fashion clothes

I spent a good long time yesterday pouring out my soul in a piece that may never be published. I do that a lot, actually. Sometimes they get edited and posted. Sometimes I just hit the delete button and never look back. Sometimes I enlist the help of trusted friends for guidance and wisdom.

Sometimes I write it just because I need to get the words out, like the proverbial letter scratched out in anger and frustration and sadness then set aflame and tossed ceremoniously in a wastebasket.

I think this one needs to be set on fire.


These things, the hardest ones to write about, sometimes I am not ready to let them out yet. Not here, anyway. I try to always be cognizant of the affect my words might have on others. Even if it will carry some benefit for someone out there reading, I have to worry first about protecting myself, protecting my children. I don't have to protect my parents anymore, but I still need to shield my kids.

This is one of the pieces that could bring with it ramifications. Not horrible ones, but some nonetheless. It contains too many of my truths in one place. Too much of my past. Things I still haven't really worked through myself.

Maybe someday I will be ready. I don't know. This one might stay away from the public forever.

There is so much that you all don't know about me. This piece I wrote, it is one of the parts of me that even most of my best friends in the world don't know about. One of the things that I still carry shame and regret about, though I am trying to forgive myself.

Even with all that, the lesson it all taught me was it was one of the most important I have learned in my life thus far, one that I carry with me every day, one that keeps me writing about the things that people don't always want to read about. A lesson that literally took me twenty years to learn.

I don't always want to write about the hard stuff, but I do it anyway.

Sometimes I don't really have a choice. It comes out or it eats away at my soul.

Making people uncomfortable is my thing, after all. I talk about the truths and the realities that we would rather live without seeing. The things we would rather deny. The things we would rather ignore. The things we would rather rationalize.

Sometimes, though, even I can't do it.

I can't hit the publish button.

I had coffee with someone new yesterday, someone that I met through this bizarre online world, someone that began the day a stranger and ended the day a friend.

She could see it.

My internal conflict, almost constant in my head. Sometimes it comes out here. Sometimes I'm elusive about it all, sometimes I lay it all out for the world to see. The conflict, though, is almost always there.

Thus is the life of a writer. 

If you do it long enough, you end up writing about all of the things. The menial, the mundane, the boring and bland. You write about the important, the significant, the controversial, the real. You write about the truth and the lies, the pain and the loss.

Then there are all the things you keep inside. The stories untold, the secrets kept, the times that you want nothing more than to shout it from the rooftop, but you won't allow it.

You refrain.

I sense that the writers out there will know exactly what I'm talking about, particularly the ones who have been at this long enough to have been sitting where I am right now, staring at the words running across the screen as they come screaming out.

The writers will know what I mean when I talk about the absolute therapeutic value in letting the words out, even just to ourselves, even if no one else ever sees them.

The writers out there will understand what I mean when I say that the words just need to be set on fire.

I have been writing almost every day now for five years, as of yesterday. Ironic, at least for me, that the day that I crossed that threshold was one where I didn't even open up my blog to do anything more than check for comments.

I'm a walking contradiction sometimes, so bear with me.

Several years ago now, I started to finally share the story of my miscarriage, of the diagnosis of infertility that ended up being completely wrong.

Sharing that story, and some of the other experiences in my life, have brought many amazing people into my circle. A while back, one of them, Alexa Bigwarfe, contacted me asking if I might be interested in this project she was working on.

A book.

A book about grief.


Specifically a book for grieving mothers who have lost their children, however they have lost them, written by those of us who have been there.

I said yes immediately, threw out some names of other writers I knew who had stories to tell that I thought should be included.

Then I stared at the computer screen for a long time.

A very long time.

Though I had shared the story before, this time I had to write it not just for me, but for them. All the people out there who might someday read it.

It took a few weeks to work up the courage to do it, and when I finally did get to it, there were tears. Many tears. It has been a long time now since I lost her, but when you open up a vein like that, it all comes back and hits you all over again.

I sent it off, then we waited through edits and drafts and finally the book was live.

It is out now.

