...

 I seem to only use this when I have things to say - the things that keep me up at night, the things that cause my insides to twist up with fear and worry.

My oldest is flying to Minnesota next month to start college and I just imagined what the car ride home from the airport is going to look like and I want to throw up. 

I don't know how to tell this not so little creature that I've spent almost 20 years loving and caring for goodbye. 

How does a mother find the right words to bestow upon her first born as she prepares to take the world by storm? How do I tell her good bye without feeling like my heart is being ripped out of my chest? How do I sleep at night not knowing with 100% certainty that she's fed, and warm and most importantly, safe. How will I ever sleep again not knowing. 

How do I send her off in to the world when all I want to do is  yank her back, stuff her in a time machine and beg her not to grow up, not to leave me.

Everyone says she'll be fine, that she'll do well, that I raised her well. That I'll  be fine, but how? How will I be okay?

Ten Years Now

I remember waking up on the morning of August 5, 2009, completely unaware, utterly ignorant to what would be waiting for me when I logged on to the computer that morning. I remember how when I clicked that icon and read that message. I remember how it felt like my heart stopped and started racing at the same moment.

I know that isn't how the heart works, I know it can't stop and speed up at the same moment. But that was what it felt like. Some days, it still feels that way when the memory overtakes me, when the reminders find a way to creep in when my guard is down.

Most days, I hate to say, I don't remember, I don't think about it. I hate saying that because it feels like it diminishes his memory, it feels like it discredits the pain his family must still feel, even after these years. I don't want to do that, but I can't write their experience because as the blog is titled, this is me, this is my story. These are my feelings and experiences, and I am the sole proprietor of those feelings and emotions.

It's still crazy to me, how I didn't find out for almost 2 days that he was gone from this world and it's still crazy to me how it's been all this time. Ten years. 3650 days, 87600 hours. It's such a crazy thing in the grand scheme of things, and even years from now, when the amount of time he's been gone will outnumber the amount of time he was here.

I always sit down with these flowery ideas of how to write these kinds of things and then my fingers start typing and emotion, pure, raw emotion just flows out of me and the flowers are trampled and I'm left sitting here rereading what I wrote after time has gone by and it's like looking at two sides of a mirror, one side is back in the moment when it was written, the feelings wash over me and sometimes I feel like I'm drowning, then on the opposite side, I reread past posts and all I can think is "This person was wrecked, she was devastated and adrift in this toiling sea of emotion, someone please throw her a life preserver."

I read over the birthday posts, the I miss you posts and I shake my head. I can't write those things, I can't write them and let the whole world feast on my grief, can't share those pieces with people. I share them here, because I know that hardly anyone, probably no one, reads this. I write this for myself, so I can one day look back when my memory has faded away and read this and hopefully remember.

I just can't believe it's been ten years, and everything that he's missed, all the things he didn't get to see, life he didn't get to live.

The Invisible Support Group

Over the last nine years, so much of what I write has to do with the loss of a good friend. There are days where I find that I don't think of him at all, then there are days, like today, that he is in my every thought.

I had a dream last night. In this dream, I was back in Virginia, and I didn't look like myself, I was tall and insanely thin and blonde (I'm average height, a (dyed) red head and not thin, at all) and travelling in the car with my high school best friend, who didn't look like her at all, but in my heart I knew it was her. And in the back seat was my friend, who didn't look like him, but again, in my soul, I knew it was him.

We were driving on the highway, past this circular shaped building, and I pointed at it and said, "There it is, that's my building. I designed that and it's my baby."

It was a Sam's Club, I'm not sure why that's important, but there it is anyways. So after we drove some more, there was flirting and this overwhelming feeling that something was going to happen. That some kind of change was going to happen, I can't explain it, but if you've ever felt it, then you know what I mean.

Flash forward in the dream and we're at this odd little pizza restaurant that doubles as a bar. I've never been to a place like this, and the place in the dream wasn't familiar. There's a gap in the dream at this point and the next thing I remember, we're arguing. He's telling me there's a girl that he just can't walk away from, and if he could be with me he would.

I'm crying, we're all back in the car and there's a room with exposed brick walls and fighting, and then he's gone. And I laid in bed with tears streaming down my face.

All day today, I haven't been able to shake this feeling. I can't even explain the feeling. It's sadness, obviously, and loss. This feeling that's best described like this: having what could have been in your grasp and getting a taste of some other life and then feeling it slip through your finger tips, again.

