Barnmaven

A tiny speck in the universe

Committing to writing daily for a month is a big undertaking.  Life inside my bubble isn't quite what one might consider relaxed or leisurely.  I think its a good and necessary opportunity to flex a muscle in my brain, to the point where I can write when I have to write, even if there isn't some thought crying out to be shared.  It forces me to dig deeper past my sometimes foggy thoughts and search for threads to pull.  Some threads have decidedly short strings (you should see my drafts folder - it needs purging desperately) but some threads reveal surprising depth. 

I'm not doing NaBloPoMo to gain readership.  I'm not expecting that somehow I'll have a magic moment that launches this space into the atmosphere of the pithy and famous (though any blogger who doesn't admit that they're at least hoping for that is probably being disingenuous).

I'm doing this to become a better writer.  Not mechanically better, if I want that I'll join a writer's group and let others pick apart my plot, sentence structure and word choices.  But better in terms of my ability to write at will and as needed.  To be disciplined and capable at writing so that when I, like a million other dreamers, will finally send an envelope - lots of envelopes - to lots of publishers in hopes that one of them will read what's enclosed and decide to take a chance on backing me.

When I went to check the NaBloPoMo blogroll to verify my information was included I was reminded in a very concrete way that I'm just one amoeba in a vast sea of writers seeking to be heard and recognized.  There are over 2200 blogs listed on this month's blogroll.  If I were looking for new blogs to add to my own feed, even if I read 5 new blogs a day from that list (and I really don't have that kind of time) I'd have to repeat that daily for over a year just to get through them all.

When you realize how big the blogging world is - at least, when I realize how big it is - I'm humbled by the handful of you who keep stopping by here to read and to sometimes comment.  (Even you, Mom, who would come here and read even if it were all drivel, as it sometimes is).  So thank you.  You honor me with your investment of time and attention.

This smile

Last year it was not uncommon for me to answer my cell phone in the middle of meetings or to pick up my deskphone even when I was eyeballs-deep in the middle of monthend accruals.  Last year was so hard, those first months of school, when it seemed like at least every other day I had to get back in my car, abandon whatever I was in the middle of, and go rescue my son - who could not cope with school. 

The nurse at his school was his safe person.  If his teacher absolutely could not deal with him or he was having too hard a time, they would take him to the nurse's office and she would talk to him if she could, soothe him as much as possible, and if she thought he needed to hear mom's loving voice or needed to go home, she would call me.  She was such a big help to me last year, and she was so dedicated to my son.  She really made a big difference to us, and when he moved schools this year she was one of the people I felt a twinge of regret about, because she really does care for him and I hated that he was losing that connection.

Yesterday I was in the middle of a meeting with one of the floor supervisors at work, problem solving and information-gathering, and my cell phone rang.  For the first time in a long time - possibly the first time this school year - I answered my cell phone because it was from the school district number. 

It was our nurse from last year.

She was at my kids' new school substituting for that school's nurse and she had gotten to see my son.  The reason she was calling was...

...to absolutely rave about how mature and calm and happy he was and how delighted she was to get to talk to him. 

I am flooded with emotion.

Gratitude for teachers and staff who genuinely love my children and care about their interests and needs. 

Fierce pride in my son.

Love. Joy. Hope. Anticipation.

Its one of those moments that more than makes up for the times when we struggle, when things go wrong, when its hard to just take any more steps forward.  This is the kind of moment that recharges the batteries and makes everything seem possible.

The smile on my face will last for days.

 

Last one

Just one more post and I promise I'll stop writing about the wedding!

My son, in his non-wedding attire and clip-on tie.  What a face!   I LOVE THAT FACE:

 

I hate having my picture taken:

 

But I love this man:

Its sort of an odd feeling, having gotten this done so quickly.  I keep feeling a sense of surprise when I remember that I have new and awesome in-laws, that my kids have new cousins, that we are now a blended family.  That I have a husband.  That my parents have a new son-in-law.