If you are interested, if you've experienced infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of a child, I would recommend it for one reason and one reason only: that you will know that even if it feels like the most isolating experience of your life, you are not alone. There are other mothers walking this earth without the children who should be here, and we hear you.

The book is available for free electronic download through tomorrow. It will be available to purchase as an ebook after that, and the print copy can be ordered now as well. 

I wasn't prepared for the emotional onslaught the release of the book would bring.

I'm conflicted, to say the least.

It took me a good long while to articulate my feelings about this earlier today when my therapist asked me what was going on. I am glad that I participated in this project, but I hate that it exists. I hate that it needs to exist.

It feels wrong to promote a book about grief, because anyone seeking this book out won't be doing it for a happy reason.

It feels wrong to be excited about something that still hurts me all these years later, even if my story is probably one of the mildest in the book.

It feels wrong.

If no one ever had to read this book, my heart would be filled with joy.

If no mother ever needed to seek comfort in the words of someone who understood the pain she is feeling right now, my soul would be rejoicing.

Everyone who reads this book, aside from those doing it just because they know one of us, or the therapists or medical professionals who read it to understand, will be reading this book because they joined a club no one wants to belong to.

And that breaks my heart.

It is my sincerest hope that this anthology we've created helps someone out there, that somehow our words can rise up from the pages and wrap her in love and acknowledgement, that she won't feel alone, that she will know that we understand.

xoxo

Okay, so that isn't exactly how Uncle Ben says it to Peter Parker, but it's close, right?

The last 24 hours around here have been eye opening to say the least.

Yesterday, I had an appointment with my therapist. For those of you who don't already know, I have PTSD. Which is awesome.

I also have a serious case of smartassitis. It's a thing.

I make fun of myself, I laugh at inappropriate things. I do. I force myself to find the humor in the most unfunny places because it keeps me sane. Well, it keeps me marginally more sane. Whatever that means.

In all seriousness, I do have PTSD though. It pisses me off, if I'm being honest...but probably not as much as the anxiety attacks do when they show up.

I am a control freak. Type A all the way through to my core. I'm so left brained that my left hand is merely a decorative appendage with almost no functional capacity. I like to plan. I like to anticipate what will happen. I like to analyze things. I like to know what all the possibilities are. Except that life doesn't really ever work that way, even if I lived in a world where it mostly did for a long time and fell for the illusion that it would stay that way.

It didn't.

Stuff happened that I never anticipated. Lots of stuff. Bad stuff. Much of it in a very short time frame. So short that I couldn't process it all. I couldn't adjust or adapt to one change before another showed up. I feel like I've been on high alert for about 4 years now. Like I've been constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like I had to look over my shoulder every few seconds just in case something else was coming for me.

I couldn't deal.

I can't deal.

It messed me up.

Though I had been writing before it all went down, and I tried to stop a few times during it all, I learned pretty quickly that writing was my first best therapy. I needed to write. I didn't necessarily need to publish it for the world to see, but I had to let the things I was thinking out of my head. I had to put them into words and set them free.

Writing has kept me more sane, at least marginally.

It wasn't enough, though.

It isn't enough.

I do pretty good most of the time, but when it all gets to be too much and my system gets overloaded, my body literally shuts down. I can't stop it. I can't control it. I can't see it coming. And it sucks.

I need help to get better. I need help to undo some of the damage done, to untangle the overactive parts of my brain, to get back to me.

And yet, through all of it, I haven't really changed all that much. I've become more vulnerable, yes, but I've also chosen that partially because I am willing to share so much of it with you all. Not because I want someone I don't know somewhere far away to pat me on the back, because I don't want that or need it. I share because I know how alone I feel when the doubt crawls inside my head, when I don't want to ever leave the house again, when I can't imagine things ever getting better. Somewhere out there, there might be someone else who feels just that way, and maybe they could feel less alone if I lay it out there. Maybe someone else is hyperventilating in a grocery store bathroom and just wants to know they aren't the only one.

Maybe.

My therapist told me yesterday that I'm actually a whole lot further along in the healing process than I am properly giving myself credit for, because I am using my terrible experiences to help others.

