Plastic Stars.

Tiny orbs of yellow-green light shine into tinier brown eyes. The white popcorn ceiling is black with the darkness of an eight o'clock bedtime. Beneath a rainbow comforter and on top of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sheets, a tiny mind stares at the platic stars above and holds onto dreams of a future life with the same intensty that the adhesive gum holds the constellations in place against the pull of gravity. Eyelids drift open and closed as they picture exploring Europe, knowing languages learned in the far distant era of high school. The tiny legs, with scarred knees from unhesitant games of tag plan to climb mountain ranges in Tibet and pedal bicylces in France. A belly grumbles from a bowl on Spaghettios not big enough and wheat bread spread with Country Crock while it begs for the delicacies of lands like Italy, Spain, and the vastly intriguing... Chicago. In the darkness, the small hands are raised and beneath the glow in the dark stars, they conduct an orchestra in front of thousands, fingers dancing to the tune as it is created in response, head dramatically turning against the pillow as it commands the strings to strum, the horns to blow, and the audience to arise in ovation. The life ahead! So much to do, and it would all be done. This tiny person need only need to wait for the freedom a decade away. Eight to eighteen and then the world would be claimed, the adventures would never cease, and all that was imagined would be realized.

Thirty years later. 

Tiny orbs of yellow-green light shine into large brown eyes with wrinkles at the edges. The white plastered ceiling is black with the darkness of an eight o'clock bedtime. Beneath a buffalo plaid comforter and on top of Toy Story sheets, a tiny six year old body lies cradled in loving arms. Their soft blonde hair pressed against a chin, their head resting on chest, heartbeats matching each others, and breaths wrapping each in an invisible cover of safety. The stars match the ones from thirty years ago but the dreams have changed. Travels through grocery store aisles and to playgrounds took the place of Europe. Spaghettios have been replaced with homemade macaroni and cheese and Land O Lakes gets spread on fresh baked sourdough. The emancipation of eighteen began the obligation of college, the responsibility of supporting oneself, the expecation of adulthood over adventure. A marriage was mandated not much later, the excitement of exploration instead became the promise of procreation. Orchestration of bills to be paid, mortgages to be made, all other hopes and dreams had to fade. 

Yet here they are, the stars and the love. Glowing with the promise of this new life, their dreams still to be realized, as they sleep each night and when they no longer close their small blue eyes under this roof. The large brown eyes now see the blue eyed dreams, their blue eyed future, their blue eyed accomplishments, all they can do. The promises unkept to self will be kept to this child. Happy to be left behind so they can go forward. Willing to stay in the darkness so they can shine. 

Laundry and life

I just got laundry put away. It's been a week of washing, forgetting, rewashing, folding, refolding, piling, placing, and finally put-awaying. I come into the boys room and am instantly exasparated.

Toys are strewn anout. There is a string cheese wrapper on the lego table (impossible since they aren't allowed to eat in their rooms after a singular ant attack our first spring in this house), and there are no less than 5 stuffies per bed.  I get the clothes put away thanks to an easy little system I set up (as much for myself as them) and then on my hands and knees I begin to pick up toys.

A Batman helicopter next to a random Mr. Potatohead arm next to a Toy Story lunchbox.

Baby dolls and dress up clothes with lizards and dinosaurs.

The fire truck once again missing it's ladder despite numerous threats to keep it attached.

Ugh! These kids!!! I dreamed my whole life about this and its so hard! It's not perfect and I should be better. There is too much to do and not enough time and I don't do any of this "right".

And I don't know what it was, but in the next breath these things turned from chaos to treasure as I saw them through my babies' eyes. These are their items, their possesions, they live out their dreams and practice their futures, they trap bad guys and win races, rescue people and run and hide too. This is so far from exasperating, its exhilarating.

I'm entrusted with these remarkable humans, these wild, living, strong, needy, desperate, and miraculous little people. They drive me crazy and I cant live without them and I'm their mama and their home and my purpose in life is to make sure they have good lives and that is terrifying and humbling and I am failing so badly at it but trying really hard too.