Speaking of my parents, my dad grows a beard periodically because my mom hates it so much.  Eventually she'll stop looking at him and then he'll shave it off and it will take her two days to notice.  He's in beard-growing phase.  I didn't think it was necessary for him to shave it off for the wedding, but I have to say, he looks like he's warming up to play Santa:

There are more pictures, and I have one of my daughter with her friend and now-cousin, but I haven't asked permission yet from people to post their pictures here, so that one may have to wait a bit.   

Friends and coworkers have been so congratulatory and seem so genuinely happy for us.  I get a lot of people who feel bad that SG has to work so far away and for so long, but honestly, I'm really OK.  Sure, its not ideal, but its not forever .  He's got steady, long-term contracts and these days that's nothing to take for granted.  Besides, he calls me three or four times a day.  Its just like having him here, except he doesn't leave the toilet seat up. 

All photo credits:  Michael Barnes, 2011

Dang, its loud in here

For most of the weekend it was very quiet around here.  I did the kind of things I might do if I didn't have children - I grocery shopped and didn't have to stop any fights or remind anyone a thousand times a thousand times a thousand times that I was not buying them a toy.  I went to church and didn't have to go running to the back even once because I heard screaming.  I had dinner with my parents and was able to hold an entire conversation with my parents without interruption.  I watched a movie and drank a glass of wine with my swollen ankle up on a pillow.  I made breakfast for one.

It was so peaceful, and yet...

I picked them up from their dad and they weren't here thirty seconds when I breathed a sigh of relief.  The missing piece.  NOISE.

Photo credit:  Michael Barnes 2011

Their lack of ability to modulate is both maddening and delightful.  Whatever they are feeling, they feel it at full throttle.  Sometimes its hard to distinguish playing from oh-dear-god-someone's-bleeding-to-death-in-there.  When they're happy, they scream.  When they're angry, they scream.  Sometimes my son will spontaneously start screeching at the top of his lungs while he plays with his cars - and its a toss up whether he's suddenly decided his jeans are going sideways oh mah gah sensory issues!  or he's pretending the steam engine is blowing its whistle at the station. 

Photo credit:  Michael Barnes, 2011

I worry sometimes that I've become a little too accustomed to the melodrama playing out around me.  I don't routinely get up to check and see if someone's accidentally sliced a hand off anymore.  I don't automatically stop them from swinging at each other.  I don't assume the worst when I hear them scream.  I just think to myself, "Dang, that's loud."  And I go about my business until or unless it becomes apparent that the noise stems from something requiring intervention.

Right now they are throwing paper airplanes in the air and then throwing themselves onto the couch with a loud "heeeeeeyaaaaah!"  followed by the loud thump of a small body on brown leather.  I just shake my head and smile. 

Solitary dinner and a quiet glass of wine is nice, sure, but this?  This is living.

Things that are short

My nails.

My hair.

My time.

Number three naturally leads to numbers one and two.  One and Two keep three from being as short as it otherwise might.

Sometimes I look at women with long, manicured nails and I feel a stab of want.  I'd love to have hands with long, oval nail beds that naturally grown the perfect nail.  You know, the nail that looks awesome with polish on even when the nails are short.  But then I think of all the things that my hands need to do -- all the things that my hands are capable of doing -- and the envy washes out with the tide. 

I try to imagine what my life would be without the ability to saddle my horse, build things, play my guitar, roughouse with my dogs, bathe my kids, and I can't. 

I run my fingers through my short hair, growing out a bit now and unruly in its desire to curl up and around my ears and go the wrong way on the right side of my forehead.  I can grow it long if I want.  Sometimes I do want long hair.  And other days I look at it short and I think that it looks perfect just the way it is.  I remember how long it took to dry it and try and tame its nonconformist spirit.  I think of the other things I like to do with my time -- not the least of which being sleep. 