As I left her office, my friend messaged and told me what had happened with the pending divorce and custody case. My friend who wrote the anonymous domestic violence piece last month. My friend who ran away from this man with little more than the clothes on her back. My friend asked for help. She came to me and I can't even begin to tell you how it humbles me.

She came to me because of you.

Yes, you.

And you, those of you out there who read the words that I write, you responded.

You trusted me even when I told you that I had to protect her and keep her safe and that I couldn't tell you who she was or give you too many details. You trusted me. And you helped her.

Because of this.

These words that float through the internet that I write and you read.

You helped because what we have here is the real deal.

I told my therapist yesterday what I've said to so many other people in these past few years. I don't understand why bad things happen to me. I stopped asking why and why me a long time ago. If there is a reason for it all, the only one that I can rationalize in my Type A analytical brain is this:

It happened so that I will learn. I learned so that I can help others. I share so that others won't feel alone. I share even when it hurts, because I hope that someone out there will hurt less. 

Last night, it paid off. All the laughing and the crying and the soul searching I do at this keyboard paid off.

You helped her. 

You are still helping her. 

Thank you.

Thank you for not running away when I write about the stuff that hurts. Thank you for sticking around when I am not funny. Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing your stories. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.

Thank you.

It's funny, being a writer sometimes.

I'm sure that there are many out there who think we share everything about ourselves. Who believe that we are like the open books that we crave, that we write, that we are drawn to.

It might seem that way, at least to the rest of the world.

There are some of us who write an awful lot about the things that people usually refuse to discuss with others. We write about addiction and mental health crises and eating disorders and death and illnesses and loss and grief. We write candidly about our lives, our families, our marriages, our friendship, our enemies.

Or do we?

I've not once written anything that was less than true, I've worn my heart on my sleeve more times than I could even count. I've opened that dirty ugly basement closet and drug some of the nastiest morsels of my personal story out, exposed them to the light for the world to see.

But there's a lot still in there.

There is a lot I don't write about. The stories that remain unwritten. The secrets I keep.


Most of it, I keep close because my responsibility to protect my family is more important than any desire to expose it.

Some of it, I keep close because it's too goddamn painful to write about, and even the mere idea of it makes the walls start to close in on me, makes my heart pound until I'm sure that it will leap out of my chest, makes me want to shut myself off from the rest of the world forever.

A few pieces of it, I don't write sheerly out of humiliation. I realized this yesterday when a dear friend and writer confided something in me. This writer hasn't written their story, and I haven't written this one of mine because I am embarrassed. I feel shame, as do they, and the worst part of it is that neither of us have any reason to feel that way. We weren't responsible. None of it was our faults. We were (and still are) very much the victims, though we both get up every single morning and tell ourselves we won't be. And yet, here we are. Ashamed of things we did not do.

So we stuff it down inside. The words that beg to find a way out are kept under lock and key.

Writers are complex creatures.

The more of them I come to know, the more I see it. The more I learn about myself, the more I see I have yet to learn.

We have stories to tell because of the things that have happened to us. If our lives weren't complicated, we would be uninteresting. We let it out, one piece at a time. We disguise it. We fictionalize it. We write about it from a perspective that no one would connect to us for having experienced it.

Or we don't write about it at all because it hurts too goddamn much, or because we just can't.

Us writers, we carry many burdens. The burden of protecting those around us from the damage our words can inflict. The burden of accuracy and ensuring truth. The burden of criticism and judgment.

The greatest of all those burdens, though, are the stories we don't tell.

Though I'm weird and secretive about the things that have happened in the past few years, suffice to say that they have sucked. Some of them, independently, were probably enough to give me a boatload of issues, but it was never just one thing.

When your therapist stops you a few times just for clarification that this happened at the same time this happened, a few months after this happened, and right before this happened...you know it's a sign that it's been a bit much.

And it has.

There are a few times of the year that I dread, and the days between the 4th of July and the 7th of July fall firmly into that category.