The Broken Belonging

I have not one whole piece left. 

Not one. 

There is no undamaged degree of measure. No unscarred flesh, visible, or unseen. The porcelain I am comprised of is shattered and in shards, and its counterpart, also of which I am made, that iron is rusted and crumbling. 

I have been abandoned time and again. By those who made me, those who saw their reflection in mine, those who might have needed me for an organ, blood, or a hug. The friends I have had while my mind and body grew are gone now. On to more fashionable choices. Ones with better toys, fancier houses, thier cute boyfriends. They traded me out like I couldn't trade clothes with them. Six inches taller with hips and an ass at age eleven. Their thin frames and boy-like chests left me feeling bulbous and boorish. 

The males have gone too. I say males because men is too kind a statement and boys too generous. Boys are full of life and rambunctious joy. Men are full of pride and heart. Males are full of desire and desertment. I would not ask any of them back if I could. I would perhaps trade the hours spent writing my surname as theirs, choosing their birthday gifts, cooking them dinner and sucking their cocks. My time could have been better spent peeling paint from a random rotted fence post. I have poured myself out to everyone I have loved only to be filled with their selfish needs. Pulled into a fray I did not create, over and over again, to defend a person who had left me on the battlefield before I even knew them. 

I do not know how to be unless I am being for others. For you. For her. For him. For them. 

I cannot name one person who has loved me in a year the way I loved them in a moment. 

I will never regret this. 

The broken pieces of me are still present. I am still in my entirety even if not one solid piece. I am fragments of every pain and joy and expereience that has formed a kaleidescope of my life that allows me to see colors and vibrancy and movement and shape that others cannot. 

I can lose everything and still have so much. I can be betrayed and still trust. I can be neglected and still adore. I can be discarded and still shelter. 

My damages and my delights have been one in the same. I do not need anything from this world. From you. From her. From him. From them. I can exist in my own mind and heart for all their tumbling down staircases and flying above trees. The moment I was born I was broken. The moment I die I will break others. Repair and replacement are myths put upon us in a way that harms more than helps. I will not wave a white flag and surrender my damages to cause others pain. I have taken up the shreds of fabric, the banners of my life and love that have disentigrated before my eyes, and have woven them frayed bit to bit into a quilt that will wrap others up and warm them, guide them, protect them, and embolden them to love the same. 

Though I was left, I have remained. I know the care I give is with you still. With her. With him. With them. Contact may be lost but I have touched and been touched and the absence of the hand does not remove that. The absence of  a heart does not stop mine beating. 

I am in pieces. All around. Everywhere. In her. In him. In them. In you. 

Pill Bugs

The brightly colored rug in the middle of the room is normally filled with children.

Tiny legs positioned criss cross applesauce and desperate to wiggle and run and flee.

Breaths on necks and fingers inching toward pigtails and aimed at ribcages for pokes

and tickles. A pulsing collection of life nestled together for storytime or show and

tell filled with future executives, grocery store clerks, and addicts. The hopes

of countless adults resting in small children who are resting on primary colored

nylon fibers woven in a circle. 

The rug is empty now save for one. 

Sitting criss cross applesauce on the dot assigned despite the freedom of choice

that comes with an empty classroom. The teachers, soft and mild women who wear

clothes from Mervyns and hair from Dynasty, lean against the counter and discuss

their weekend plans. They are off the clock but stuck waiting for the last pick up.

This one is picked up late a lot, and they know they don't have to entertain or engage,

this one is self sufficient. This one with mousy brown hair spends recess sitting in the

grass, collecting pill bugs from the ivy, naming each one and calling them friends until

the bell rings and they are returned to their cool dark dirt in the shade of the green. If the

ivy is wet, this one sits in the concrete tube and pretends to be a squirrel living in a fallen

tree. Keebler Elf doors appear on each end, and the screams and sand of the playground

disappear. This one is requires nothing, asks for nothing, is easy, is good, is waiting to be

picked up again. 