My hair is short.  My nails are short.  And because they are short, other things can be a little bit longer. 

Time with my children.

Time with my horse.

Time with my dogs.

Maybe I don't look as feminine as I could.  Maybe I don't look quite as polished.  I'm perfectly OK with that. 

Short suits me just fine.

The desert at night

It was a long, dark drive home this morning after dropping SG off at the airport for his outbound flight.  I gave myself about five minutes to cry, then wiped my tears and headed West.  The middle part of Washington State is amazingly stark.  The trees thin out and disappear about 20 miles out of Spokane and then its rolling hills, scorched cheat grass and sagebrush interspersed with a few cows, a way station or two, and approximately three gas stations all the way home.  Oh, and the state corrections center, let's not forget that.  (Note to self:  No picking up hitchhikers in Connell)

Its started to freeze at night here, and after I took the south exit from I-90, the first gray light of dawn started to appear over my left shoulder.  Not too many cars out at this time of the morning, and there were long stretches to enjoy watching the light slowly creep up the sky.  On the right side the sky was still velvety and dark, and out where there is no city glare, the stars are breathtaking. 

After the whirlwind of the last ten days, the peace of this slow and graceful sunrise was so welcome.  My brain has been going full tilt and dragging my emotions right along with it.  The long drive and the quiet landscape rolling by provided just the respite my tired eyes and ears needed.   The chaos has been so joyful, but I can't sustain the energy without some sort of respite. 

At some point I've got to pick up the threads of being an adult with responsibilities again and attend to work issues and school conferences and dental appointments.  Today, though, I'm just taking it slow and letting myself relax.  The roller coaster will beckon soon enough.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, whatever you are doing.

Things about weddings

1.  If you are having an outdoor wedding, you might want to consider the implications of eyeglasses that transition in sunlight.  Otherwise everyone will assume you think you are a celebrity AND a bride.

2.  If your new 28 year old stepson calls his dad a "baller" you are supposed to feel complimented.

3.  Its OK if your little guy wears the same clothes he wore to school rather than the nice outfit you picked out for him.  Its more important that he be there with you than what he's wearing.  Besides, a clip on tie goes on a sweatshirt as easily as it does anything else.

4.  It is possible to wear three inch heels on a sprained ankle.

5.  Blue is too a "bridal" color.  (It also helps that sprained ankle blend in)

6.  No matter how old you are or how many times you've done this, wedding cake always tastes awesome when your husband feeds you it.

7.  The "Perfect Wedding" is an entirely subjective concept and just how perfect it is has nothing to do with how much it cost.

8.  You can plan it yourself but its a lot more fun when you let your family and friends help.  They make it special.

9.  Vows you wrote yourself are better and usually have a higher chance of including at least one thing that will make your mother blush.

 

 

 

 

 

No Immunity

Some days are perfect.

(Like yesterday)

Some days beg patience.

(Like yesterday)

Some days make me want to pull the covers back over my head and start again.

 

We're in the car, running mindless errands, holding hands, rubbing fingers, laughing.  I look at this man next to me and I'm blown away by how lucky I am. 

I try to get my son, who has decided to have sensory issues about his clothes, to put something, anything on, and be part of a special moment.  I decide not to lose my temper or to make him feel bad about what he can't control.  I bribe him.  It works.

We stand in front of an intimate group of our family and friends and I look at my children, standing with us, and the friend who is standing up for me who gets me, who comes and gets me all the time for rides, and the other friend who introduced us and who is standing up for him, and I'm blown away by how lucky I am.

I look at my blue and purple and swollen left foot and wonder how much ground I'm going to lose on the fitness goals I set for myself and consider that I might have to stop eating and start doing a lot more pushups.

I read the congratulatory notes and the emails and the well wishes from so many people I can't even count them and my heart is warm and tingly and fuzzy and I am absolutlely blown away by how lucky I am.

And then my cat vomits on my new shoes.

Isn't that the way it goes?