I knew I was struggling yesterday when I laid down with little boy for a nap and woke up over three hours later. Sometimes, as bad as it is, it's easier just to shut it all away. I've learned to let myself do that when I have to. I've learned that sometimes talking about it, thinking about it, isn't going to be good for me. That there is nothing wrong with self-preservation, and that just because I choose to force something away now doesn't mean I am refusing to deal with it, it just means that I am choosing not to deal with it right now, in this moment.

I'll probably be doing that a lot in these next few days.

Though this isn't the first year that this set of days has passed, requiring me to survive them, last year was different. We weren't here, we were on vacation. It was probably better that way, to be honest. I wasn't in the place I am in now then.

In my last session with my therapist, she asked me to make a list of all the triggers, all the bad memories, of all the things I am carrying with me. She thought, as do most people, that my father's death ranked high on that list. It doesn't.

I was in a good place with his death when it happened, and nothing about that has changed.

He didn't choose to die. He didn't want to leave. He would have given anything for things to be different.

Others chose to do what they did, and that hurts more.

I've learned that though I am fairly far along in the process of acceptance and forgiveness, being far along in that process doesn't take the hurt away. Forgiving someone for hurting you doesn't make it go away. There really is truth in the phrases about forgiving, but not forgetting, and that truth exists because I believe there are hurts that can never go away completely. We just move forward with them as part of our past. As much as I wish at times that I could forget, I can't. I'm certain I never will.

I've learned that I am stubborn and strong, far more than I ever thought I was. I've learned that when I feel like I can handle no more, I do it anyway. I'm a survivor, in the truest sense of the word. I've also learned that sometimes I have to take the cape off.

I've learned to be more cautious, but I've also learned that sometimes all the caution in the world can't protect you, and that in order to truly live sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. Often that leap requires your to put trust in those who don't deserve it, and that the list of those undeserving can include yourself.

It is terrifying, but necessary to move forward.

I refuse to let the things I have been through change me too much. I don't want to be bitter and angry. So, I choose not to be. When the sadness rises up to the top, I go to my quiet place and sit with it for a while, then I take a deep breath and move forward.

During this process, I tried a few times to stop writing. Thinking that it was hurting me too much to try and get it out, I learned quickly that I needed this. Long before I was in therapy, this was my therapy.

It's something I can't fully explain, but also something that I know my fellow writers will understand. The words just need to find a way out. Sometimes they tear a hole in my soul on the way out, but once they are out, they aren't inside me anymore, ripping me apart from within. Sometimes it hurts, but that hurt is part of the process of letting it go.


So, forgive me in advance if I drop off the face of the map here and there in these next few days. I apologize if the funny is missing, and promise it will return soon. I'm sorry if I'm not my normal self for a little bit.

I'm busy surviving.

Be yourself....everyone else is already taken 
~ Oscar Wilde

Yesterday, I was given an award by a fellow blogger, The Insomniac's Dream, on a night that she got almost no sleep, stayed up almost all night, wrote a post and called me a whore.

Or something like that.


She was writing the post in response to the fact that she'd received yet another award. In the blogosphere, these awards are basically exactly as she described them - opportunities to whore yourself out to other writers and readers, then whore out the other writers you like.

So then, logically, she invented a new award to hand out, and she gave one to me.

I have a backlog of about eight awards that I haven't addressed yet, and I will inevitably fail miserably at following all the rules for each award. I will, however, tell you who gave them to me, tell you that they are all wonderful people, and tell you that you should go check out their blogs because they are amazing.

No Natural Mama
Bear & Lion
Bipolar Girl
Mom's World
Challenging Myself To Be Healthier
The Insomniac's Dream (of course)


As with all of these awards, there are rules and requirements, though this one is a bit different than the rest. No prying questions about my likes and dislikes, no random requests for information, none of that. Here are the rules.

Rules:




The prompt she gave me is this: Original Ideas: Are There Any Anymore?

Here's my answer.

Considering that I've only ever met a few people who are anything like me in my entire lifetime, and those that I have met mostly reside on the internet and I haven't actually met them in person, I'm going to have to say yes.

Original ideas come from original people, and I tend to think I'm a square peg in a round holed world.