Peering down at a tiny fist, but the largest it’s ever been, the fingers burn and sting. The

hand is cramped and aching. Numb in some parts and painful in others. The creased tunnel

created by curved fingers and palm is plugged periodically with the opposite finger. The

thumb creates a door that cannot be opened on the other end. There would be escapes

of course, but really the hand has frozen into position there so much that moving the small

thumb isnt even possible. 

Click-jingle-clack-jingle-click-jingle-clack. Small pierceless ears hear the known cadence

of a walk still 100 feet away. The child rises from the rug and retrieves a small yellow

backpack from the assigned hook. The teachers notice the movement and tell the child

to sit again, their mother isn’t here yet. 

“Yes she is, I hear her.” 

The teachers scoff and look at each other in dismissal of the small human so sure of

the impossible. The door opens a moment later and the mother appears. Tall, beautiful,

in heels and head to toe blue. Keys with keychain billy stick in hand, purse slung on

shoulder, large shiny earrings beneath perfect hair. Apologies and reasons emit in earnest,

the teachers assure the mother its no bother as they have their bags in hand and have

already hit the lights and headed for the door. 

Walking down the hall, a paved miniature cobblestone hall that resounds the click clack

of the heels so well that the child hears it so much sooner than the teachers, the child plods

along behind the mother, hand in hand, half dragged and half skipping. Right hand still

clenched and burning. Wordlessly arriving at the car, a red Ford Escort with grey interior

and melted purple wax in the backseat from a forgotten crayon that the child is still held

accountable and feels guilty for leaving. Half heartbroken for “ruining the car” half for ruining

the favorite purple crayon, rainbows forever incomplete, the most wonderful color gone forever. 

The mother sees the fist. Sees the child for the first time and sees the fist first of all. 

A question.

A non-response. 

The question again. 

A non-response because a lie is bad and the truth will results in a tragic outcome for the child. 

THE NAME SAID STERNLY. 

The tiny hand, chubby and sweaty is brought forward. 

A command. 

The tiny hand turns over, fingers still curved and now facing the sky. Slowly, not due to

disobedience but due to muscle fatigue, the fingers practically squeak open. With great

pain in palm and heart the fingers ease open, the air hitting the skin for the first time in

hours, relief and distress all at once. Also all at once, the release of the low estimate of

20 pill bugs. Small brown eyes tear and wince as they view the departure of the family

created in her mind. The curved shiny charcoal colored bodies and grey see-through

bellies scurry their legs over the soft pink hand directed to rest against the decorative

bushes framing the school gateway.

DISGUST. HORROR. DISBELIEF. The mother is not understanding. 

The small body and mind is relieved to be relaxed for the first time since the collection

was made at recess. Through snack and storytime, nap, and free play, potty trips, and

a game of tag, the hand had protected and imprisoned these little creatures, not one

injured or killed, all kept interned but not interred. No one to talk to now. No one to play

with. No one to hold and feel the touch returned twenty fold even if by insect leg measure.

The small heart is broken though. The friends and family created fleeing and disappearing

like the human ones do.

Alone again and always.

The DMV

I hate going to the DMV.
I hate all the reminders of the fact that I’m not trusted to drive. The DMV is the biggest reminder along with my classmates honking and waving as they speed by me on my trek home each day.
At the DMV I sit and watch the little fifteen year olds and the little ninety year olds get or renew their licenses. It makes me wonder when my completely capable self will get mine.
Then it happens.
My pulse quickens and I am instantly sweating. I hear so much noice it becomes silent and I taste metal and my heart stops and then my mind stops and then I’m stuck inside my brain that won’t work right and my body that won’t move at all.
And then, so painfully, I wake up.
Everyone is staring.
I hear the sirens coming for me and I’m crying inside and stoic on the outside.
The fifteen year olds and the ninety year olds stare and wonder what is wrong with me. I felt envy and they feel pity.
“What is wrong with that incapable girl?”
And I ask the same question.
And I get no answers.

