Day 257

continued from a previous post...

Add that to the fact that I changed schools all the time because we had to move constantly and it made for a nice delicious adolescent stew that tastes burned at the bottom.  I graduated with a gaggle of girlfriends who all leaned on me for support and stability and got a job at a local grocery store while I waited to leave for college with one of them.  I remember going over and interviewing with two of them so we could all work together.  Oh, and all my best friends were the popular beautiful kind.  Being funny and a good listener helps break down all social walls in girl world.  They got hired on as checkers and I was sent to the back of the store in boot and jeans land.   

The store had just opened and the pay was lousy so we were all teenagers, even the managers ended up being since any legitimate employee would quit soon after being hired.  I wasn’t active in church at the time.  I felt like a black eye on the perfect face of the ward I belonged to.  I didn’t share their past, their inside jokes were lost on me, and I’m not sure they knew how to handle this new kid on the block.  So I worked Sundays and quietly slipped off of radar I’m not sure I was ever on anyway.  I liked the kids I worked with.  We were from all walks of life, members of the church, non members, hard drinkers, kids heading to college, ones finding themselves, we were a melting pot in produce and dairy and non foods.  All the blue smocks seemed to equalize us.  It was the first time since I moved into this state, that I felt at home.  We would sometimes hang out after work.  One of my friends, a beautiful one, would ensure that any guy in the place would be glad to hang out with us.  I started to find out these boys were content to just be friends and that friendship with a boy was a commodity that I had sorely lacked.  It was enough just to have a few laughs and get into a few scrapes and the camaraderie was what I understand that everyone else had always had and now I finally did. 

More and more of these friends who were boys would spend their breaks back in boots and jeans and I would pretend to sell them dinner sized belt buckles or we would try on real leather upper ostrich skinned boots and they didn’t like-like me, they just liked being with me because I was fun or funny or newly confident or something.  I was used to being popular among the girls, but now I just felt popular.period.  It was heady for an eighteen year old girl who should have known better.  Maybe I could be compared to a Victorian novel character who was just “coming out” into society or something.  I wasn’t dating anyone, but I could smile and look at a guy.  Wow. 

One night we went out with a guy and his cousin.  The guy was a flashy one and all the girls drooled.  I didn’t.  I was way beyond that by now.  I found I didn’t even look at a guy in terms if he was desirable or not because why bother?  I took my usual step back and all the girls flirted up a storm with him and his cousin.  We took two separate cars and I was in the cousin’s car.  Two of my modelesque friends were there two.  They leaned into to him and admired and all the like.  I listened and was content just to be.  The next day, the cousin, I will call him John, came back to boots and jeans.  He had been there before as one of my “pals,” but now he asked me out.  I had very very few points of reference for this.  Why did he ask me when my friends were throwing themselves in his direction? 

I will call this guy Alex.  I loved Alex, everything about him.  He had played football all through high school yet had a grace like a dancer which he would kill me for mentioning.  He wasn’t a member of the church which shocked all my friends, but he tried to be supportive and even came to church with me a few times because I asked him too even though I still wasn’t going regularly at the time.  He didn’t listen to his CD’s with the parental advisory lyrics at least when I was in his truck and I never mentioned it.  I won’t go into all of it because the fact is it doesn’t matter.  It’s the same story everyone has about their first love.  The only thing was is that there were a lot of people in the store that thought I was dating someone else.  There was a college boy named let’s call him Steve that had been going to ask me out, but Alex and I were an item too quickly.  It would take me a long time to realize that he may have been a smarter option, but as it was I only had eyes for Alex.  Looking back, I didn’t realize that Steve had feelings for me, but if I had been more savvy in the world of boys, I would have realized that he was always there for me and it must have been hard to have our heart to hearts everyday and not have me understand his feelings. 

Anyway, I was going up to Ricks college with all my friends who went to church each week and my parents were EAGER to get me away from Alex and up to the Zion of the North quickly.  The night before I left we stayed out all night and almost got arrested.  I cried all the way to Rexburg because I couldn’t forget his face watching me drive away. 

