Yes folks, that’s 35 pounds of tomatoes, a mammoth zucchini, a pair of gargantuan cucumbers, our second eggplant AND pumpkin, hot peppers, and a sundry assortment of usable zuch and cuc.
The brussel sprouts are about ready for harvest and our second crop o cabbage is rip-snorting away. Along with 3 or 4 other pumpkins and more peppers than I could shake an entire bundle of sticks at. And these tomatoes are about halfway through the growing season…
Hello Brain!
Yes, I know it’s Monday. Yes, I know you spent the entire weekend in throwback mode, celebrating the nuptials of two dear friends. Yes, I realize we’ve had houseguests since the dawn of time (or early August). And yes, I do know that we haven’t finished our coffee this morning, and that there is probably a lack of oxygen up here on the fourteenth floor.
But for the love of God, when I’m typing an email to the boss… please don’t accept the spellchecker’s replacements for everything, automatically. Why? Because seriously. “Groin” is not an acceptable replacement for a misspelled version of the word “gain”.
And if you continue in this vein, it’s going to be a damned long week.
Hugs and kisses, your human,
Sarah
I just spent 12 glorious weeks at home, baking and being mom and doing what I’ve never dreamed I would love to do so much.
And now, in a weeks’ time, I’ve gone from Donna Reed to jamming to local indie-rap, working on a deadline, feeling energized by the challenge to get creative on a tight timeline. I get a sick kind of high from doing the work I do — when I have what I need to get done what is asked of me, I love it. And I’m good at it.
It’s not like I prefer one over the other… I loved being home with my ladies, and I love doing this work, and they are both passions of mine and they both enhance me in different ways.
Entirely unrelated: The Hold Steady + Drive-By Truckers. November. First Ave. I am considering this the reward for surviving through 2008. Hoist up your gin in your jam jars, friends. I may make it through this year.
Because it is Wednesday, not humid, August, because my two-month old is wonderfully well-behaved, and because I had a wild hair today, I made this pie.
Here’s the finished product.
Survey says: delicious.
one of the ways I’ll always remember my first daughter… sleeping angelically.
Oh my God.
I know, I know… gushing momma moment. Paige is at Grandma camp this week in South Dakota, and I just got a note saying she lost her first tooth.
The teeth she’ll have forever are coming into her mouth.
And this summer, setting the table for a tea party. Just like momma sets up parties.
I look at this girl, all 5 years old and raring for school and so helpful and responsible as a big sister, learning to write and read and draw and continue to be perfectly Paige, and I look at her little sister, five years her junior, and how that little bundle of baby carries the potential to be a unique and precious personality just like her sister, and I cry. Because I don’t care how hip you think you are and I don’t care how much you do or do not like kids: my daughters add a richness and meaning to my life I never imagined.
And they grow up. Fast.
And I cry, tears filled with joy and contentment, that my girls are happy and healthy and thrive in their home and that God saw fit to entrust me with real little people who will one day be grownups not dissimilar to myself. I am overwhelmed at times with the magnitude of responsibility — and joy — and work — that my children bring. It’s a good overwhelmed, but one that brings me tears at these precise moments.
In case anyone ever questions it: I love my Paige with all my heart. She is perfect just being herself, and my heart nearly bursts with pride daily at what an amazing little human she is.
Sweet holy jesus, the humidity.
i know — except for the blasphemy, I sound just like the old folks who move to Arizona to escape the summer heat. (it doesn’t make any sense to me, either.) We don’t have central air (I live in Minnesota, for the love of everything holy — is it supposed to be this uncomfortable?), and for the most part, I spend summers in a giant air-conditioned office. But this summer, home for another 2 weeks, I am meant to pay for making the hasty decision of living without climate control. Which means I wear practically nothing, sit in the one room in my home where the room air-conditioner attempts valiantly to keep up, and sweat. Perhaps why I’ve already lost 36 pounds of baby weight; I just sweat it all out. Sheesh.
wcco just said the dewpoint today is 71. I guess I wouldn’t mind it so much if we had some storms to enjoy at night, but it’s just been hot and humid and a whole lot of no action at night. Grumble.
It’s good for our tomatoes and peppers, though. Peppers are up to my waist (and OK, I’m 5-4 so that’s not an insurmountable task but still — the biggest pepper plants me or my greenhouse-proprietor parents have seen in this state). We enjoyed the first of the Early Girls from the garden on sandwiches last night (I’ll be damned if I’m turning on the oven or cooktop til it dips below 85).