Life is beautiful and ugly in the same breath.  No one is immune from trouble, no one is safe from change and struggle and sorrow.  And at the same time, we are so incredibly blessed by the people we love and who love us, the things we have, the things we can do.  A place to stay, parents who come through no matter what, a friend who calls when I feel down, a dogs warm furry body pressed against my side as I cry in sorrow or in pain, a man who loves me just as I am, children who take my breath away with their beauty and energy.

There was a time when I was a smaller person.  When I would be envious of someone for what they had or what they could do.  I would look at them and think how much more fortunate they were than I, how much prettier/thinner/successful/wealthy/famous.    And when the inevitable happened and they suffered or stumbled or got hurt, that nasty small person inside me would give a nasty little small fist-pump of victory.  Because oh my, how the mighty do fall.   And it seemed sometimes like my life was a neverending series of fall or struggle or emotional pain.  And then I got older and wiser and I had an opportunity to see me the way other people saw me - that my struggle was not always visible, that to some people I seemed like one of the lucky ones, because even though it seemed to me that my life was not easy, there were people watching me who had lives that were even less easy than mine.

That's pretty humbling.

And I learned to be grateful for the amazing gifts that I really do have, and to let go a little more of the things that I thought were so awful. 

I hope I never forget that my life is charmed and blessed and wonderful - and that I am in no way immune to a stumble, a pain, a grief, a sorrow.  And may I never ever forget so long as I live that what I see of another person's life is only a fraction of what they feel and see and experience.  May I always have compassion for their pain and joy for their success and love for the person they have been and are becoming.

Let me remember, always, that no matter what struggle I face, someone has faced something far worse than this and made it through.

Let me not take these days of joy for granted.  These days are precious and stolen and as ephemeral as the whiff of scent of the last days of a rose in November.   This is a gift.

I have the cutest nurse

Getting married on a sprained ankle is teaching me much about the nurturing aspect of SG.  While I spent last night prone with my ankle propped up and iced and I loathe my crutches with unequaled passion, I have to admit to enjoying having someone cater to my every whim.  Chocolate!  A glass of wine!  Change the volume on the TV!  (note to self:  reprogram the universal remote again) Feed the horses!  Feed the dogs!  Bring me coffee!  Make me breakfast!

We're not spring chickens, this man and I.  We're closer to the waning years than we're comfortable thinking about.  In a way, I suppose this is practice for the future.  Its a sure bet I'll have my opportunity to be on the other side of the equation someday.  I can only hope that I'll care for SG with as much joy and kindness as he has cared for me these past few days.  I hope that I'll have gratitude for having someone to care for, compassion for his struggles, acceptance of whatever we have to deal with even if its challenging. 

I watch my mother care for my aging father.  They are ten years apart in age, and while that doesn't seem like much when you're in your twenties or thirties or even middle-aged years, its a huge difference when one of you is 85 and struggling with health and mobility and the other of you is 75 and walks three miles a day and looks 60.  And its not that mom doesn't complain - sometimes she does - but all the while, she thinks of what my dad needs and how she can help him with those needs.  She watches his diet, monitors his medicines.  She limits her outside activity so that she can be there for him.  My dad is not unaware of how much she does for him.  He appreciates her so much, he understands what a challenge she has and he is filled with gratitude for her help.  They've been married 54 years, and they've had their struggles just like all of us.  They've always wanted the same things from life, though, and had the same expectations of their marriage.  And now, in the late years together, they accept the imbalance of ability and health and they cope.  Together. Its really hard sometimes, I know it is, and I so admire my mom's strength.

Today we will read the vows we wrote together.  We'll commit to being there, to listening, to caring, to working together even when things are challenging.  And the unspoken part, the one we don't like to think about but is a reality nonetheless, is the commitment to sometimes having to be a nurse as well as a spouse.  I can already tell you, one of us is REALLY good at that.  I hope I can be too.

