A Life Changed

I was on a date a few years ago, with a man whom I was so interested in:  A talented artist, a gentlemen, an extremely handsome and decidedly kind man.  I remember driving north on 99 in his Volvo wagon late one night, from West Seattle through Downtown, and telling him what I wanted in life:  To have a family, to have the luxury to be a part-time stay at home mom with a part-time job, and during all of that to be inspired to write and to have the time to actually do what I am passionate about.  I remember my sister Lanie telling me about dating men, and that I had to be able to share with them what I wanted.  And this pivitol moment in my life where I was able to say exactly what I wanted out loud and not be afraid of the consequences.

I spent this evening picking up Jasper and Eli from school, shopping for toys and grocery’s and art materials, coming home and watching I Love Lucy on the TiVo, making dinner, and waiting excitedly for Jason to come home from work.  Then we took showers (the boys) and baths, (the adults, who clearly know the luxury here), and watched Benji, entertainment not just for the kids, but for the adults, and our very own Chesterfield*.  Jason read stories to the boys while I made sure their beds were made over the top of them as they lay in them, and when Jason was done I fluffed his covers and turned out the lights.  A perfect Friday evening.

I may not have made it work with the man who drove the Volvo, but I put out what I wanted and it came to me ten-fold.  I am forever a changed human being, with a life I was dreaming of for years but too afraid to tell anyone about.  But once I admitted and accepted to myself what I wanted, the reality followed.  And I have never been happier.

Soccer Saturday tomorrow. And more to follow.

*A new breed of dog, the Chesterfield was derived from the Yorkshire Terrier and proved to be so magnificent, devoted, agile and loving he was able to  develop a breed named specifically after his own name.

a million different topics

You know how many first sentences I have written tonight?  Too many.  So I’m going with this one.  Well, that one over or up there depending on how it renders on your screen.  I like first sentences, and I fear them.  I fear I have nothing to say that hasn’t been said before in a different way.  I fear that what I say might actually matter, and that it may affect people and make me further away from people I dearly want in my life.  I fear doing damage, and I have lived through enough damage lately.  I want to live and be happy and not rock any boats.  I want to be safe and be held and be loved and more importantly get to do the same back.  And I greatly fear that if I do or say the wrong thing, I could lose everything that matters to me.

It may seem like a control thing, and part of it is; a sleeping dog lies.  But I know my intentions and I know I don’t want to hurt, but I also know I have to protect myself.  So I’ve found myself in a box: how do I help without hurting myself?  What did someone say about a wounded healer?

I hurt myself for too long.  I sat in a small, dark apartment and I ruined myself.  And I came out of it, but not without scars and hurt and pain, and memories that I would love to forget.  I still remember the phone number of my dealer, and I am pretty sure as punishment I will know it forever.  But I woke up, and I got back on a track.

This is the part where I start to edit myself because later, in conversation, I don’t want to have to defend my actions.  And I’m not going to.  I’m neither going to defend myself later or edit myself now.  I am who I am, and it isn’t who I was back when I hurt myself, but I am a direct result now of the choices that I made then.

I wish I had a million different ways to summarize this post into a little light-hearted package now, a couple of sentences that tied it all together and made everyone feel good.  Heck, I wish I felt good about this now, but it isn’t so.  This is just a confession of sorts and nothing I’m proud of and nothing I’m ashamed of.  Just a slice of Me.

Conflict

I posted last week, a week ago today, and something unsettling has been happening since then.  On the surface, I have been writing about Josh’s death for almost 5 months, and I have been hesitant to actually hit publish and send it into a place where people could read what I have been going through.  What I have learned since posting is greater than the fear that initially held me back.

I know now that the process of writing a summary of what I felt following Josh’s suicide was going to disappoint, but maybe only to me.  I felt that by being able to say what I needed to would trigger some magic in life; that I would be transformed and grow in a way that I hadn’t been able to tap into yet through my mourning.  That post was not complete, and now I know and understand that it will never be completed.  I could edit and rewrite it and still, it would struggle to be something in black and white explaining how my brothers suicide affected me.  The truth, is that I will never completely understand what happened that night, and worse to me,  I will always struggle with the dichotomy of writing about his death and trying to understand it; I will spend my life being equally repelled and inspired because of his choice to commit suicide.