I don't want any other life than the one I have. I love my girls beyond words or expression and I love my husband with all that I am, was and could ever be. I want my life with him and with my girls. Truly I do. There are times (call it my writers brain) that likes to explore what my life could have been if only...I dream it up, I sometimes write it up..but that's the extent. It makes good fiction because that's all it is.

Sometimes I feel like I'm being haunted by the memories. Sometimes I wish I had someone to talk to about it, someone who understood.

Twenty Five Years

Seven days ago, I got a letter than literally changed the course of my life. One minute, I was trundling through life thinking everything was the way it had always been and then BAM!

EVERY

SINGLE

THING

CHANGED

When I say in the blink of an eye, I mean it. The blink of an eye, the ring of a cell phone, the click of a mouse and the speed of a google search.

You see, twenty five years ago, my family moved away from the home I'd lived in my entire life. We moved to a new house in a new city. I never saw my biological father again after that day. I remember things, but now I don't know if I'm remembering them correctly or if I'm remembering then but twisted to the way I was told the events happened.

For two days after the letter arrived, I cried. I cried for almost forty eight straight hours. Almost wrecked my brand new car and probably fed my kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And I spent about thirty six hours on the phone with my sister.

Then three days after my entire life imploded, I said okay. Enough is enough. Time to move on. I reached out to my biological father and stepmother and since then my life has been flooded with family I would have sworn had forgotten me.

To my surprise, even after 25 years, they haven't. I spent so much time thinking of myself that I never stopped to think about how this is affecting my long lost family.

It's almost like my life was ripped out of a novel. Hell, I might just write the damn novel myself. It's so unbelievable that no one would stop to think for a second that it was true.

During this last week, I've found the path that leads back to God. Now, i'm not saying that I went from being an atheist to being a devout religious person. Because that isn't what happened. I felt like I was drowning for almost a week. I couldn't talk to anyone because I had no words...at least none that made sense outside of my mind, so I prayed instead. Not really prayed tho, I guess, it was more like I imagined I was in a church talking to a group of people, telling them my story, telling them everything I couldn't say outloud.

I fell asleep "talking" to these people in my mind and when I woke up the next morning  I had a certain kind of inner peace that I'd never felt before. Now, I'm not saying God healed my pain and that prayer is the answer to everything. But it helped me.

New House

Last weekend a co-worker told me about a family friend who was renting their house. My husband and I have been searching for a house for oooh...about a year now. I won't lie, when I drove out there last weekend to look at it, it was not what I expected. The house honestly looked like something out of a horror movie.

I tried to peek through the living room window and walked right into the web of one of these scary ass mofo's

*Side note* That is NOT my hand...banana spiders freak me the hell out. Kthnxbye

So...Imagine me shrieking like a banshee, and jumping like a kangaroo. 

Moving on. 

I got a peek...it looked decent inside. Not bad. 

Then yesterday my bestie and I rode out there (yes, rode out there. The house is a mile or so outside of Jennings State Forest and about 15 miles from my current house. It is in the woods, the sticks, bfe.

We walked the house, peeking in the windows and oh. mah. gawd. The previous renters left it a freaking disaster. It needs a ton of love. 

My husband and I drove out again today to meet with the owners and do a walk through.

The living room is an amazing size, with a ton of natural light. We have a formal dining room (which will be a study or office or whatever) the kitchen. Oh God, the kitchen. If a kitchen could give orgasms, I would have had 20. Maybe more. It is huge. It is the largest kitchen I've ever seen, in my entire life. It's the only space in the house that isn't a disaster. Thank God, because it would have broken my heart. 

There are four rooms, two bedrooms and like 2 acres of land. The girls will have their own rooms, I'll have a craft room/writing room. 

But we have to get it cleaned up first. There is no carpet, only the old linoleum that needs to be ripped up, the walls have to be repainted because it looks like some hippies lived there and did a shit ton of acid and painted the walls all kinds of psychedelic colors. It hurt my head. Bad.

So the hubs and I are going out there Tuesday to tear up the floors and clean. Wednesday, we're paiting and Thursday we're moving in. 

I am so freaking stoked, y'all don't even know. Everybody keeps telling me I'm taking on too much, that it's too big of a project. But I look at it like I get to make a house the way I want it, make it look and feel how I want. Yet I don't have to worry about half the shit homeowners have to worry about. If something breaks it's on someone else to fix. But I get to design the house to my liking. Not fitting myself into someone elses idea of home. 

I wanna scream and shout and jump and just generally be elated. 

Pics to follow as the remodel starts!

Stop leaving your kids in the goddamned car

This is a rant...feel free to run away screaming at any point.

That being said, here we go.

