one needing me to do things for them. No one waiting for me to step in and mediate a fight for which I have no interest in getting involved in but am involved in nonetheless. No one wondering why I am not getting my job done in time (like the clothes they need for whatever). No one looking for something I absent-mindedly put away to clear space, and thus my mind. A time to feel refreshed, unburdened, restful. I am so grateful. I ask myself over and over why I would be privy to such a luxury and there is no answer. I am simply just living my life. And now I am here on a plane (with OTHER people’s kids screaming) coming home from a weekend to remember… A new memory.

This was the kind of trip I would read of in a book and long to be those characters. I spent time doing things I don’t do at home: living with no schedule and no one to worry about but ME, walking on the beach and talking about deep things, eating out everyday at places of all kinds, hiking up steep mountains and seeing all of LA far below and the ocean in it glory (although, i had to imagine it because it was shrouded in clouds… a fire or just clouds.. whatever you get the point), listening to a person singing on the street for money, shopping in a make up store for like an hour and no one was waiting around impatiently as I found the right colors of eyeshadow, taking a nap for as long as i wanted in the middle of the afternoon… Ahh, it was definitely a vacation like none I have ever experienced before. Of course, not the BEST vacation because that would include Joe too! The best thing is that I did these things with the very same people that used to live near me and I would have loved to do these things with them back home, but the time never presented itself.

I shopped at the Promenade in LA. And went to dinner with a Darbs. We talked on the beach till we were shivering and starving. The next day we hiked and then I spent time with my younger brother and my sister in law. We went to Malibu (yes, that same Malibu for which the infamous Barbie doll was named after). We shopped where the stars shop and hung out in their favorite places. We even went on a little strand of a Malibu beach. Only I am sure we were the only ones who weren’t Latino! We kept missing the turns for the other beaches and tis was our last one in Malibu. So, we quickly left there since we could only walk about 20 feet and turn around it was that small. We then went to a much bigger beach where we walked and talked and laughed and shared. It was one of the best times of my life. I am usually not very connected to my family at home… For whatever reason, so this time was extremely special to me.

The only sad thing was that Joe was not there to enjoy it with me. He was sweating it out at home. Balancing all that must be balanced when alone as a father and tending to work as well as kids (and kids are a career in and of themselves!). Wow… I may not be as gracious as he has been. I would more than likely resent all the fun he was having and be upset that I was not having some too. Here is a little secret of mine… There is something that happens to me when I am home with my kids. I get sucked into a state of loneliness. Feelings of anger and disconnectedness with the outside world well up and I feel cheated by life and all the happiness that it can offer. I can’t snap out of it even if I want to. It hangs on me like a weight, an emotional weight. And I carry it begrudgingly around and torture everyone around who deserves nothing more than the sweetness that I should be able to provide but feel too defeated to give. Life can be so difficult, even when it seems it shouldn’t be. My life can seem daunting and hard to get through for reasons that my seem simple to others. But to me it’s hard. After all, no one else has to live in my mind or my body. And they are my reality. With their constant streaming thoughts of inadequacy and their constant unexplainable pains and aches (but the aches and pains are another story). It’s like some sort of brain washing occurs in those hours at home. I feel unable to control my mind’s thoughts (thoughts of loneliness, boredom, and frustration) and soon the torture they give me turns into obsessively needing to get outside, find a public place where maybe, just maybe, I can connect with someone about anything. Most of the time I get obsessive about clutter in the house… Like somehow that will relieve the stress of the daunting, snickering thoughts that drive me into a tail spin of everyone and everything being inadequate like me. The crazy thing is that actually it is everyday life sometimes. Joe can be no further than his office in the basement and I start slipping into crazy-stressed-out-mommy mode.