I hate the DMV.

The We that will not Be

We have an immovable idea of what love is.

It’s flowers and chocolate. It’s diamond rings and red bows on luxury cars. It’s sex by candlelight and dinners in the triple figures. It’s oysters, fur rugs, monogrammed towels, and long walks on beaches. That love is a special event, sparkling, and short lived.

Love is also service. It rubs your shoulders after a long day. It remembers your favorite brand of potato chips. Love wakes up next to you every morning and kisses you before you brush. That love is relentless, its full time, takes no holidays, and it gets exhausted.

The love you need? What you really and truly need...what is that? Is there a price? A time? A criteria? Do you find it on a website? At a bar? By crashing into it in a meet-cute like all the romantic comedies show us? Can you love and be loved with no promise of the end result? Can you ignore an expiration date and just be grateful to have the nourishment while it lasts? Not a love “that dare not speak its name” but a love that doesn’t need a name. It’s there. It’s different than the dream but its reality is different too. Its healthy. It’s good. Its pure and safe and true, and the fear of losing it doesn’t make you grasp it tighter, it makes you ready to watch it float away like a red balloon in a blue sky. A beautiful sadness that aches but it frees you when it disappears from sight.

No one loves me. No special event love, no serving love, no love of any kind.

Some people need me and it’s their love for themselves that makes them feel love for me. I am their home, their comfort, their sustenance, and they will forget me once those things are self reliant.

Other people lived their lives in a way that mine became tied to theirs. They cast their line and I was not the catch or the bait, I was the reeds their hook took up in error. They pick me from the jagged edge and cast me away, an impediment removed from their true aim.

I am utility, a giver, a helper, an obliging, ingratiating, smiling, bowing, and scraping friend to all, and I am loved for it. The moment I ask for a return on my investment...I am forgotten. Like a line on a To Do List, I am crossed off once the need has been met. Strike me and leave me stricken.

So I made a change; I set parameters, I would be different, I would be flippant and temporary. Surface and non-committal. I would give only what I wanted and take nothing not handed freely. I would place a chip on my shoulder and turn it into armor. If I could not have what I sought all my days, I would have everything else in my nights.

It worked. For a while.

And then you.
Why did you see me?
You looked and you saw me. No one had ever done that. Ever. It wasn’t my body, the size or height of it. Not eyes or hair or lips or teeth. You saw me simply and that complicated every cell in me.

Why did you listen? Not just to laugh at me. Not because I have stories like other people have freckles. You heard me, processed and appreciated what I had to say. Remembered it. My words mattered to you. More than that my feelings did. They mattered to you and you let me know that without ever saying it. Why did you do that?

THIS is what love must be. Agree to it. Please? I beg of you. Please take all this love and be happy I have it to give. You have to be the one. Because there has never been a single other person to care the way you do. You just cared. You cared. Thats what I needed. Thats what I need. But my years on this planet told me it had to have a label, had to have a mortgage, a dinner on the table every night, it had to be love like Shakespeare and Nora Ephron write. It had to be now because Ive lived without it my whole life. My whole life. Its yours if you want it. Please want it. Please need it. Just take it. I will throw it at you so many times you must catch it at some point merely to avoid being hit by it anymore. I appreciate so much that you have given me something ive never had that I must force it to become exactly like what I have always had. Dont love me the way that I need. Love me the way that I want. Then we can forget me together.

Can I be better than that? Can I accept the love that I need? Can it be the love that I want? What am I looking for that you can’t give me? What if I lose what I have found with you in the effort to possess something that will just destroy me again?