I regularly bitch about the weather, because I am a native minnesotan and it’s my birthright. But I do find it interesting that I get sick of every season — not too long ago, I was begging for some summer warmth, and now I find myself lazily fantasizing about the crisp morning we’ll go pick apples. And about making soup. And knitting without breaking a sweat (shit, it’s KNITTING. I feel sort of ashamed to say it and sweat in the same sentence). Part of why I love seasons, I guess… just when I think I can’t take any more sun/heat/humidity… the leaves turn and the apples ripen and I can revel in fall. And damn if I’m not about to really revel in this fall, since I sort of missed out on last fall, thankyouverymuch morning sickness.
Enough of me fantasizing about sweaters and cool mornings and crisp leaves crunching under my feet. Back to seeing if I can’t put another fan in here somewhere…
OK, OK. Gas is like 4 bucks a gallon and we’re heading into the next great depression. Blah blah blah.
I have something short to say about gas:
Everyone else in the civilized world pays the equivalent of 12 bucks a gallon for gas. Europe is not crumbling into the ocean. Great Britain still seems to keep up in the world economy. Germany still brews beer and makes finely-engineered machines.
You know what else? Those people who pay the equivalent of 12 bucks a gallon for gas walk places. They bike to work. They don’t take their Escalade to the grocery store. By the way, they also live longer and have less stress-related illnesses.
I marvelled at how expensive gas was in Ireland and England when I have travelled to Europe in the last couple of years. But you know what? People get by. And you whiny entitled Americans who think we deserve gas for 2 bucks a gallon? Shut up. You could get by too. You could find a greener way of commuting. You could sell the GMC Planet Terminator and get a Toyota. You could bike to the grocery store. Walk to the local market. Not turn on the central air conditioning every time the mercury rises above 75. Turn off the TV every once in a while. Grill your dinner instead of going through the Golden Arches drivethrough. I mean, seriously.
I drive an american-made vehicle that gets 23 miles per gallon. it’s what I have. It’s not trendy, it’s not a hybrid. But I walk when I can. I’ll start biking here momentarily (paused by pregnancy and c-section recovery). I take the bus to work.
And you know what? This is going to sound unpatriotic, but I’m GLAD gas is expensive. Because it means we have to really think about why we’re using it. I like that. I don’t get to see my family as often as I could; and my Madison contingent doesn’t get nearly as much attention as I would like to shower on them. But: hey, the rest of the world does it. Why should we spoiled Americans really be any different?
Holy shit. It’s July.
Oh poor neglected blog, it’s not that I don’t want to write or don’t catch myself wanting to make a blog post about this or that… I do. I really do. But let’s chat for a moment about what I’ve been doing between May 15th and today:
It’s good to be back.
An anonymous dear friend is in the midst of her babymaking journey… a journey to create I am so familiar with, and at a completely different place than I was just a couple of years ago. I wanted to share some words of encouragement with her, but frankly, I struggled. Mostly, the struggle with encouraging someone when their answer this month is “no baby”, is that… there’s nothing encouraging. It just sucks.
Finding supportive words today also made me realize how going through infertility treatment in the past has permanently shaped my character, and had sortof embedded itself into my world view and permeates how I think about reproduction and parenting and our purpose as humans. And how, even as we eagerly anticipate bringing a daughter into the world, remnants of infertility stay with you always.
That being said, I want to share my words, because they put as neat a bow as I am going to find, on a very chaotic and messy process:
Just checking in to see how you are doing today, with the babymaking status, guts, etc and all. Thought about you a lot last night… having incredible amounts of empathy (I know, I remember how crushing it was to have the answer be no this month, and last month, and the month before…), and I know that it sucks, and frankly, that’s about as far as it goes. It sucks, and it sucks hard, and really nothing makes it any better, and no one can do or say anything that makes the diappointment and frustration go away, and it just sucks.
Blah.
Please know that we love you and support you and want so very much to be there to support you as you start a family and grow a wee little person. And I am as impatient as you are and I know how maddening trying and waiting and (at least what seems like) failing is a vicious, stressful, upsetting cycle. And it left me drained and sad and hopeless and frustrated and at a place of war with my own body. It tested my faith, my patience, my resilience, my willingness to push on in the face of adversity and expense and increasingly unpleasant odds.
