A Day for Love

I've got to admit, I'm a little on the fence about this whole Valenine's business (and make no mistake, a business it is and a very thriving one if Facebook is at all good at keeping its finger on the pulse of society.) Let me preface this by saying I have been with my one true love for almost twelve years now, been blissfully married for almost seven. It is just a tad bit possible that maybe I've become burnt out on this day of love, or at the very least a little jaded by the self proclaimed Hallmark Holiday. Even the very word Valentine seems to drip obnoxious pink hearts and quasi creepy toddlers with wings, and you can't help but feel some kind of pressure to love extra hard on this most gushy of holidays.

Twelve years ago I lived for holidays like this. To me it was one more way my boyfriend (turned husband) could prove his love and devotion to me, and let me tell you, he did it spectacularly. I got a three feet tall card with sweet words that edified everything I hoped for our relationship. We got dressed up, I got blindfolded (don't be dirty, we were only fifteen) and I was driven around for nigh on forty-five minutes only to end up at a restaurant ten minutes from the house. (He's sneaky like that.) It was perfectly romantic and all the things fifteen year old girls brand new to a relationship dream of.

Then there was the year he took me to our favorite fancy schmancy grocery store and we picked out breads, cheeses, handmade creme brulees and other such "grown up" foods and had a romantic evening in. Even while deployed to Iraq for two consecutive V-Days he managed to send flowers, pajama grams and romantic cards. Each year I was sure he'd never be able to outdo himself, and each year he somehow, amazingly, managed.

As we got older our relationship took on the shape of almost all "mature" relationships. Our love expanded, contracted, ebbed and flowed with the joys and traumas that any marriage must endure. We grew comfortable in our love. Less needy, more capable and confident that what we had together was real and lasting, though hardly ever easy. Fast forward to Valentine's '09. We were a mere 2 weeks into parenthood for the first time and in fact had just brought home our little Valentine not even a week prior. Life, and maybe even marriage, as we'd known it had ended though we couldn't have known it at the time. It was the first time Valentine's Day wasn't such a big deal. The first year that I wasn't the only gal in my husband's life. Truth be told we were too high on the love a new little person gave us to even remember the lover's day as anything more than, well, just a day.

It was somewhere in that time that I started up the "Valentine's Day is just another Hallmark holiday" rhetoric. I told myself that we don't need one day in particular to show each other love, we try our hardest to make that known every day of every year. We have a child now, we've been together for almost half our lifetime, we're busy and tired and isn't Valentine's Day really just a day for all of those newish couples who still ride the whole "PDA" train? I belong to a special class of 20 something parents who sometimes find candle lit dinners and lingerie more work than pleasure. I belong to the class of women who, if given a choice between diamond earrings or a Tylenol PM and a night off from baby duty would gladly choose a night of peace.

Despite all of that I had decided that this year, come Sunday night, I would make my husband a romantic dinner, put the baby to bed early and spend it loving the man who has loved me through bed head, birth and all of the messiness that has come since. However Sunday was spent with him at the soccer field, then family Targeting and grocery shopping. In short, life happened. So instead my chef of a husband chose two lovely steaks for us to cook tonight, together. Last night, instead of candles and soft music he made us a cheese and cracker plate and curled up on the couch with me to watch a (decidedly unromantic) movie.

Now it occurs to me that maybe I had it all wrong, or all right. At the end of the day I'm just a girl trying to find the sexy romantic wife inside of the mother/housekeeper/personal counselor/best friend. I get it wrong more often than I get it right though a good majority of my way has been paved with good intentions. As I snuggled the boy I've been in love with longer than I've known myself I see that I've also gotten it oh so right. My husband is my best friend because we've spent every single day making our love count. I don't need to make one day an official day of love. I want to. I want him to know that while the wife in me has to struggle to come out and play more these days than in the past, I still love him with the pure and open heart of a fifteen year old girl every second of every day. Our marriage may have changed two years ago, but it has all been for the best.