I don’t know if I will ever rationalize why Josh taped up the window of his car with a hose and attached it to the exhaust.  But I will search for it forever, over and over again, because I am human and I loved him and I will never, ever forget you Joshua.

I love you Joshie.

I am in a self destructive state of mind.

Mourning is a weird phenomenon.  It is something you can not patrol, even with your own, finest team of officials in place, monitering the information passing between your heart and your brain.  In fact, the only thing that happens when you have said officials in place is that your awareness of death is heightened, and if you see that look of loss in someone eyes, it has the ability to take you down, or sometimes up, depending on your present day.  It can be a look that you see in your own eye, staring hard into a mirror.

I mourn.  It will have been 2 years on September 24th since my Brother was alive, and longer than that since I spoke with him and longer still since I saw him.  But there is something about the night he took his life that I can not escape.  A Final Connection.  An appreciation of his choice.  Not an acceptance by any stretch, but a window into his final life decision.  I lost someone to suicide and the gift for me is understanding self destruction.  And that may be the most painful state of mind I struggle to live with.

A certain fear I live with

One of the greatest fears in life is that you will turn into your mom.  Well, as it turns out, when a certain 10 year old asks you why you always do things the way your mom did, and you know he is only asking because you always say, (as justification for your actions and in a somewhat snarly voice), “because this is the way my MOM did it”, well, then you know you have become your mom.  

So, fear realized. . . not so bad. 

Take a leap with me  here, and remember that I have the most adorable yorkie in the world, Chesterfield.  But, as it turns out, HE has a slight addiction.  He loves to lick.  And I’m not talking just a quick pass by with the tongue (note, that is a kiss), but a full on session of mono-y-mono time, I’m gonna lick your hand off with a devilish look in my eye time,  pink tongue to bare skin love time, brought to you by none other than the one and only nutt time.  (Note, Chesterfield may also be referred to as the the nutt, chester, ches, bunnel, bunce, and confusingly, many, many more).  But the thing is, I have grown used to it.  And I don’t mind. . . I actually enjoy spending some cuddle time with my little bunnel.  

That is, up until the feet thing started.  

A few days ago, Chester’s tongue and my feet got acquainted.  For him, no big woop.  For me, getting used to the tongue was a little strange, but only initially, and then it was fine. . . nice. . . comfortable. . . enjoyable.  And then. . . it happened.  The moment we have all feared and never admitted to ourselves, the moment where epiphany takes over your life and lends a hand in a way you never would have expected, the moment you have that detached out of body experience that is really just a drug induced nightmare, and you wake up in one of those states you never imagined.  Mine was Heaven.  

Which is when it all hit me: I’ve turned into my Grandma.

I wish I lived in the grocery store

I live in a little place.  It gets messy in 10 minutes.  It can be cleaned up in 10 minutes.  It can be CLEANED in about an hour.  Regardless, there is something magical about going to a grocery store, and I realized what it was today while I spent 30 blissful minutes not caring if my cart was in anyone’s way.  I walked around and picked things out, put them back (per the 8 item minimum in order to be in the faster line), and talked to myself outloud (just once, but someone totally heard me).  It wasn’t until I was placing the yellow cake mix box back in its exact and perfectly aligned location that I realized just what I loved so much about the grocery store.  Someone ELSE has to organize it every day. 

(oh, and I found out they sell part of my youth now!)

The Haircut

So I decided today that Chesterfield’s leg hair was disgusting.  It was all matted (even though I have a cute dog does not mean I know how to maintain a cute dog), and smelled like foulness which in turn made me want to vomit even though he is SO fricken cute all curled up and showing his belly off at sunrise.  He STUNK.  

Here he is, lounging in his perfect atmosphere. . . comfy bed, enough sun to enjoy and not as much to the point where he wants to be tucked under the covers, and a cool breeze.  Clearly a perfect nap has just occurred (this is his after-yawn).  

And then there is the after. . . Dog Gone World.  I love the way he was totally obsessed with the scissors up until the MOMENT I put it on the ground, at which point even a 5 year old could hear his displeasure.  