It should be known that I am doing exactly what I wanted to. I married a great man. I have a nice sized family. And I don’t have to work outside the home. A life that romantically seemed perfect growing up, but oblivious to what adults really do. But it should also be known that I climbed on board to this ship of adulthood and domestic responsibility under prepared. I don’t have a law degree, nor did I go through the grueling training of the police academy, but for some reason I am supposed to know how to break up a fight and find justice for all. This, my friends, is not my forte’. And so it makes my job stressful. Figuring out how to be just in the midst of a smack down in my living room (and stay sane at the same time) is like asking me to become a rocket scientist and draw up the plans right then and there. Sure, I can draw you something, but be forewarned it will not resemble what might be needed to get the job done. Nor, did I attend culinary arts school and learn the proper preparations necessary for a variety of meals that the doting mothers on television place before their always appreciative families. Oh, and it should be stated that I didn’t have a clue how to run a hotel with a laundry service either.

All that said, I have an amazing husband who diligently provides for his family and does more than I ever expect in ways of domestic responsibility (plus, he isn’t the one nagging about what it isn’t getting done, that’s me). But it must be known that while he is truly one of a kind, he’s not perfect of course! But perfect for me.

It must also be said that I absolutely love my kids. They certainly aren’t little monsters. They are just kids. Kids that are just as emotional as adults, only they act upon it. And the adults, who (should) know better, have to teach them how to stop. That way when they grow up they can teach their own little ones how to shut down those impulses and become civil like they should. But that can be draining… But I digress.

Whew. It felt good to get all that out! So, now, after a weekend of feeling like “me” again I am heading back home. The place where everything happens and where my life carries on and I jump into its river and carry along with it. The meals, the school volunteering, the soccer games and practices, the never-ending laundry and grocery shopping, the dusting, the vacuuming, the blah, blah, blah. (Breathe, I must remember to breathe.)

For now, I am reveling in the solace of being alone with my thoughts…. Which after a weekend like this can be nothing short of peaceful and rich in goodness.

(I wrote this upon flying home… I am too tired now to edit and make it clear. So, up it will go on the blog as is. Ce la vie! Or however the heck you spell it.)

THE HIKE

THE LITTLE BRO

THE MALIBU BIT

Putting it into words that are coherent enough to follow is difficult…

Issues, a word used so often these days, refer to those hideous, difficult things we all need to work on. I, for one, am very aware of my issues. They have plagued me for years and I realize now that they are like scabs that itch and irritate but just need time to heal. No instant thing will make them better or heal them throughly. All of the things I use to try to fill these deep, cataclysmic holes in my psyche are never enough.

One of my biggest issues is a need for comfort. Comforting places, things, sounds, foods, talks, experiences… I just need to feel comforted… A lot. For as long as I can remember, I have craved peacefulness inside and out. I have wanted my environment to be peaceful, so that my mind can be peaceful. In many cases, aloneness was peacefulness. I was happy to do things alone (movies, coffee shops, museums) and in fact I would feel a bit crazy if I didn’t get this time. That was until some thing changed in the past two years. I went from needing comforting solitude to needing comforting friends, thus experiences. Why? Well, like all deep-seeded issues, I think it started with my family’s inability to care for one another on an emotional level. It just isn’t there. My little brother is my closest (emotionally) sibling. I can talk to him and not feel like I am revealing things that he won’t treat with respect and gentleness. He is the only of my four siblings and two parents who reads (and cares about) my blog. The others just don’t seem interested in my life… And I have taken their cues through all the years and have done the same to them. We don’t call each other… We don’t hang out… We catch up once in a while and keep things easy to deal with. And maybe none of them really have anything to say, but I know there is a lot I DON’T say.

But I am moving forward and chipping away at the issues… I tell the little girl inside that life is different now and that those feelings of being neglected emotionally are not who I am anymore… And someday I will be old and I want to get to that point feeling like I got healthy along the way…

That happened to me today. My husband had sent the kids outside to play and then said I should take a look at a letter from my kids’ preschool. It arrived in the same 5×7 manilla envelope all of the school materials arrive in. There in among the papers was a letter to all the parents.