 Tonight we will put the baby to bed, cook a romantic dinner and spend one whole evening just being us, because we all need a day where we try extra hard to fall in love a little more. It can't hurt right? I may even light a candle or two.

I often talk about how fast time flies. When everything in your life is right the moments tend to slip past, falling through our fingers as tiny grains of sand and felt not one by one, but as one silky whole. For me each grain of sand is cherished, but seldom do I have the time or the wherewithal to notice how I might be changing. I can't see it as it's happening but I have found myself thinking back to the person I was, say, five years ago.

The biggest pieces of me, the core pieces that make me essentially who I am are all the same. I'm still conservative politically, I still love shoes and thunderstorms. I'm still impatient, though maybe not to the extreme I used to be. I still love to travel, still enjoy a good glass of wine. Thanks to a lot of hard work and commitment I'm still married to the same amazing man.

Five years ago these were the things that defined me. Now they're just facts about me. Before I had my daughter I wore 3 inch heels several times a week and swore I'd continue to do so after I had a baby. I drank girly drinks a few times a week, dreamed of being a published author and thought Tiffany's was the best place on earth.

I've since traded my heels for practical flats (though still love my red Baker's pumps with an intense passion.) I handle sippy cups far more often than martini glasses and most nights am too tired to stay up past nine AND drink a glass of wine. I still care about the world at large, very much in fact. But most days the most important world is the one here, in my home, that I've worked very hard to create.

The older I get, the simpler my tastes. It takes less to make me happy, less to fulfill me. I don't care to live in a mansion with a wing for each member of my family. I can't be bothered with status quos, rat races and labels. My heart is at its happiest being with the people I love, doing the things I love.

That being said, I still think it'd be awesome to write something someone cares about someday. And I sure wouldn't say no to some Tiffany's diamonds.

The 'ol switcheroo...

The strangest thing happened to me a few nights ago. I've been telling myself that it's perfectly natural, it was bound to happen, everyone warned me against this. Yet somehow I didn't REALLY believe it would happen to me.

You see, I've been planning Grace's 2nd Birthday party. I've made the invitations and they clearly say "Grace is turning 2." The cupcake toppers that I ordered say clear as day "Happy 2nd Birthday." I know somewhere in my brain that my baby is turning 2. The problem is that I can only understand this as a number. I can not understand that my little person is actually, well, a little person.

So back to my strange happening. As is my custom every night I ate dinner with my little family, gave Grace a bath, put her diaper and jammies on, brushed her baby teeth and tucked my little baby into bed, as I've done approximately 726 times. But when I woke up in the morning and looked around I realized, suddenly and forcefully, that my baby was gone and in her place stood a real, living, breathing, pint sized person. I know this must have been happening gradually, I think I just missed all of the signs. Sure, we turned her crib into a toddler bed over a month ago. Sure, we took down the changing table and along with it all visible baby signs (wipes, diapers, lotions, etc.) And yes, we did start potty training her a week ago and replaced our diapered bum baby into a big girl underwear wearing kiddo. But she's still a baby, right?

I woke up one morning and looked around my baby nursery. The nursery I've dreamed about since I was old enough to change a baby doll's diaper. The nursery I dreamed about when I got pregnant for the first time, and said goodbye to 3 times in as many years. The nursery I cautiously put together, piece by painstaking piece as my heart slowly allowed me to trust that the baby in my big 'ol belly might really be the one I got to bring home. I woke up one morning, looked around my nursery and realized it's now a little girl's room.

It's enough to break your heart into a million little pieces. That is, until you look at the little girl standing in front of you with those big blue "love me" eyes, with the dimple in one cheek and a gap toothed grin and you realize  "I made that." While my baby slept every night in her pink and brown nursery, she was slowing taking in all her Daddy and I have taught her. Dreaming dreams of clean diapers and momma's milk, then sweet potato puffs and giggles with Dada.