I would not be safe with you but I would be protected and I would not ever harm you.
There would be no picket fence, which means no barriers at all.
We would not wake up together every day. We could go to sleep together the nights we needed the breath of someone else in the bed.
I would hold your hand and let it go when you needed to be free.
I would kiss your lips and not say goodbye.
We’d have the quiet and the peace. The other people can have the noise. Lets just sit and be.
You. Me. Sometimes, you and me.
It could be quiet. Official but uncertified. It could last without anniversaries. Everything could be good and in that maybe we could stop seeking better. Wouldn’t that be best?
It would not be forever with you but for as long as it lasts sounds like greatness today.

You wrote a song.

Here is my opus.

What if we just were... we?

Mirror

I stood in front of the mirror today.

Naked.

Drops of water from my shower cooling before disappearing from my skin.

I stared. At my body. A silent stand off between judge and defendant. Pleading the case for more attention. Begging for reprieve.

Unprepared to give it but transfixed at seeing myself for the first time in weeks. Months. Years. Ever.

I did not critisize. I did not turn away. I did not press the excessive curves into more appealing dimensions. I did not cover scars with hands and pretend they did not exist. I did not view myself as a tumescent man would.

I made no moves to cock my head teasingly.
I did not shift my hips temptingly.
I left my breasts bare and untouched, brazenly.

The body before me would not be splayed out for my own or another's pleasure.

I existed for moments longer than I had ever been allowed or allowed myself.
There was no goal in mind, no task to attend to, no event to dress for, no schedule to keep. I did not have to rush past my own existence into a day serving others. a week, a month, a life serving everyone but me.

I asked nothing from the body before me. I did not accept what I saw in the mirror knowing for the first time that there is no ability to accept that which contains no choice. I am. That is all and everything. Nothing as well.

I stood in front of the mirror today.

Oh thank Heaven... (written 7.12.18)