And I would like to tell you I have answers or I know something (I don’t) or that my inuition tells me this or that, but when it comes to reproduction, I am jaded and lost and confused more times than not, and I feel like my body lied to me so often, and I couldn’t predict what was going on, much as I wanted to, and I couldn’t understand why, when I did everything else right, and even afterward, when I had proven myself a damned fine mother to Paige, why my body wouldn’t let me have a baby. Why doctors and nurses told me I probably shouldn’t count on experiencing pregnancy. And I most certainly couldn’t understand why 16-year-old girls could pop out babies left and right and responsible, child-worthy me was left empty-handed. And why I could point out 20 instances of craptastic parenting at Target, on the bus, at the grocery store, in the post office, at the park, in my neighborhood… but me, who would be a good mom to any baby, was given… nothing. My answer was no, time and time again.
It crushed me and depressed me and made me feel like less of a woman and made me doubt my purpose. It just sucked.
And of course, sitting here wildly swelling and uncomfortable and 12 days away from greeting my newest daughter, supporting and watching [another friend] go through her pregnancy which she and her spouse worked so hard to acheive, I have a different perspective, and one that says babies come when they are ready for us — not when we think we’re ready for them. And I know infertility Sarah heard this, and said, you know what? Probably, but it doesn’t make the suck go away. And honestly, not much does.
But I love you, and I think you will love your child (children) beyond imagination, and that baby will get here and will love you back and it will be magical and purposeful and fulfilling; I have faith in that. That doesn’t fill the gap right now; I realize that. Honestly, having been there, it’s just a void that sits there, that only that baby can fill. In the meantime, I have been on the road of No, I remember it so vividly, and I can tell you that while I have faith that baby void will be filled for you, the journey you take to get to mommyhood leaves its mark on you. And that’s not a bad thing; the women I know who have been through infertility journeys often comment on how much more precious our children are to us because we truly know what miracles they are. Not that people who get knocked up on whim don’t… but [friend's child] is the most purposefully created child I know, and her parents are so acutely aware of the miracle she is. Likewise, Ms. Tot here was never medically supposed to happen. She is a gift, a miracle, every day I wake up in awe that there is a living human hybrid of me and the man I love most in the world, growing (and thriving) in side of me. And to that end, Paige is a miracle, too. She didn’t grow inside of me, but a woman had to go through the same 40 weeks I have to go through (and let’s recall Paige was 10 days late) and on the flipside of all that work and sacrifice and labor (almost 24 hours worth of labor), she went home with empty arms. But she loved Paige enough to give her a mom who could care for her and love her the way she was meant to be loved. And when I think that Paige could have been miscarried or aborted or something else could have gone entirely wrong, and when I look at her and see what a gorgeous, perfectly Paige Paige, she is… and that someone thought I was good enough to give their genetically-created baby to… well then, wow.
If there’s any consolation in the thought that this month gives you more of a perspective on how rich the lives of your children make you, take that consolation. Looking back, having hope is what kept moving me forward. The burning desire to fill the void in my heart with love I was begging to pour into a child, kept me going when almost nothing else would.
Hugs to you today…
This is the smile that gets me through the most challenging days. This is my reward for working when I don’t want to, for tackling tough issues with courage, for fighting for myself, because I owe it to my daughter to be an example of a woman who can stay true to herself, who is strong and intelligent and independent-minded and doesn’t mind speaking up and isn’t afraid of being candid, or having opinions, or power tools.
This is our Paige. She laughs more often than I can find reasons to in the grown-up world. She gives those reasons to us. She is precocious, and sassy, and intelligent, and interesting. She is sensitive and insightful. Of all of us, she is probably the most excited to have a baby in the house.
This is Paige, dancing with “Our Dave”. She’s dressed up like a princess. She likes to tell us she doesn’t NEED a prince. And she’s right, but sometimes it’s fun to have one around, anyway. Paige tells me, That’s Our Dave. We Get to Keep Him. Well, I’d like to think so, anyhow. When she finds coins and puts them in her piggy bank, she always wishes for “Dave and Momma to be married”. September 27th, 5 short months away. That’s a promise.
This is Paige and I, in what seems like another world. Really, it was just less than 4 years ago. This is probably my all-time favorite photo of she and I. It makes me excited for Paige to teach her younger sister all about being an awesome little girl. Somehow, when I know that Paige is going to be an amazing big sister, it makes watching my first baby grow into a girl, and someday, into a woman, a little sweeter.
I’ve taken a sudden detour down memory lane over lunch today, considering teenage Sarah and today Sarah and how I’ve made this little life I want, all because Minnesota author John Hassler has died.