There are, of course, glaring similarities among most of the bloggers in the world, and for that matter, among most of the writers in the world. 

We all want to be relevant. We all are doing what we do for some reason. We all want to make a genuine connection with our readers, however that happens.

We all learn from those who came before us, we all seem to feed off of each other's ideas and topics. Hopefully the borrowing is never too blatant or obvious, hopefully we take the general ideas and run with them, shape them and put them through our own filters sufficiently that they become ideas that are different and unique. Hopefully.

It doesn't always work out that way, of course, and what happens sometimes is that the borrowing becomes blatant. Sometimes it's glaringly obvious. Some people don't seem to mind taking what others created and claiming it as their own. I've had other writers do that with my stuff in the past, and it sucks. It really sucks.

What also sometimes happens is that a topic will arise that everyone seems compelled to write about, and suddenly the internet is flooded with a million posts that are all mostly the same, that don't contribute much individually in terms of uniqueness, but maybe speak more to the power of the bloggers in the world to make our collective voices heard. In those times, maybe it's not our individual uniqueness that matters, but the unique power of the medium. This tends to happen whenever there is some major tragedy, at least from what I have seen. After the school shooting in Connecticut last year, the internet was saturated with posts about loving our children and appreciating every moment. Nothing earth shattering or very original, true...but collectively, they do say a lot about our society's response to these events.

When people tell me they want to start writing, I always encourage them to write what they know. To be authentic. To tell the hard stories. To be relevant. To be real. Through the telling of our real stories and the sharing of our real experiences, we are unique and individual just by definition. No one else has lived my life, no one else has had this same set of challenges. No one else has the same set of interests I do.

I've been writing a good long time now, and I want to believe I have a unique voice. I don't know of other bloggers who write the legal analysis posts the way I do. I don't know anyone else who has a weekly series where they rant (except for those who've taken the idea from me). I have written and hosted guest posts, but I'm running a series now - aimed mostly at encouraging new writers to give it a shot, and giving established writers a chance to write about something they ordinarily wouldn't. I run photo challenges and write about rock music habitually. I'm hosting a summer book club this year for kids and parents to share together. I write about getting stuck in dressing rooms with mouthy kids one day, abortion the next, how grief sucks the next. My fans...my poor fans...they never really know what I'm going to throw at them.

I repel the idea of niches, apparently.

That all seems pretty unique, at least in that combination. 

Ironically, where I feel the least unique is in my fiction writing. The genre where we are supposed to be free to invent anything is where I feel the most like an imitator. Fiction is a new genre to me, as I've always been a non-fiction writer. It makes me squirm. It makes me uncomfortable. I don't want to borrow from other writers and I diligently try to find my own unique voice. There's an argument to be made that all fiction is the same. We're all telling the same basic stories, just changing up details, locations, time and place. Maybe we are.

I suppose my answer is that yes there are original ideas, when they come from authentic people who aren't trying to ride anyone else's coattails. 

Unless they're writing fiction. ;)

The five bloggers I am choosing to receive this award are:

1) The Insomniac's Dream (neener neener)
2) Grass Oil
3) The Momisodes
4) Modern Mama Dramas
5) Razorblade Brain

Your topic is:

I wasn't going to write anything today, yet here I am.

A few nights ago, as I stood on a field watching soccer practice and chatting with some of the other parents, my phone vibrated.

It was an email.

A message from the director of the Denver production of Listen To Your Mother, asking me to audition.

The auditions were originally supposed to take place yesterday, and I was okay with that.  The storm was coming, and I'd have an excuse to beg off.  To say thank you, but no thank you.

Then they pushed it back to next week, assigned me a time.

I have an audition in six days, and I have no idea what I'm going to do.


I have 2-3 minutes to sell myself.  To make them like me.  I'm leaning towards a serious piece because I think that is a lot easier to convey in a short period of time than humor is.

I posted about how I was completely freaking out about it on my Facebook page, and some of my loveliest fans immediately told me that it would all be fine, that I would rock the audition, that I would do great.

If only I had such confidence in myself.