It was for the best.  I broke a lot of rules jumping over the fence of my dorm and there were literally times I know the Lord intervened and carried me away from situations that would have had irreparable consequences, but I was spared.  I am still eternally indebted to Him for that, but I certainly wasn’t trying to be wise, but He had always had a way of protecting me even from myself.  Once I made the decision to stay up there and not come home, Alex and I were no more.  It was painful, but it was he who ended it.  He could see the writing on the wall even if I refused to.  Later in a crazy twist of fate, his mom would be my boss and I know she was instrumental in that breakup and it was a good thing.  I heard he was sleeping with the next girl he was with and all I could think of was that I was so grateful it wasn’t me.

After that everything changed for me.  I made up for high school in college and enjoyed the dances and attention I received.  I only dated one darling cowboy from Wyoming consistently who sang to me and who ended up not going on a mission and wound up living with his next girlfriend.  I had to think, they left me and ended up getting into trouble…hmmm….

If was the first time in my life I felt pretty and the other girls were always raiding my closet so my confidence was vastly improving.  I came home intent to work my way into a mission since I still had no idea what I wanted to study and the Y was a daunting prospect since I had no desire to marry until I had finished education, mission, blah blah blah.  I dated people and there was just nothing there.  I just didn’t feel a connection.  RM’s scared me and I was hard on guys.  I wasn’t the best about returning calls if they didn’t float my boat, and I said no sometimes or if they did something that made me mad, I would just walk away no questions asked.  I got a great job and had another strong support of girlfriends which had always been my saving grace.  To be honest, I still didn’t really believe anyone would want to marry me.  My relationship with my dad had not improved and the walls I had built up around myself were thick.  I had become active in church again at Ricks, who could help it?  I attended a student ward now and the shark tank feel there was not my bag.  My friends started getting married.  I would laugh and be grateful it wasn’t me.  I was thinking about putting my mission papers in.  I went to singles’ dances just to laugh at it all and because that’s what friends wanted to do.  I wasn’t impressed with anyone there, probably mostly because it was my defense mechanism from getting hurt. 

 I met a tall smart RM who wanted to be an accountant and was going to the Y.  He was so into me and I couldn’t be.  He called and called and called.  Finally, I felt bad and thought I should give him a chance, but he didn’t call again.  One of my “friends” had told him to forget it.  So it was me feeling guilty about that situation that caused me to say yes when a certain T would chase me around the next dance I went to and asked me out.

to be continued...

Day 256

I need to thank you, A. 

 When you emailed me you mentioned the word “cryptic” in regards to my writing.  I have rolled it around in my brain and it has been the most helpful word I have ever received.  I realized that most of the time I’m hiding even here, even in my most prolific form of communication.  I realized that that is the single reason I prefer short or even flash fiction to novels because it’s easier to hide that way.  Leave out the details that don’t have the punch or pizzazz, but more importantly hide the simple truths.  Yes, I can narrow down a moment and take some breath away, but what were the moments leading up to that, the ones that aren’t allowed to cower and play second fiddle?  The truth about myself in non fiction pieces, let alone the truth in fictional ones.  And If I’m afraid to speak my own truth, my characters are sure as hell afraid to speak theirs.  So, I’ve been writing non stop for the past hour and a half and here’s where it stands:

I haven’t had a great deal of experience with members of the opposite sex.  If you’re not close to your father, it goes one of two ways.  You throw yourself at every man who shows any interest to make up for never knowing where you stand from the male role model who teaches you how to interact with all men or you clam up and believe that because the most important man in your life ignores you or finds you lacking, then that’s the way all look at you.  And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  The more you clam up, the more invisible you become.  And the ones who notice, at least in my life, were the tall dark quiet types who didn’t dare let me know they’re feelings anyway.  Great.  I got that at home too.

I skated through it OK.  I didn’t have any interest in boys or at least I told myself I didn’t because if they treated me the way I felt with my dad, I was dodging a bullet anyway.  The first boy I liked reminded me of the husband I now have.  I should have known even at age twelve, that the boy who won my heart would have to work at it and take me places I was less than comfortable with emotionally.  I was in a van going to the beach.  YM/YW activities are dreamy when you live in Southern CA.  A new boy had moved into the ward.  He was 16 and ancient compared to my baby innocence.  He was smart and had a mouth on him and gave me a hard time.  It wasn’t the usual stuff, the mean stuff though that I was used to.  It was a mental challenge and I found I could give it right back.  He wasn’t that tall; wow a clue to my future.  He had freckles and auburn hair which compared to the red mop I had looked positively brown. 