I didn’t know John Hassler personally — and him having taught at St. John’s, I wasn’t really able to take a class from him. Hassler battled Parkinson’s, I know, and he died at 74, which is certainly a lovely and respectable life.
But, shoot.
I don’t know that I would call Hassler my favorite author — mostly, because I don’t know that I’d pin down ONE author as a favorite. But here’s what I do know: Hassler’s genuine, masterful storytelling (all set in small-town Minnesota) helped me make peace with a high-school experience far away from Minneapolis, which always sort-of felt like where my heart belonged. As an aspiring writer, Hassler helped me understand how to write from my own life experience — and how that experience, regardless of how mundane it seemed, was beautiful in that it was mine, and it touched the lives of others, and that somehow, putting down my life experiences in words made me feel more connected to the greater world around me.
My high-school English teacher, Mr. Zdrazil, introduced a bunch of us to John Hassler, and pointed it out to me in a creative writing class. As I’m sure is not unlike aspiring, high school writers, I loved to write but did so with sadness, dwelling on the dark and morbid and dramatic and sad. At 15, I remember someone (it could have actually been Mr. Zdrazil, but I’ve been known to be wrong, too) ask me: Sarah, you are fifteen years old. Do you really have that much to be sad about?
And you know what? I didn’t. I just didn’t know how to clearly impart the bittersweet experience of leaving a city I loved for a small town that would allow me to flourish and grow and make friends and shine and spread my wings and become little bud of Essential Sarah who (eventually) landed the life she always wanted in this fair little-town-turned-big-city.
And John Hassler (OK, and John Zdrazil, too) helped get me there. Each in their own ways. And I feel compelled to go back and read North of Hope, or Staggerford, or Grand Opening or The Dean’s List. Or hell, maybe all of them. Or at least to talk with my 15-year-old foster sister, herself a budding writer, about connecting the passion of writing into what you know, and making those things beautiful in words. I mean really, small-town Minnesota, not necessarily glamorous. But Hassler makes it human and genuine and lovely, without being perfect, or bitter, or perfunctory or prejudicial.
I aspire to write as Hassler wrote: without pretense, in a disciplined fashion, because it’s what my heart calls me to do.
I don’t know if there is any time more impatient for me over the course of a year, than the week or two leading up to spring.
I walked to a doctor’s appointment this morning downtown, and it was 40 degrees and the sun was shining down from a clear sky into the nooks and crannies of my downtown minneapolis weekday haunt. Hell. Yes. I’m not sure what I’m doing inside a 14-story office building, still (other than earning a paycheck and saving my PTO days for a glorious FMLA leave stretching through my favorite three months of the year), but hot damn if it isn’t almost - ALMOST - spring outside.
These signs can only mean one thing: spring is nigh. And you know what? I know yesterday’s commute was riddled with sno-cone precipitation. And you know what else? It melted before I left the office. Suck it, March. I don’t care if you threaten to snow again on Friday. Tomorrow’s the vernal equinox, which means that it’s only a matter of time before this big round globe we live on usurps your evil plan to make it snow forever. My neighborhood is beginning to come alive. People are walking their dogs and moving the puddles of melting snow around on their sidewalks. The hipsters are walking around defiantly in ironic t-shirts and artsy hoodies. I’m thinking of trading in the down parka I outgrew this winter for, well, let’s be honest… probably a tent dress. But that’s only temporary.
Spring is very nearly here, and no matter how much you, March and Old Man Winter, conspire to keep me locked in an eternal snare of glare ice and Sorrels, you can suck it. You can’t stop spring, and you can’t stop millions of determined Minnesotans from getting back outside, where we love it best, anyway.
if you know me, you’ll remember that my chest sometimes (OK, a lot of the time) gets me into trouble.
But who knew it could also get you out of trouble? Boobs, for the win.
So, I’m not looking for a job, but several folks I know, are. I was conversing with Diana about form letters (lucky girl, she gets to write them), and the form email you get when you email your resume to a job came to mind. These are my favorite form letters, because they are generated by a computer system. I hate this. I hate that computers and the internet have taken all the personal out of something as personal as applying for a job — something that is meant to be such a big part of your self-identity.