And now as she rocks her own little baby doll she bestows on her little plastic person all of the love her Dad and I have poured into her tiny little soul. She sings to her, pats her back, gives her kisses and ugga muggas and tells her to sleep tight.

She may no longer be the innocent little baby I brought home almost 2 years ago and her room will change a dozen times before she (gasp) moves out of my house. But nothing can stop me from sneaking into her room at night to tuck her in and watch her sleep because no matter what color her walls are or what kind of bed she's sleeping in, she will always be my baby; she will always be my little love.

The Magic of Christmas

So I promised that I would be terrible at this blogging business, and I do try to always hold forth on my promises. However, I've been remembering something magical that happened to me as a child and in the hopes of preserving the wonder of Christmas I thought I'd set it down in writing, here. The story I am about to tell is told exactly as I remember it happening. I know that most of you will laugh and that is fine with me. But those that know me well know I believe in this event with my whole heart and if you set out to convince me of the impossibility of Santa, you will not succeed.

Christmas as a child was magical for me, as it is for almost all children. I'd say I was about 4 and it was probably our last Christmas in the first house I ever remember living in. The house was a typical ranch style house, one story, and it was centered around the living room. My parents room was off of one side of the living room, and the two other rooms were on the opposite side. Grandma was sleeping in the guest room, and I had been put to bed in my own with the usual plea that I had to quickly go to sleep because Santa wouldn't come until and unless I was sleeping. I awoke at some time in the middle of the night and decided, as was often my custom, to go crawl into bed with Grandma. I slipped out of bed and started to walk into the living room and was stopped dead in my tiny tracks by a man in a red coat with his back to me, sitting on the floor and leaning up against our couch. He had white hair on the back of his head, and the top was bald. A red hat sat behind him on the couch and he was wrapping presents. Two thoughts ran through my head. The first being surprise at the fact Santa was wrapping presents himself, the second was sheer and utter terror. All my short life I'd been told that if Santa saw you he wouldn't leave you presents and I was convinced he would KNOW. He is Santa, after all. I rushed back to my bed, crawled under my covers, sure that at any minute Santa would come into my room and be mad that I had seen him. He never did, and I fell asleep trying to figure out how in the world I would explain to my parents the next morning why I had no Santa gifts.

The next morning I woke early and creeped into the living room to a wondrous sight. Presents abounded (or at least they seemed to my 4 year old eyes). There were the usual presents from my parents, and a few special presents from Santa, all wrapped in the paper I'd seen Santa himself using.

My parents know the story and I'm sure they've never believed that it was anything other than the fanciful imaginings of a kid. Let it be known that my Dad is not a chubby half bald, white haired man who is in the habit of dressing as Santa on Christmas Eve. Let it also be known that everyone who has heard my story thinks I'm a little loopy, with the possible exception of my husband (who thinks I'm loopy for reasons completely unrelated.) It is quite possible that I dreamed this, but it didn't feel like a dream I'd ever had before, or have ever since had. It was, in its purest most unadulterated form, magic. A magic that I clung to my entire childhood and well into adulthood, and that I fervently hope I can instill in my daughter.

This year we will bake cookies and set them out for Santa, with a note asking him to please remember that we are in Texas this year and not at our house. We will set out sugar cubes for the reindeer, and then we will dress in our Christmas jammies and talk about Santa coming down our chimney with his sack full of gifts. And as I lie in bed that night I will probably lay awake, straining my ears for the small possibility that I might hear Santa on my roof. If I just happen to rush downstairs first to see if Santa ate our cookies, it is only because a part of my heart will always believe in miracles.

I can't pretend to know what happened to me that Christmas Eve but I have seen countless miracles in my life since that day. As I celebrate my own special miracle's 2nd Christmas, I will be reminded yet again that for me, the bell will always ring.