(Let me forewarn you all this is a long scatter-brained entry, so be prepared, it isn’t totally cohesive… and definately more for my own needs… to hash out things in my head)

Now, it wasn’t the first time the school sent out a letter to let the parents know of a critical change happening with the school (it has happened twice in the past 5 years. Usually these letters are in reference to a teacher leaving). So, I said to myself “Great. Who’s leaving NOW??” A about a year and a half ago the school had lost two great teachers within 1 month of each other due to job changes with more pay that they both really needed. It was a shock since one of the teachers was my son’s former kindergarden teacher (she was great) and she left during Christmas break (through a letter, of course… guess THAT’s not so great, though, huh?) never to return.

Anyway, this letter was from the head teacher and owner of the school, Marilyn. A woman who I have entrusted my children with because she is one of the sweetest, and kindest people I know. She runs her school very well, and has made my children feel so loved and important. She has greeted me every school day with a smile and welcome arms for my kids. This letter was from her as an individual, not as a teacher. She was letting us all know that her warm, laid back summer was coming to a screeching halt due to the fact that she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She isn’t a smoker, and gave no other information than that. She’s in her late 60′s and has seemed healthy since I have known her. This was a true shock to me. Now I just am dumbfounded. How do I imagine her with her hair falling out and her weight dropping? How do I imagine her keeping her cheerful spirit when her body is racked with pain? What if I have to tell my kids (two of which who have had her for two years or more) that something horrible has happened to this woman they care so much about? What if they are shocked and have questions I can’t answer? She sounds hopeful, but has made all the necessary plans to cover all the needs at the school.

I lost a friend to breast cancer last fall. Two of my close friends have parents battling cancer at this very point in time. Three different people from my church had cancer in the past few years. My uncle had kidney cancer last year. What gives? It just seems like it is inevitable. I am so thankful that it isn’t someone in my family. I am blessed that close calls with bad health have never been anything but that.

Let me digress… I remember asking my mom about her parents… Her mom, Lydia… A woman I never met. I remember my mom saying, “oh, she died before you were born. I was 38.” Or my dad saying something about his parents in the same way.

I feel like these years I am in now are going to be filled with changes that my younger years shielded me from. Changes that alter everything… Changes that solidify relationships because you are there through the tough times with the people you care the most about. These are the years where my friends may bury their parents. These years are the years I buried friends. These are the years I have buried friends babies. These are the years that seemed so far away just a decade ago.

I have been on a “journey” for a while now. Mono, panic issues, allergies, and now asthma. Since last October I have been sorting out a lot of stuff. With panic issues you get caught up in fear of your health, mainly because you don’t breathe deep enough to keep the oxygen levels correct in your brain. Which then spirals you into thinking your dying of something… a heart attack, cancer, tumors, what ever your mind can think of to explain why you feel so lousy. Sometimes your reason to start breathing wrong is simply asthma. A treatable thing. Sometimes its a deeper lying issue waiting to surface and be recognized… analyzed… For me its been both.

I went through a really hard epiphany last winter. I realized none of my grandparents lived past 82. My parents are beginning their 70′s. What will this decade bring? What of the next? (I realize the morbidity of such a thought. I understand the gravity of the emotions felt when a subject so sensitive is brought into the light). Tough emotions are bound to surface as time plays on and life carries on as it always has… Birth, living, dying.

Right now my kids look at me as the grown-up… The one who is supposed to have the answers that help them sleep better and at peace. They are the age I was when I looked at my parents and listened as they told me the stories of people I never met… Their parents… The same age as when my parents calmed me down after a bad dream. When did I grow up? It is like the secret of grown-ups is that they really have no idea what will happen next, but all they really know is a soothing voice, reassuring this little person staring up at them with complete trust, is all they need.

Marilyn is a strong woman and I know she will put up a good fight, and she may win. But these are the years when simple answers are no longer in my grasp… The years when joy and mourning flow into each other… The years that continue to make me into whatever I am to be at the end… The years that seemed so far away, but came all too soon.