This, all of this...my writing, the stories I tell, my sense of humor, it's all easier from behind a screen.  It's taken me years and surviving hell a few times to really find my voice here.  To believe in myself again, to use this platform to share information, to raise awareness, to raise money for charity, to do good.  I use it to rant and bitch, to laugh and cry, to process the things I go through personally, even if I almost never actually write about what they are.

This version of me, the one with the Wonder Woman costume kicking ass and taking names, I like her. I like her a lot.

She's good at a lot of things, it's true.

She's never stood on a stage with a microphone and tried to sell it to someone in person, though.

The one time that someone recognized me in public for my blog I was startled and didn't really know what to say.  It was fun, but terrifying.

The people who read what I write, you all, you're real.

I get messages occasionally from some of you, messages that tell me that I helped you somehow, that I made you feel like you weren't the only one going through something, that I inspired you to start writing or take pictures or be silly.  I made you laugh, I made you cry, I made you think.  Those messages keep me going, tell me that I'm doing something worthwhile here.

Sometimes I need that more than you know, mostly because I don't have nearly as much self-confidence as it might seem.

I've doubted a lot of things in the past few years.  Re-evaluated every single piece of my life.  Wondered if I'm where I am supposed to be.  Wondered why things happened the way they did.

I've tried to stop writing a few times.

I can't.

This is who I am.

I'm the girl behind the computer screen.  She's smart and strong and resilient and brave.  She's honest and real and good.  She has integrity, she has depth of character, she is talented.

I have six days to get her to believe she can stand on a stage and convince other people of it all too.

Wish me luck.

In the last year, I've written some really hilarious stuff.  I've written some really controversial and politically charged pieces.  And I wrote these.

These are the pieces that go the furthest to explaining who I am.  What makes me tick.  What has made me the way I am.  These are the posts nearest and dearest to my heart.  Many of them brought me to tears as I wrote them, some still make me cry when I read them now.  Some compelled me to turn off the computer and walk away.

With most of them, I was terrified to hit the publish button.  Afraid of what people would think. Afraid of being judged.

I've learned a lot about myself this year.  Some of the lessons were excruciating.  I brought you with me on this journey, and I thank you for coming along.

An open book for the world to read, I am.



Mothering a child just like me.

The reason I'll always believe in the tooth fairy.

If I could write a letter to my younger self, I wouldn't. Here's why.

Why everyone needs to sit down right now and talk about dying.

I am.

If you've ever really lost yourself, you know what I mean.

It's not just a team, it's a family.

The morning of 9/11, burned into my mind. Not like you think.

Why Lance disappointed me, and it has nothing to do with the bike.

Grief is a real bitch sometimes.

Keeping my head above water.

This is just how crazy I am. Fortunately, I'm not alone.

Love and marriage are not the same.

What betrayal really feels like.

Motherhood: your time is fleeting, and you don't even notice.

A confession about my past.

The hardest thing I learned this year.

It's been a big year around here!  In the last twelve months, I've added over 1,000 fans on my Facebook page, become addicted to Pinterest and actually figured out Twitter.

I'm not one to toot my own horn much, but I have to say that I am pretty proud of myself for the first time in a long time.


Here is a quick summary of my year in features, guest posts and more!

BlogHer
Dream Big - My daughters, soccer and the USWNT
A post office procrastination guide

World's Worst Moms
Thar She Blows
An Heir Raising Tale

Mamapedia
The only time my house is clean

Guest Posts - mine and others
Fall, through my camera lens. On Grass Oil.
My Blogging Sister. On The MFP.
Rowing and the Soul, by Molly Field
Yesvember, 100 words of gratitude. On Grass Oil.
Our 2013 Wishes. On the crumb diaries.

Book Submission
I wrote a piece for this book.  Co-Creating Happiness, Stories from around the world

Subject Swaps
What I don't understand.
A fly on the wall.
My hidden talent.

Challenges and Regular Series
2nd Annual Photography Challenge
Holiday Photo Challenge
30 Days of Random Questions
Summer School of Rock - to be continued....
Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday

Upcoming Projects
I've recently become a member of the influencer circle at BlogFrog.
I've just been accepted as a contributor to Peevish Penman!
I will be starting a fiction writing challenge after the New Year.
...and I'm going to start working on my books again if it kills me.