A Handful of Stars

Anyone that knows me personally probably knows the journey (or at least pieces of the journey) that got me to the final goal of Motherhood. I've experienced 3 losses, the most painful ending at 16 weeks of pregnancy. Sophie is the angel that I had the privilege to hold in my arms after 10 hours of labor and she took a sizable chunk of my heart with her. Eight months after we lost Sophie my husband Jonathan deployed to Iraq for the longest 15 months of my life. He left a very broken and dejected woman, but in that 15 months I found pieces of myself I didn't even know were missing. As is the cause with many writers (and I can barely consider myself part of that group), I write best under extreme emotion. This very short piece was the culmination of months of heartache over losing both my baby and my husband in less than a year. It's not the best thing I've ever written but it is the most emotionally charged. I've only shared it with a handful of people; one of those was my husband, who has read most everything I've ever written, and the others were my "sisters in loss," the only other people in my life that could experience at least parts of those emotions. I share it here only in the hopes that it can tell at least part of my story, and I hope you don't judge it in it's raw state too harshly.

A Handful of Stars

A handful of stars and I, of course, grabbed the one with no light. Burned out by the time I found you I had no choice but to hold you. Twinkling in the sky the rest of the stars are so beautiful and all seem too far away, but only to me. Did you know your time would be so short? Did you hold on for me or only because you were too strong to let go? All the stars in that vast and endless sky and you were the most beautiful to me. So small, so perfect in your imperfection.

The days are like weeks, each dragging on and weighted down by my sorrow, but I don’t mind. Each week only takes me further from you and the light that burned inside me, my beacon to the future, my hopes and my dreams. Why should the rest of the stars be allowed to shine when they know it was your light that gave them theirs. I look up but every star is a cruel reminder that I am empty and alone.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, nothing but a handful of sand.

There are no words to explain how I feel, just an achy emptiness that seems to stretch into every part of me. I marvel, not for the first time, how resilient and cruel the human body can be. Why should the body that failed me be allowed to move on with life, when it left my heart and head reeling? Yet still I have to remind myself to breathe, in, out slowly and deeply. I know that I can get out of bed today, because I did it yesterday and everyday before that for most of my life. But I don’t want to. I want to lie here, curled around this pathetic womb of lost love. I want to wallow in the self-pity that surely I deserve, God at least owes me that.  But I can’t, because I know that they are all watching, waiting for me to crack so they can rush in to put me back together again. I am nothing, if not a modern day Humpty Dumpty. Watching and waiting with baited breath they wait to see if this fall from new heights will finally break me down. Little do they know that the first fall broke me, that each time I put on a new mask until now I am so layered I feel that surely one tear drop will crack the mold and they’ll all see straight through me.

There is only one thing I can do.

Standing up, I physically shake myself of the dreams that haunted me the night before. I stretch arms that ache with their emptiness and turn on a steaming shower to shake the visions of empty cradles and an empty life. I tick off the mundane tasks of the day: take the roast out of the freezer, pick up the dry cleaning, get the oil changed, feed the dog. After all, he doesn’t really deserve to starve.  I think that he must know that things have changed. He seems calmer, better behaved somehow. Maybe he just misses his dad.

Mark has been gone for three months now. Three months of fighting his own wars, I hope he is not as tired of fighting as I am. We are both fighting, him for life and limb, myself for sanity. I fear one of us might someday lose our wars. With him gone I too often forget what I’m supposed to be fighting for.

Toweling off I tie a robe loosely around myself, marveling as I do so that I’ve aged these past few months. At only 25 I feel as though I must look at least thirty. Worse than that, I look sick. Dark circles have dulled the brightness of green eyes; my hair hangs limply at my shoulders. My pain exhausts me, and it shows. A quick glance of my house on the way to the kitchen affirms that I shouldn’t have much cleaning to do before my in-laws arrive for dinner tonight. My eyes linger on the wedding photos of Mark and I in the hallway, as they always do. I find a small pocket of peace as I remind myself that we were once happy and carefree. I feel hopeful that in time we may be so again. Perhaps not carefree, but it can’t be too much to hope that we might at least be content.