Yesterday was July 11th. 7-Eleven gives out free Slurpees. I have 5 kids. Normally I avoid all free give aways because having to be around throngs of greedy people will stress me out to the point where any thrill in the “free” is lost immediately. Yesterday though, I decided to go for it, I actually didn’t even think the Slupees were free, just super cheap, so that would have been a nice surprise had the 10 minute trip not turned into what is now worthy of the written word. So, my family is going through some stuff, or more accurately, I am going through some stuff and as materfamilias, they all have to go through it too. I have moments where I can roll along totally in control and fine, or at least pretending that’s true and others where I am 100% convinced I would do the world a service by living alone in a Winnebago at Lake Havasu and wearing Tevas exclusively. Basically, being a female hermit who, when encountered by tourists and visiting families, makes them wonder “geezus, what broke her.” So many things, and nothing at all. But back to Slurpees. I loaded my five kids up in our minivan, the six, five, and four year olds in the back row. The 2 year old and 7 month old in the middle row, and me in the driver seat, purely physically, never metaphorically. Getting five children out of the house, with clothes on, shoes on, pee out, and without maiming each other or themselves might be possible, but it’s not a common occurrence, and when it happens, it happens with yelling and threats on my part. I don’t hesitate to admit that. My children know they are desperately loved, they also know what mom’s voice sounds like when it breaks because it can’t handle the strain of yelling, “Put. Your. Friggin. Seatbelt. On. Now!” for the 24,000th time. The entire six minute drive to 7-Eleven is filled with questions about where we are going, what we are doing, what they are getting, what they are wanting. My children ask questions, they ask questions that have already been answered, that can never be answered, that should never be answered. They ask questions that their sibling just asked, and then they ask it again. They ask questions that are statements, and they get my attention by saying Mama incessantly and then when they have my attention, they say Mama over and over again, unable to process that they actually have my attention, or most likely, forgetting what it was they needed me for to begin with, so then....they ask a question. One I’ve already answered. It’s a real hoot. We arrive at 7-Eleven. Just take a moment and imagine the nicest convenience store you’ve ever been in. There wasn’t a flood of images was there? Now, imagine the worst and make it a 7-Eleven, next to a shuttered laundromat, with a graffitied Redbox in front. Now put 7 questionable characters, 2 bicycles, one drifter, and a broken down Corolla in your eye-line and walking path. And now, the piece de resistance...imagine walking 5 tiny humans in for free liquified sugar. Hoots abound. It was my brilliant idea to tell the kids we were picking up Slurpees for our friends as a surprise too. The easiest way for me to get out of a funk is to make someone else smile, I really wish it weren’t true, but it is. So I decided we would take a fellow stay at home mama Slurpees for her and her brood. Which I only realized too late meant purchasing nine Slurpees. Nine. With five kids in tow. Five. That’s not math that I like. Not happy math. By some miracle (I thought) no one was waiting for the cheap Slurpees (that were actually free) and we walked right up to the machines. Cherry, Banana, Coca-Cola, Captain CrunchBerry, Lemonade, and Blue Raspberry swirl and churn in the machine beckoning my children and forcing them into a Sophie’s Choice level of decision making that they are not equipped to handle. Nor am I. Suddenly, there are 4 people behind us, then six. I start filling Slurpee cups with one hand pulling the lever and the other holding my 7 month old and keeping his hand from the magic colorful elixir begging him to dip his hand in and PULL! I have three or four cups filled, my two year old yelling for instant gratification, my oldest son asking for a Hot Wheels (why does 7-Eleven even sell toys?!), and my oldest daughter telling me that I’m not getting the flavor she wanted while I fill the cup she grabbed, because God knows that a child can’t possible use a different cup than the one that the Holy Spirit called them to select originally. A splash of warm water hits my naked heels and calves. What the fuck? I turn. My middle son, my beautiful quiet little blonde, has vomited stomach water all over the floor and my feet. The now ten people behind us react in shock and abject horror. The SHADOW OF JUDGEMENT falls upon me but the WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BABY concern supersedes it. I bury his head into my hip to comfort him as best I can, and he vomits again, this time inches from a trash can. Okay dude, could have aimed a bit there buddy. Not cool. The store employee comes over with a mop, as I had instantly alerted him and was on my fourteenth apology. The people behind still want their Slurpees even with my kid’s bile on the floor in front of them. Ain’t America grand? But hell, my other kids are asking me what’s taking so long and completely unmoved by their brother’s essence emission. Vomit sounds better when referred to as “essence emittance”. Yes? Yes. I soldier on, Slurpees have been poured, they have a shelf life of forty-two seconds, so we are on the move. But it hits me, as the chaos always does. Why? Why the fuck when I am just trying to get my kids a little treat, a nice little emotional eating trip to compensate for my failures as their mother, why did there have to be vomit? If I was weak, if I was a believer, I would assume God was smiting me and fall to my knees screaming “Why me? Whyyyyyyyy Meeeeeeee?”. But a general belief in myself, a fear of breaking societal norms, and the genuine assumption that if God exists I’m well fucked beyond puke in a 7-Eleven, I refrain. Besides, if fictional Jesus really wanted to destroy me, it would have been me puking in the store, and really, it would have been me shitting my pants. So good looking out, deity I give no stock to, you aren’t stopping my kids from getting their soul healing sugar high. I hold my mother-of-five-who-doesn’t-have-her-shit-at-all-together-but-dammit-there-will-be-Slurpees head high and we leave. The highlight? The nine Slurpees were actually free, not just cheap as I mentioned, and our friends were thrilled, so it’s a win for me. “Win” is a relative term in my life.