Normally, Tuesday is my day to vent about all the things pissing me off.

This week, though, I can't be bitchy.  I just can't.  Not after yesterday.

This happened, then it just kept going.


I owe a debt of gratitude to some friends right now, and I'm still a little giddy when I think about it.  I didn't sleep at all last night, mostly because there is a part of me that worries a bit when I pick up new fans.

I don't want to let my fans down.  I want to be funny and relevant and interesting.  I hope that I am.  I was chatting with a blogger friend, My Operation Rainbow, last night about how I think we all do this for a reason.  They're all different reasons, obviously, but there is something that drives us, that tells us to open ourselves up to other people, that says to us yes, share the crazy with the people.

Then, just as I was chatting with her, I got a message from another blogger friend, Modern Mama Dramas.  She refers to me as her online big sister, and it's a label that seems to make sense.  She tagged me in a post about wishes and urged me to play along.

Okay, fine.  Here goes.

It's a simple prompt, this one.  I am supposed to make five wishes for the holiday season, and tag five bloggers to participate.

Here are my wishes:

1. I wish for the motivation to clean.  I have been slacking lately, mostly because I know that cleaning my house is an exercise in futility with this many kids.  The OCD part of me wants to clean the house from top to bottom then forbid anyone from touching anything.  The ADD part of me lacks the focus to do it.  The mom in me just says why bother?  I need to be better about it.  Or I need to let it go.  I just need to make up my mind.

2.  I wish for discipline to write the things I should be writing.  I have four books, in various stages of process, right now.  Two I started long ago and dropped when life became chaotic.  One of them is whimsical and fun, one truly has lost it's relevance in my life entirely.  The third book, I am not sure I have the courage to write.  Someday that one will come.  Maybe.  There is such an important lesson in that story and it needs written.  With time.  The last, the one that my heart needs to write the most. The progress is agonizingly slow.  I think I need more perspective, more distance first.  I struggle with finding my voice in that one especially, with how to tell the story, with notions like fictionalized memoirs and pen names and the protection of the innocent.

3.  I wish for answers for my son.  He's in a holding pattern medically.  He shows some of the risk factors for developing Type 1 diabetes, but hasn't turned the corner.  He is occasionally hypoglycemic, he has stress induced hyperglycemia and tends to struggle with reactive hypoglycemia.  All three can be transient conditions, all three are things he could potentially outgrow, and all three could be the canary in the coal mine.  Only time will tell if he outgrows these issues or it eventually shifts into the full blown disease.  I don't wait well, but I have no choice.  Patience is something we only learn when we have no other option.

4. I wish for strength.  The past few years have been rough, to say the least.  Someday, if you're lucky, I'll write about all the stuff I don't write about here in those books I talked about up in #2.  I long ago stopped tempting fate by saying things like what else could go wrong?  Something else can always go wrong.  Story of my life lately.  You know what though?  I'm here.  My head is above water and I'm not curled up in the fetal position in the corner somewhere.  I'd love to handle less than I've been given, but that's not the deck of cards I'm playing with.  I can do this.  I've been doing it.  I wish for the strength to keep doing it.

5.  I wish for grace.  This is a tough one.  I think we all struggle with it just as a necessary part of the human condition, particularly those of us who are type A control freaks like me.  I want to help people, I want to fix things, I want to make it better.  I want to believe that I have some control, but I know that I don't.  I can only control myself and my reactions to the things that happen around me.  I have spent a lot of time working on accepting others, on letting go of the fights that aren't mine, on lifting what I can from my shoulders.  I can't do it all, and I certainly can't do it for anyone else.  It's the accepting it all that I struggle with.  I wish for faith, for forgiveness, for trust, and for the grace that makes all the rest of it possible.

Here are the bloggers I am nominating to participate.

1. It's a Dome Life

2.  The Musings of Munch

3. A Lot of Layers

4. Baking in a Tornado

5. World's Worst Moms