Remembering Mark’s arms around me when he said good-bye, I feel tears pricking the back of my eyes, overcome with grief anew. When those blue eyes made me swear that I would not lose myself I forgot to mention that I no longer remember what it feels like to be found.

I hope this letter finds you in better spirits than the last time we spoke. Every night before I fall asleep I pray that God will give you peace. I feel as though he must be listening, because at night I am tortured by dreams that you are lost, swimming in an endless ocean. Inky black and unforgiving it tosses you on its mighty waves. You are calling out but I can’t be sure that it’s for me. I can only hope that this means God has taken on your pain and passed it to me, at least for the night. I awake more tired than I was before I went to sleep. If I could fight this war for the both of us, you know that I would. But I cannot, and so I pray that if nothing else you can heal without feeling as though you must do it for my sake.

We had a hard fight today, they say we should expect it to be worse tomorrow. Morale is high though, even if we’re not yet sure what we’re fighting for at least we know we’re fighting hard. That’s all they can expect from us. I saw children crying in the streets, the horrors that they have seen in their short lives is unspeakable, yet I felt nothing. I don’t have the fortitude to grieve for those that refuse to help themselves. I only tell you this because I don’t want you to feel that you are alone. I haven’t forgotten. You once claimed that I could not possibly understand the failure you felt at not being able to protect her from all that her short life dealt her. But I do understand. It’s exactly how I feel about you. I feel as though I’ve failed to protect you from this pain; if only I could do something to make sure you never hurt again. But I can’t. All I can do is tell you that I love you, that I’m coming home soon, and that I will never forget. I love you, pray for me.

Mark

I understand now. I was wrong to assume that you wouldn’t understand. What are we going to do? How do we heal, how do we move on? Are we betraying her by even wanting to move on? I feel so stuck in this place of grief, but I’m so afraid to let go of it, because perhaps that means I’ve finally let her go and I’m just not ready to say good-bye for good. I feel as though I’ve failed you, I know you wanted this just as much as I did. The doctor called today, I am to see him next week. I wish you could be here, to hold my hand as he tries to explain away the reason for our loss.

Shelly called today, she told me that she wants to leave Rob. She claims this is never what she signed up for when she married him. Signed up for? Who signs up for this?? Who signs up for anything that is unexplainably thrown our way? We’ve lost a daughter, but I feel as though I’ve gained in you, my best friend, my soul’s companion. Who else could share in this pain but you, who held my hand as we lost our star? I will wait for you because you are my past and my future. But most importantly you are my present and without you I would have no reason to fight this losing battle. Please don’t let me lose this battle…

I can’t talk about your war, I can’t talk about my nightmares. They are the same. All I can do is wait for you to come home, please come home soon. I

love you.

~

Nat King Cole crooned softly in the background, though for once neither was comforted by the amorous tune of their favorite song.  Both were lost in thought, unsure of what to say to each other and at a loss as to what they were going to say to her. She’d always been emotional and at times difficult to talk to, but this would be different. They had, of course, talked to her several times, sometimes about the loss but mostly about everything else. And never without the buffer of Mark, who always put everyone to ease. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, they just didn’t know what to say. Though surely the fact that she had called to invite them to dinner had to be a good sign. Healing takes time but it just wasn’t good how she kept herself so far from everyone. True, they didn’t exactly know how she felt, but they could guess. It was their son off fighting a war, after all. Each knew the fear of losing a child, even if they couldn’t understand the actual loss of one.  She was always keeping everyone at arms length, maybe she’d finally decided to let someone in. Maybe they could suggest that psychiatrist friend of theirs to her. They’d told him all about her and he seemed like he could fix her. Yes, they thought, that’s what they’d do.