Midnight

Midnight and the startling sound of baby cries. The desperate painful kind that tell you your child needs you faster than you can get there. I fly upstairs and into his room. He is writhing in his bed and I scoop him into my arms, already cooing and soothing and hushing to comfort him as best I can. His little body is tense, too tense, and fear runs through me. Something is wrong and not nightmare-wrong. He quiets but still cries and whimpers in pain. The faint but distinct smell of diarrhea hit me as I entered the room but I only now register it. I carry him, his little arms still wrapped around my neck, head pressed to my cheek, into our bedroom and turn on the bathroom light. His body won't relax and he is in pain. I ask him and he tells me it's his tummy. I sit him on the toilet and expect the worst but a tiny bit of upset is all that is in his diaper. But it's been there awhile, likely since shortly after we put him to bed and I know this little boy has previously been seen at the hospital due to diaper rash, he is sensitive to it biologically, and emotionally. I use cool water and a baby washcloth to gently clean his bottom and even that makes him cry and flinch. I bring him bare butt to the bed and see the red welts that are hurting him so terribly and I blow cool air as I apply the ointment gently. He is tender but begins to relax finally. His daddy brought all the supplies I requested and had returned from my second set of commands with the sippy cup of milk and small dose of Motrin I need for him as he is still trembling from the pain. I tenderly close a fresh diaper around him and lay him on his side, on my side of the bed. His eyes are dilated and his breathing is shaky but he drinks his milk and takes his medicine without hesitation. This whole time I have cooed and sighed and told him he will be okay and how brave he is and how I love him and every time he replied, "I love you too mama" even in his pain. Three months ago he didn’t speak. I hold him. Partially to keep him on his side, mostly to comfort him and myself, and I look into his eyes. He trusts me. He loves me. He feels safe with me. He needs me. I am his mother. He is calm, smiling a little now, sleepy eyes settling closed now that he can relax. I kiss him, breathe him in, rub his back, kiss him again. His ears, his nose, his eyes, his fingernails, the wisp of his hair, his belly button, him. I had no part in making him but he is mine. As he drifts to sleep the reality of my baby being in pain hits me, as it always does once they are out of it. Adrenaline and fear and love keep me focused on them but once they are okay my brain processes that in those moments I would have made myself bleed to stop their pain, lost a limb for life to stop 30 seconds of their tears. I need to cry and vomit and holler but I just refocus on them. It's no different when they don't share your DNA. If anything I owe this boy more. He has already been done so wrong. A kind of wrong most of us can't imagine and few would dare to. I can't make up for the people who failed him but I have to try. Every day for the rest of my life. No one had better ever question if he is my “real” son. There will never be an asterisk next to my title as his mom. Even if the courts send him to someone else and I die never seeing him again, he will always be my son and I will always be his mama. I've had nightmares where they take him and woken unable to breathe. Truly gasping for a breath like he’s already gone. I won't let myself think of that happening but everyday...I think of it happening. I repeat, "I will do everything I can for him, for as long as I can do for him" but add "please let that be forever." -
He lies next to me as I type this. His body pressed to my hip so he knows I'm here. His breathing heavy and steady.

He is a gift to me. To our family. He is hope and promise and goodness and bravery and strength and love.

He is my son.

His name is Hunter.

Give, written August 2018

I gave you my time, my words, my breath.
I gave you my hand, my eyes, my lips.
I gave you my smile, my sighs, my days.
I gave you my hips, my breasts, my heart.
I gave you my love, all of it, all our days.
I gave you all I had and made more and gave that to you too. 

Again and again. Again and again.
I gave and I gave and I gave. I gave.

I caved and I caved and I caved. I caved.

You’re still not whole and now I’m hollow.

My Children and Love, written August 2018

It’s a good life. It’s not one many people choose but it’s so good. It’s chaos and noise as much as it’s quiet moments that make everything else disappear.

They are good people. I’d want to know them if they weren’t mine. They are all good people. We train the magic out of them. We make them shame filled and corrupt and we break them to make them fit in the world. I don’t want to do that. I want them to keep their innocence, embrace their havoc, express their romance someday as easily as their love for ladybugs now.

The world tells us it’s too much. I’m somehow less because of how much I have. That religion or addiction are the only way I could do what I do. If that’s true, they are my religion. Their happiness is my addiction. I’m less broken with them. My scars fade through their eyes. Their existence made me stronger and weaker. I cry when I feel now. I always feel now. 

I’m lucky to have them. How was I chosen? How did I make two miraculous beings? How did the universe or the courts or nothing more than a phone call present three more gifts of humanity to me? 