 

Where I pull petals off a flower and ask: Should I?

In a way it feels a little Jerry-Springer-esque, having started a new relationship before the ink on the divorce papers had even been applied, much less dried.  There was no doubt in my mind that I was free to pursue a new relationship.  That I hadn't filed for divorce more than a year post-separation was a simple matter of procrastination on my part and had nothing to do with trying keep the door to a reconciliation wedged open. 

 

Falling in love with SG and then divorcing my ex caused some difficulty. 

Yes, it might be strange talking about my divorce the day before my wedding, but there is a point (sort of) to this, so bear with me.

Being in the middle of both a new relationship and a divorce whilst being a blogger is extremely problematic.   When it comes to our commitment as parents, my ex and I were, and are, on the same page.  We love them, we value our parenting time with them, and we are partners in raising them.  We will attend school conferences and IEP meetings together.  We will discuss doctors and medication.  We will talk about problems they are having.  Never has this been an issue, and I don't expect that it ever really will be.  We won't use them as weapons and we won't engage in sowing ugly thoughts about each other to them.  But when it came to everything else, all bets were off.  Things I thought we had agreed to about financial terms and division of belongings went straight out the door.  I read through some of the paperwork in outright shock.  And I realized very quickly that anything I said here - or anywhere else - would be used against me.   And it was. 

Even though I believe at some level we still have concern about each other's welfare and we each hope that the other is happy (at least I assume that's how he feels -- its entirely possible he just wishes I would get a flaming and fatal case of hemhorroids/herpes/syphilis), we lack the level of trust required to have a friendship.  We are not friends.  We are partners in parenting our children.

And so the crux of this post:

When SG and I became serious enough for me to decide it was time for him to meet my children, I let my ex know ahead of time that I was seeing someone and I was planning on introducing him to the kids.  He specifically asked me to tell him what day they would meet him so that he could be prepared to support them.  He also thought it was too soon for them to know that I had a boyfriend, and so we had to agree to disagree.  I knew that this relationship was a long term bet and the longer we tried to keep it secret, the more we risked my children finding out in a way that maybe we wouldn't be happy about.

I had some assumptions about post-divorce relationships.  I assumed I should inform my ex if I was introducing someone to our children -- I did.  I also assumed that he would do the same if he was introducing someone to our kids.  He did no such thing.  My children were spending weekends hundreds of miles away at his girlfriend's house - a girlfriend I had no idea existed. 

Then there's the concept of meeting your ex's new boy- or girl-friend.  In the almost eight months since I told my ex about my relationship he has consistently refused to meet SG.  He has also consistently refused my requests to be introduced to his girlfriend.

While I can't force him to do either thing, I disagree strongly with him on both counts.  I'm a parent who cares deeply about the welfare of my children.  Therefore I believe it is more than worth my time to meet and get to know a little bit about any adult who will have a supervisory role in their lives.  I assume - apparently mistakenly - that any parent would feel the same way. 

And so.

Once we started telling people about getting married this week, I have been asked over and over, "What does your ex think?"  And my answer? 

I haven't told him.

I haven't told him for several reasons.  Do I think it matters to him?  Do I think he wants to know?  

No.  His complete lack of interest in meeting SG and his complete refusal to share any information about the woman whose house my children are sleeping in every other weekend naturally inform this conclusion.  I'm not trying to be spiteful or to "get back" at him.  I'm simply honoring the structure of complete silence and non-acknowledgement that he has shown me he wishes to have.

But do I owe it to him?

The thing is, I'm not sure I'm taking the right stance.  Does he deserve to know, even if I don't think he deserves to be told?  Does he deserve to know even if he not once has extended the same courtesy of information to me?  Is it better for my kids for him to know?  Worse? 

I suspect he already knows, and he hasn't said a word about it.  Maybe that's all the answer I need.

I wish things were different.

So I sit here, plucking proverbial petals off of a daisy, and I ponder.  Should I?  Should I not?