Really? Here’s what most of them actually say:
Dear Mr or Mrs Fuckstick:
We have received an electronic communication from you, and gee golly, isn’t that just swell. How adorable! We’re assuming it means you want a job, but we haven’t actually had a human being look at it — and frankly, we probably won’t. We’re too fucking lazy and/or cheap to actually pay someone to help us with the recruiting process. Someday robots will take over your job, too. Suck it.On the off chance no one else applies for this job, you might get a phone call from us. Or an email. But probably nothing. In fact, it’s highly likely that we’ve already filled this job with the boss’s sister’s youngest son who just graduated from Drink Too Much State with a B.A. in Douchebaggery.But hey, we’ll keep your electronic communication on file in case we get really fucking desperate. You’ll probably end up reporting to Mr. highly-educated Douchebag. But you won’t mind, I’m sure. I mean, at least you’ll have a job, you under/unemployed worthless excuse for a fuck-up of a human being.Now stop drooling on your keyboard and wasting our time.Love,Giant Corporation
I love thursdays, because they are a day we chill at home and hang out as a family. Work = absurd at the moment, and despite putting in a ridiculous number of hours this week, I’m looking forward to a great meal made by the man I love and me tonight… spending time with an old friend… and of course (this is the best part), hanging out with my Paige.
I’m listening to local hip-hop today (as I’m wont to do with looming deadlines and no meetings), and Brother Ali’s song, Faheem, from The Undisputed Truth, clicked on. This song says EXACTLY what I need to say to Paige - what I think about her - words that don’t always make it out of my mouth, words Ali has and I somehow don’t. But sub Paige for Faheem, switch up the genders, and there you have it.
Makes me realize how very much I love this little girl — how she is my entire world, on so many levels. And happy that there’s an artist out there, who gets it. Because I suppose that means I’m not the only one out there who thinks, well, this:
Faheem
I gave you that name, boy…
I will never stop feelin sorry that your home got broken
I feel that I owe you for the road that I chose
But I believe things happen the way they’re supposed to
And you’ll always be with me wherever that I go
I was right there for your first breath
I used to lay you on my chest when you slept
I fed you, changed you, read to you, bathed you,
I ain’t trying to hold that over your head,
I’m saying thank you
God put you into my arms for me to teach you
Sometimes I gotta not be popular to reach you
But boy look me in my eye when I speak to you
I tell you these things because I believe in you
Respect, patience, excellence, and truth
Make good choices and always follow through
But above all else know Allah always watch us
And Everything we do comes back upon us
Alright, let’s talk about your mommy
I need you to know that I used everything inside of me
To make you as healthy as you could possibly be
And I just couldn’t see a good future for us three
And you gonna have questions as you growBut there’s certain negative things that you don’t need to know
And baby boy that’s what this is about
We live, learn, and figure it out
I just pray that you don’t remember us sleepin on the floor
And me cleanin mouse droppings out of your toys
It took alot of hard work for us to get where we at
And young man, we aint quittin at that
Just know that it hurts me to death when I leave and go tourin
I’m scared that it might make you feel unimportant
But our bond is so strong that the moment I get off
We seem to pick right back up where we left off
I try to say that I do it for you
But in my heart I know that’s not entirely true
So if I ever come home and feel that I’ve hurt us as friends
I swear to God that I’ll never tour again
I ain’t never met a child quite like you
Words don’t suffice for me to describe you
You have a genuine goodness inside you
I watch you and wonder if I was ever like you
It’s me and you, brother, for life
So when you put me in the ground, look for me in the clouds
You make me the definition of proud
You taught me what this life is really about
Faheem…
(Only slightly related, Brother Ali is definitely in the top 5 Paige Artist list. So, for whatever that’s worth. I’m raising a 4-year-old on local hip-hop, and honestly, could not be more proud of her.)
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. 
— Albert Camus
It’s funny because this quote landed in my inbox yesterday and I thought, yah whatever. Albert Camus obviously never wintered in Minneapolis.
Except that last night, I dreamt of the cabin. I dreamt of warm summer sun, and I felt how my skin tightens, warms and breathes perspiration, lounging in a chaise in the midday heat. In my dream, I watched the ice go out on the lake. I saw the loons court one another on our bay. We caught glimpses of the eagles soaring and swooping down to snatch tender cold fish from the middle of the lake. I watched my little girls discover the peace in our wilderness, the magic in rocks and leaves, the beauty in finding salamanders and chasing butterflies and asking what, and why. We dangled our toes off the dock so the sunfish could come up and kiss them. I introduced a big-eyed, brown-haired infant to the gently lapping waves, to carefree and loyal dogs who consider it their personal calling to accompany you through the forest and clearings. We ate blackberries from wild bushes, drank chilled longnecks of Premium, peeling off the labels as the bottles perspire, read books and napped and were once again warm and relaxed and alive. Everything was green, and the world breathed and moved and created and grew.