He was sardonic, a language I understood, had always understood.  He liked me, a language I didn’t know.  The last time I had a boy wrapped around my finger I was eight and times had changed.  I didn’t know what to do with this one.  This one was so much older and wiser.  I was an actor at heart, he was too.  I was funny and he made me laugh.  I found out at a young age the rarity of humor in others.  He was aggressive, but not overly so and for his age may have been almost as innocent as I felt.  The night he backed me up against the wall at road show practice, all it would have taken would have been the slightest movement from me to initiate my first kiss, but as I’ve mentioned before, I had no idea what to do with him.  I didn’t trust my own feelings, let alone his.  I ran away.  Later there was a dance just for the cast and I stayed home on purpose because I knew he would be there and want to dance and ask about me, which he did, but I couldn’t face him, those feelings.  Soon I started to ignore him and ultimately he moved away.  I wonder sometimes if I had been the girl who threw herself at everyone to make up for lack of a male presence in her life where I would have been.  I know the answer.  I would have been promiscuous and pregnant.  The rebellious reckless streak in me would have come charging out and I would have jumped into that world too quickly.  In quiet moments, I reflect that perhaps even though a part of me wishes for more experience, for that first kiss at twelve by a boy four years my senior, that the Lord was protecting me.  Just like we make our big decisions based from a million little ones, that’s how I feel about my own love life or even lack of it. 

And I don’t talk about this ever.  I am ashamed. Like I am less then because I don’t have all the stories and the ones who pined for me.  And the truth is, I wish for that.  I, like any other girl out there, wish to make a man fall to his knees with longing.  I wish I was more than I was, that I was so beautiful that I would have turned heads, that I was so desirable that I didn’t have to pretend to not be there so that I wouldn’t stand out in a boy’s mind and he would find me lacking.  It was later I would find out the boys in high school who liked me, the new girl always never giving them an opening, they thought I was stuck up or not interested because those were the vibes I screamed out through every pore.  And when you aren’t asked out or to dances or go pick out a pretty dress it closes a door on your femininity and then you have to tell yourself that you don’t care in order to survive.  You call yourself a late bloomer and you have to become the best friend to every girl our there so that they don’t spend any time asking you what’s wrong with you because they and you are too busy focusing on them and their lives and how they are wanted.  And then you’re protected from boys wondering what’s wrong with you because your just the friend of so and so and you’re just so dang supportive.  And you don’t talk about boys at least not when it relates to yourself.  And people stop asking you about it because they have their own love life issues.  And that’s how you fly under the radar for so long and all the things that immature boys who mothers say really like you, but you understand the cruelty behind their words and that they have to punish all the girls they find different or unique, stick to your psyche like grey gum under a park bench.  And you sit at that bench everyday.  “Do you know how flat you are?  She used to be cute last year, but look at her now…Do you want to dance…just kidding, who would dance with you?”

to be continued...

Day 255

When you don't breathe enough, you yawn.  The body is attempting to get air and when you yawn as your on your back hoisting up your own body weight on a Pilates reformer, your eyes leak out the sides and it makes for a charming picture.  I haven't breathed since approximately 2:10 pm this afternoon when I stuck my foot, ankle, and entire calf into my mouth.

My friend M's son is dating my son's teacher.  I was excited about this.  M and I talked about it Sunday.  Cute, cute, cute and all that yakkity yak.  I was the last to know, but I'm all about finding common ground and making a connection.  I stride purposely and confidently into the classroom and say how great it is that they're dating and how much I love the family, etc, etc, shut up already and she looks at me and says, "so and so just broke up with me..."  She then proceeds to burst into tears and there's the entire class lined up and ready to go to recess.  My heart drops to my knees.  I awkwardly put my arms around her as the class asks her over and over what's wrong.  Great I'm the mom who makes the teacher cry!!  She puts on a pair of dark glasses and instructs the class to go out to the playground. 

This is how I roll.  I wish I could say I take a less is more approach.  Maybe perhaps I could have walked in quietly and waited for her to mention something about her love life (as if) before I proceed to walk her down the aisle with the boy I once taught Sunday school too.  That's right.  I taught this guy years ago when he and his friends made my job one where I was on my knees in my closet praying for relief.  They were testing me, trying me, and I hung in there with them, didn't back down and they ended up being my favorite's EVER.  Still my favorite calling ever because it was such a challenge and because it yielded so much fruit.  Teenagers respecting you=cool.  Teenage boys respecting you=priceless.