~

If only they knew how broken I really am, they would stop trying to fix me. I hardly notice the hot water on my hands as I wash the dishes from the night’s dinner, so confused are the thoughts in my head. They worry about me; I can see it in their eyes, in the nervous gestures of their hands. Susan just found out she’s pregnant again, they tell me tentatively. As if the mention of a new life will send me spiraling straight into the pit of despair I’ve barely drug myself out of for their benefit. Could I possibly be that transparent? She worries that I don’t call anymore, asks how all my friends are doing and do I see them often? He smiles at me tenderly and I worry if the glue holding me together might be cracking. What they can’t possibly know is that I’m terrified of letting anyone in. When alone, these walls open up just enough to let me see a glimpse of the stars beyond. When they come, I allow myself to feel just enough for a real smile to break through, though that bottle of Coppola couldn’t have hurt much. Now that they’re gone the walls close in and once again I find that I can’t breathe. Have the stars all burned out, or did I just stop looking?

I hang the dishtowel back up carefully, flip off the kitchen light and slip into a light jacket. When I was pregnant I used to take walks to the neighborhood playground, the children at play filled me with joy. My body takes me there by habit, and my mind is just too tired to care.

It looks as though it might rain. Save for a little girl on the swings, the park is empty. A bench on the other side of the park beckons me. She waves, but I cannot see her through my tears.

The little girl sits by herself on the swings, never partaking but always watching. Though only seven, she was a quick study on the nature of people. One woman in particular had caught her eye this evening. There weren’t a lot of people in the park today; it was cold and windy, the waiting rain hiding behind every tree until God told it that it was time to play. She knew that the rain usually waited until everyone had gone home. It was her favorite time, scurrying moms quick to load their children up in their SUV sized strollers so that not a drop would touch their precious tot’s heads. 

But this mom was different. Though a few large drops had already made their landing she seemed hardly to care at all. She was sitting on a bench staring at the playground, though the girl was quite sure she wasn’t really seeing slides and monkey bars. Strange, that a mommy with no kids would be at the park on a day like this. There was sadness in her eyes, like the look her own mommy got whenever she talked about her daddy. She said he was in Heaven, that he was her guardian angel now. Sometimes the little girl liked to think that maybe her daddy told God when to let the rain out from behind the trees.

The woman’s hand rested unconsciously on her tummy. Looking down, she began to ring her hands, sometimes twirling the ring on her finger. Not knowing what would cause the woman to be so sad, she didn’t get up either when the rain started coming down even harder. But she knew the woman did not feel the rain. Black tears ran down her cheeks, her wet clothes clung to her. Yet still she sat, her head now bowed, the rain dripping from her hair onto her already soaked jeans. Finally, the girl left, knowing her mother would worry when she didn’t come home for supper.

On her way home the little girl noticed that the rain had stopped almost as quickly as it had come, and the night was now a veil studded with a million stars. One fell from the sky and the girl reached up, as if to catch it. Each time a star fell from the sky she imagined that she could keep it. A box in her room was filled with the wishes of every star she had ever held; she knew that someday they would all come true.

On a bench in a small park, on a star-studded night, a woman reached up to grab a shooting star. She held it in her hand for the briefest of moments, the light of it filling her with a long awaited peace. Ever so slowly she opened her hand, made a wish and blew her little star into the wind.

Drying tears and Bleeding Owies

Ok, so maybe I was guilty of thinking that my baby could go her whole life without ever having her heart broken or experiencing any physical pain. I didn't start off thinking that though. In fact, faced with a daunting surgery to fix what we believed to be a birth defect at a tender 2 days old, I was quite sure her life would begin with more pain than I'd yet experienced in my entire lifetime. (Not counting my unmedicated labor with her, of course.) However, 30 minutes after wheeling her into the OR we received a phone call from the surgeon assuring us that it was not a birth defect, but an injury received at the hands of the NICU team of our delivering hospital. Bullet number one, dodged!