Summer will be back, because it always has been, and because a part of it is always alive in my heart and in my memories.
So, my friends, allow me to explain to you how feeling those first fetal movements are different than a baby throwing her weight around:
Not that it hurts — just that, holy crap, there’s an excited little girl on up in there.
I met parents yesterday (at Paige’s early childhood screening) who had twins who were one and 1 3/4 pounds at birth. For reference, our Tot is very nearly a pound now (or will hit that mark in the next week or two). These little fragile girls made it, and are going to be in the same class as Paige this year. After the three of them left (by the way, two younger brothers at home — go, them), I looked down at my stomach and softly said,
“Hey you. Stay in there for at least the next 15 or so weeks. OK?”
She jabbed me in return, so I think we’ve come to an understanding.
I considered submitting this to Overheard in Minneapolis, but I’m being selfish at the moment. Plus, the context-setting: sometimes, you need it.
I work at a Big Company. With lots of floors and multiple bathrooms and what have you. Now I dashed in to the ladies’ room after a morning full of meetings (holding it is quite a feat for this girl, and this girl + bouncing 21 week old fetus learning trampoline movements on my bladder + genetically inferior bladder control = small miracle).
At which point, I realize the anonymous woman in the stall next to me is having a conversation. On her mobile phone. With her doctor’s office. About her malfunctioning birth control patch. Oooh, wait for it — and chewing something.
I didn’t stick around long enough to gather WHAT, specifically, was malfunctioning with the birth control and/or patch, but I do realize that we sometimes have to make delicate personal calls over the course of the business day. What I don’t understand is how anyone thinks the public restroom is any more private than say, a conference room. Your cube. The busy skyway over lunch hour.
No one on the other end of that line wants to hear me flush. Just saying.
I have problems.
I think The Fratellis sort of pointed out what I didn’t even realize was a pretty severe funk/depression this morning. I have spent most of the fall and early winter sick — and quickly realizing how limiting that can be (or maybe how much of a superwoman I have been, in the past?) It makes me thankful that I’m coming out of sick - and that I’ve accomplished what I have in my life thus far, and that I’ve been healthy and normal most of my life. I have sometimes gotten down about PCOD, and being pre-diabetic, and self-image, weight, blah blah blah… but I don’t have lupus, I don’t have cancer, I’m not dying and aside from this groggy feeling that I have somehow missed four months of existence (reminding me eerily of having mono in college), I’m guessing I will once again thrive.
In being sick, and sleeping double my normal schedule, and generally feeling like I longed for nothing more than warm blankets and stasis in my body, it threw me off - really off. Sometimes I come to this conclusion that I am the amalgamate of the things I like and do - and to a certain extent that’s true, but the Essential Sarah is always in there (let’s recall the Essential Sarah who hung out through 6 years of an abusive relationship to rise to the occassion again). This morning, as our early January thaw greeted me on the way to the bus, I realized that I am more than the sum of symptoms. This Sarah (for the short-term, anyway) may not be drinking coffee and sleeping 5 hours a night and drinking Premos or gin and tonics, may not be up for late-night karaoke or First Ave til 2AM on the weekend (although, slowly, I feel those instincts and parts of me returning). But I still love my city and living the way we do. I still love walks when its quiet in the morning. I still bake, still craft, still buy local, still keep up on music, still write, still have a sense of humor. I feel gross because I have spent so much time inside myself, not only trying to draw from inner strength just to physically make it from day to day, but also to wrap my brain around all the change in my life. I have ignored my friends - have not allowed myself to grieve for the ones I have lost, the ones I miss because they are far away. I have been so busy just surviving.
Honestly, I’m delighted about how life has turned out; it isn’t how I would have written it, were it a book (or even a TV show, but I still wouldn’t change anything. For perspective, however - two years ago, no one would have predicted this is where I would be (I wouldn’t think, anyhow). I’ve lost some stuff I really love: the first house I owned, a job I’ll never have again, friendships, and honestly - dreams and visions of how life would be. But what I’ve gained is so much more — new family, new friends, different challenges, opportunities. And a sincere appreciation that I am one of the few people who gets to live the life I really have always wanted to live. I don’t think everyone (or even a majority of us) can lay claim to that.
I’m holding on for dear life, friends. It’s winter, and I’m slowly tiring of snow and parkas. I have entirely too much to do in 2008, and I’m cleaning up mistakes I’ve made and hopefully making the future a little brighter. But I think, just maybe, I’ll make it after all.