They are not burdens. They are not baggage. They are the best of me. They are better than I will ever be.

It’s not for everyone. It shouldn’t be for a lot of the people who are currently doing it. You have to be selfless, you have to serve, you have to sacrifice, and surrender. So much surrendering. And when you do that you are given everything.

Tolstoy said, “Happiness is only in loving.”

Loving is actually a choice. It’s easy to fall in and out of love. It’s a challenge to maintain love. To grow love. To truly accept love. To act on love. To love in action. You cannot be complacent in love. It breathes and feeds and rests and if it is not tended upon it dies. Can you see it when you really have it, can you believe and trust it’s real?  

A man, a woman, a child, a pet. What a ridiculous joy we are given, this ability to love. To accept all the mess, all the defenses, all the darkness that tries to sabotage all the light of love. 

I have five lights. I have five living breathing happinesses. I have five declarations of my love that express themselves every moment of my life. I choose every day to love them more than myself.

I still have love to give. I’m not depleted. Love renews me. Terrifies me and makes me brave. Makes me write things I can’t erase, say things I can take back, feel things I am blessed and cursed to feel so soon. Too soon. Too late. Too much. Not enough. 

I can do it all alone. 

I don’t want to. 
Who wants to do it alone? Who has had someone and is still doing it alone?

Let’s be all in for each other. 
I’m never alone and always alone. 
Am I enough? Not too much?
I need someone to love me the way I love them. 
I need to be someone’s light.
Not someone. My one.
I need you to embrace away my defenses. 
I need you to love me for my chaos and my calm. 
I need to give and not just receive but have my givings treasured. 
Be scared but be brave more. If it ends, what a ride. If it lasts, what a life. 
I only know how to love. I know the presence of happiness. My obsession with the future comes from the promise of it. It lays before me as clearly in my mind the day behind me.

It is and will be such a good life. A good life. Underrated, underachieved, undervalued. A good life. How beautiful and simple and complicated and epic. It’s a good life. Live it with me. 

The Gym. Originally written July 2018

There are very few physical building which illicit dread when mentioned. The DMV. Prison. Your mother in law’s house.

The gym.

I used to assume that the only people in a gym were the fit and active monsters whose existence had tortured me my whole life. The Barbies and Kens of humanity with their plastic pecs and polymer posteriors. The gym was where you went once you were perfect, and not a moment before. The gym was where people without an imperfection stared at themselves in the mirror while a few beads of perfectly sexual sweat appeared on cue.

I wasn’t entirely wrong.

It’s also where I go. Where I went four years ago after joining a gym online after seeing their commercial at 9:30pm whilst sitting on the couch eating. I joined online, paid by credit card, decided to change from that moment forward. And here’s the craziest part of all...

I actually did.
I changed. Right then and there. I got off the couch. I got dressed, I drove to the gym.

I sat in my car and looked through the layer of glass in front of me and the layer of glass contained by the building glowing white with fluorescent streaming through it. I saw the blonde ponytails bouncing on the treadmill. I saw the muscle tees pumping iron. I sat in my car at 385 pounds and had every voice in my head tell me to turn the engine back on and flee home. To go back to the couch and the food and the belief that I was too me to be more.

And here’s another crazy part.
I didn’t.
I got out of the car. I walked into the gym. I took a photo and got an ID card and I stepped onto an elliptical and began.

Began. Began a workout, yes.
Began a new life, a new me, a new purpose, a new passion, a new presence, a new everything.
I began.

My first workout was 20 minutes. I got almost one mile done on the elliptical in 20 minutes. No resistance, no levels, just going.
I almost died about 47 times.
I made no eye contact but watched everyone intently willing them not to see me.

I sweat, and I huffed, and I pushed, and I shook with anxiety and effort and shame and pride. And shock. I shook with shock.

I was doing this.
I was doing it.

Oh fuck. What did I do?