Because all good posts deserve a mention of Clowns

These are two guys that I’ve known for a year.  I mention, because like most women, I have spent some time dating. . . maybe more than most women, but that is neither here nor there.  And while I have never had a problem finding men to date, I’ve also never been one to fall in love , with,  easily.  Punctuation aside, what I’m trying to say is that while I have found the love of my life with this amazing man, Jason Puccinelli, I have had a harder time ‘courting’ his sons. . . but the hard time is that I don’t know if they love me, and I wonder if sometimes I work for their love instead of just loving them for who they are.  

So I go back to the day I first met them. 

Jasper was in a fitted vest and tie, reading something about the titanic I think.  At a table full of adults who were drowsily sipping coffee and tea.  He was awake, perky, ready for life (and dressed for the sinking of any great ship).  I loved him.  

Eli was naked.  Running around like a tyrant and some THING I thought I could never tame, much less understand, and to me I didn’t even think of love.  I thought, what am I going to do with this boy today.  

I’m not going to lie, it hasn’t been easy the last few months.  I’ve had to grow up considerably.  I’ve become an adult.  (only when other adults are looking).  I’ve had to learn to love, without wanting anything in return.  I’ve had to learn to love picking up after someone, and cooking for someone, and cleaning for someone, and having to sacrifice all of my time for someone.  And I bet there is more to come, but I already know that these are two clowns I love, and I’ve come to love them without reservation. 

It is nothing like dating.

The Mariners

Well, for those of you who knew me years ago, you knew that I loved baseball.  I loved the Mariner’s, and like all good fans I was a fairweather one at best.  Regardless, I knew players, I knew names, I knew batting averages, and I knew it was one of my favorite ways to spend 3 hours on a summer day.  Fast forward a few years to when the team now, and I can name maybe one player?  Maybe two?  But two guys I remember from back in the day, Jay Buhner and Edgar Martinez.  And last week I got to be in the same room as both of them. 

Turns out they are just these two guys who used to play baseball, and we were shooting a commercial involving them.  Turns out, we got to work with a very special guest.  Willy!!!

And also a wall of Media.  I think it’s a few pictures down, but honestly, this freaked me out more than the Chimp.  I am setting up some mugs and making coffee (the high level job I have and all), I turn my back on the room for one minute, and when I walk back in it’s a wall of camera’s.  What the H.  I honestly just had to turn around, I was so weirded out by all of the lenses.  But it made me think, are our kids (or our partners kids) going to be as influenced to the camera’s as I am?  I know that my younger sis Rara knows all of her angles for the lens, and on occasion I know what I’m doing (but only when I’m hyper aware).  I wonder, is the next generation just going to be more photogenic because of the digital era?  

Of course.  Not.  Yes.  Well? 

 

I blame the diet

So I haven’t posted in awhile.  I totally blame the detox plan although I know it’s because I’m totally lazy and i have a cache of 11 other excuses but really it’s because I forgot the first point of this, to write for me.  So instead I have about 3 drafts I’m working on, and I don’t want to post anything because I first want to mention my new nephew and my new niece, two pretty good looking kids that popped out of my sisters.  They are cute, but sometimes I don’t like it when people say they have the best looking niece and newphew on the planet.  I mean Duh.  Look at the pictures, I don’t want to insult your intelligence.  

anywhoosers, I’m still dieting and have not lost much weight but I did get sick!  That’s after I broke the rules and ate cheesy delicious macaroni and cheese with califlower.  And Poutine which you shouldn’t do anyways, but especially not after 6 days without cheese.  So I’ve been suffering in silence since then, barely being able to speak because of throat swelling due to overeating cheese and drinking a few beers.  

Which brings me to this point: I was doing fine.  Sure, I had a little extra difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, and I didn’t feel that sharp all of the time.  But the waves were like a calm ocean with a little headwind.  Then I had to go and get all clear and “diety” and the moment I slipped up just a little it was like B A M !  You are being punished.  So, is it any coincidence that diety (my own word) and Deity are just one letter off?  

I’m Just Saying.