I work at the mall and you would not (Literally would not) believe some of the crap I see on a daily basis. Last Saturday I went outside to catch some sun while on a quick break. One of the managers of the store I work in comes up to myself and one of my co-workers and basically starts grilling us about one of our customers.

I'm all like hold the hell up lady, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. She explains there have been several customer complaints of kids unattended in a car in the lot. I tell her I don't know anything about that and go about my business.

While I'm outside, there is a gold caddy in plain view, the windows tinted, the engine running. You can see shadows bouncing around in the back seat, the window rolls down and a tiny face peeks out smiling. Said manager comes out on her walkie talkie and approaches the car. Granted, she is a grandma looking lady (older, friendly face, etc) these kids roll the window down and start talking to her.

They tell her that their dad went inside to see if they could get their pictures made (PEOPLE! Please stop saying that. I am not making a picture of you...I'm not drawing you or painting you...that statement is so damned country it irks the fucking shit out of me. You are having a picture TAKEN!!! ranty post,..I warned you) so anywhoo...

Another manager comes out, the cops show up...and nothing happens because Dad comes strolling out and the car was running with the a/c on. Never mind the fact that he left his five and seven year old inside unattended. I'm shaking my head so hard right now it ain't even funny.

Fast forward to tonight. I popped into walmart for coffee (cause who can legitly function without that stuff?!?! Can I get a high five?!) and as I'm getting out of the car this woman and her daughter (who was no older than 10) get into the car next to me. The engine is running, the windows rolled up. As the daughter opens the door, a baby is SHRIEKING in the middle of the backseat. The baby was probably around Cailyn's age (a year or so, it was in a forward facing car seat) and there was no one else in the car.

This crazy bitch left her baby in the car alone, in the walmart parking lot.

ARE.
YOU
FUCKING
KIDDING
ME
?!??!?!?!?!?!

I cannot wrap my head around that. I cannot for one second, even think that its a good idea to leave Cailyn alone in the car, running or otherwise.

She's a baby, people are crazy and I'm rather attached to Netflix and my freedom. How can anyone think that is a good idea!??!

Is this a new trend?

Last summer all we heard about were parents leaving their kids in the car to basically bake...here in Florida, they passed a law basically saying that if someone leaves their kids in the car and a bystander sees it they can legally bust the window out to save the child.

Have these parents decided that this summer they'll leave them in the car..and instead of baking them, they'll let any crazy person steal not only their car, but their child as well?!?!

I guess so. And it makes me sick as fuck...I have Bree, who will be 14 this year. My husband and I tried in a we're really not trying kind of way, to have another kid. It took nine damn years before I finally got pregnant with Cailyn. I have a co-worker who is due in a few weeks with her second child, her oldest is nine and she's had several miscarriages while trying for a second child. I read a story the other day about this couple who has tried soooo many things to have a baby and all they've been met with is devastation and disappointment. So many people can't have kids or have a super hard time conceiving...shit like this makes me sick to my stomach. I mean, how can your "God" make the good people struggle and give these undeserving assholes kids?

I can't fathom it...I truly cannot.

So yeah...stop leaving your kids in the goddamn car..if you don't want to be a parent, there are plenty of us who will take them..

My Wish for You

You guys...I've been at my job for almost six years (minus the six month hiatus I took after I had the baby) and in that six years I've seen and heard a lot of things, I've met a lot of amazing people. When the company started closing studios back in 2012, my studio was the first casualty. I was moved to another studio, which was the second casualty. Finally I was moved to a third studio where I started working in late 2012. 

When I got to that studio, the girl I worked with had been with the company for like 12 years. She had/has a lot of customers that come specifically to her and only her. Over the first few months there, these kids came in one day looking for her. She was off that day and I started chatting with them, setting them an appointment with her, etc. 

Over the next four year years I've come to know them rather well. Well, as well as you can know someone you see occasionally and can talk to, have a laugh, whatever. They're nice kids, super sweet and sickeningly in love. (I mean that in the nicest way possible.)

Today, those two sweet kids tied the knot and I got to be there to see it happen. 

They are so young, so full of life and carefree. I send wishes to heaven that they can stay that way, stay young at heart and carefree, that life doesn't try to drag them down and kill their spirit. I hope they remember how in love they are today so that in ten years they aren't sitting on opposite couches so disconnected from one another that they can barely stand to be in the same room. 

I wish that life leaves them free from the heartbreak and tragedy, that they accomplish all their dreams, and get everything they want out of life. 

I hope the very best for them in the years to come.

Congrats Amy and Joseph!

More than anything, I hope I get to see their story continue.