Fast forward a year. Much to my amazement we had managed to avoid doing any of those lamentable things you hear other parents tearfully retelling. We hadn't dropped her, she hadn't fallen off of a couch or rolled off of the bed, we hadn't accidentally banged her head while walking through a doorway. Saving some minor teeth discomfort, she had still not experienced any significant pain. This is when I started to become fairly confident that maybe, if I was extra super duper careful, she could avoid it altogether. Naive, I know. But there it is.

A few days ago, as Grace was sliding off the couch (on her bum, like's been taught...I'm not a terrible mom) she tripped on a toy as she landed and smacked her face on another toy. I, of course, snatched her up to cuddle her and calm her down; it wasn't until she lifted her head from my shoulder that I noticed the blood oozing all over her beautiful little face. Mommy panic ensued as I tried to determine if she'd lost a tooth, bit entirely through her lip, was missing her tongue, etc.

A nasty gash on the inside of her lip and many kisses later I found myself feeling deflated. My baby girl had sustained her first "injury" on MY watch. Albeit it wasn't too significant and in my heart I know that it's only the first of many owies to come. But I was finally faced with the realization that all the love, wishes and prayers in the world can't keep her safe from everything. I knew, with certain knowledge, as they wheeled her back for her surgery that was never to come that I would have gladly gone under the knife with no anesthesia to save her a second of pain.  I would have gladly head dived off the side of our house to save her the minute of tears that ensued from her minor fall from the couch. But I can't protect her from everything. All I can really do at the end of the day is dry her tears and cry with her if need be. But to the first man that breaks her heart, be warned. This mama bear will hunt you down, because at least that's a pain I can blame on someone else. It's not fair but hey, life's not most of the time. Yet another lesson I'll be teaching my daughter in the days to come.

Out of the black

I’ve been debating on whether to get a blog for a few years now, and obviously chose not to until, well, today. My reasons for abstaining from jumping onto this particular bandwagon were many. The fact that it IS a  bandwagon certainly deterred me. I’m not great at being part of the pack, or at least I like to tell myself that. I also didn’t (and still don’t, really) think I have anything interesting to share with the online world of bloggers and blog followers. I’m interested in politics, but not passionately so anymore. I’m a military wife and mother, and while this may set me apart from a good majority of the bloggers out there, there are still bloggers aplenty living the same lifestyle I am. I have suffered some hardships, and perhaps blogging during those times would have been a great outlet, but for the most part I feel I’ve come out on the other end. I’ve come out of my black.

I’m also horrendous at keeping up with journals. I probably have about 10 of them laying around the house with no more than 10 entries each. I get confused when I journal. Who am I supposed to be talking to? Myself? I have a toddler, Lord knows I do enough of that on a daily basis. Am I supposed to write back stories? Give the history of my life to remind myself or (and I flatter myself here) future generations to come, why I’m feeling the way I am? If I have a hard time writing my thoughts and feelings down for myself, how much harder will it be for an audience?

These are questions that I haven’t answered, yet still I’ve created a blog. After about 10 seconds of contemplation I’ve come to the following conclusion. I want to blog because I don’t want to forget. (Even the word “blog”, over and over again, eeks me out.) I’ve watched my miracle baby slip from an impossible dream, to a tiny, living, breathing human, now to a rambunctious toddler in the space of a breath. I panic when I think of how quickly the time is slipping by, and I wish to preserve these, the best years of my life, for myself if no one else.

I’m not going to pretend to write anything coherent, or do anything in an orderly fashion. In fact, I don’t think I’ll even tell anyone I’ve created this little thing until I’ve got several posts under my belt and can prove to myself that this might have some staying power. I won’t be making any political statements. I won’t pretend to teach you the infallible ways of my superior parenting. I won’t try and make you understand what it is to live life as a Military wife (though that might invariably happen along the way.) This will simply be the random musings of a woman who loves life and the people in it. The music that moves me, the photos that inspire me, the family that gives me a purpose in life, and the banalities of a woman who is always on a quest for self. I hope you also enjoy finding her along the way.