Anyway, he let a good one go here.  She's a doll inside and out.  But if its not right, its not right.  Let me just be the one to bring it up in the work place.  And because her mom works there too and I know she knew what had happened I felt the need to apologize to her too.  And now I have a dull ache between my eyes and there's a metal bar between my shoulder blades.

Day 254

Hey Firewoman!  You writing much?  Why no, no I'm not.  And yet when I'm in the car with the music turned way way up, I wish I was.  I read a post today where a commenter asked the author if she maybe is addicted to intensity.  She brought out that this "writer" needed to feel something as opposed to nothing and even if the something was a train taking her way off track, at least it was going somewhere.  It struck a nerve.

I had a date night this weekend that went awry.  Two passionate fiery rockets were one two many for our fast, but aging car to handle and we went our separate ways.  I find in these moments when neither of us are willing to back down, mostly me, that it's best to cool off.  We had the sitter already and there's no way I'm paying for nothing, so we stopped to get Layla and took off in different directions.  I gave it some thought.  I'm not good at asking for help, advice maybe, but even that in not so many words.  I might send a text..."How ya doing?"  or "What are you doing right now?"  That's my cryptic way of saying I need you, got a minute to talk because my head is spinning with possibilities right now and I need to talk it out.   That was where I was at.

I texted K.  What was she doing and she was open to walking right there in the middle of a perfectly delectable evening.  To waste this evening would have been a sin.  And we walked and we shared and we weren't alone in our lightening storms that our closest relationships can bring.   And we got trapped, a ten foot chain link fence surrounded our therapy session.  She looked at me.  We can jump this or we can go back.  I'm not one that likes going backwards, not in life, not in walks.  I was game, my upper body strength was not.  I was stuck on top of this unstable at best hunk or metal straddling it and looking over the valley.  Beauty and danger tied up in one hurt so good scary moment.  I couldn't turn myself around and my tennis shoe was too big to fit in the rung behind me.  She said, "I'll save you, firewoman."  And she jumped the fence and helped me down the other side.  Two less than frumpy thirty somethings living on the edge, one without that aforementioned upper body strength supporting each other.  And by the time I dropped her off, I was ready for a take-two with the Tster.

I called him.  He was in a movie, but that was good you see because it gave me time to long for him.  For that guy with the affinity for rolling up his church shirt sleeves just below the elbow who commands a crowd on Sunday afternoon as easily as I breathe.  We attempted to talk.  Not so much.  More time needed.  Then we tried again.  Third times a charm. 

That's marriage to me.  Sitting up on top of a ten foot fence.  Your scared because you could really get hurt, but the view, what you've been through, where you're going together, but sometimes you feel like you're stuck...then the other person jumps over the fence when you can't and catches you before you fall and break all your bones. 

Day 251

I'm putting off going to bed.  T got called to St. George last second to drop everything to go fire someone.  I had this grand scheme in my head of all of us going, me surprising the kids with no school tomorrow and bags already in the car when they got home from school, heaven for a child.  No such luck.  This was a serious firing.  No fun to be had and all plans for this evening changed.

So instead of the two of us going to a reception at the Thanksgiving Point gardens, it was me following friends with my own kids in tow and some of theirs.   I found myself depressed.  There was dancing and no one to dance with.  I didn't feel comfortable just asking some guy to dance like I'm not a late thirty mommy, but Frank was crooning and people were swing dancing and I wasn't joining them.  Finally, in desperation I picked up little C as she spooned chocolate cheesecake in her mouth and whirled her around the patio.  It wasn't the same.  But oh the wedding dress on the model bride found in Anaheim with the silver jeweled bodice was something out of a dream. 

I signed C up for Lego league.  Oh, I was in the  right place at the right time.  Only 7 spots.  My life now so much more complicated, I can barely stand it.  This isn't making things out of legos, though there is that.  This is a huge community project with research and meetings and hours of work and engineering and programming and team building and all the things that will enhance his experience and there's scouts and soccer and piano and little C's music class and dance and this isn't what I wanted.  I'm not one to put my kids in fifteen different things.

Draper temple.  Incredible.  I'm cheating on the Oquirrh Mt. this year while I spend afternoons in Draper.  And I'm in love.  Not only do they have handicapped access, but a man stands at the door and its his job to OPEN it for you.  That's what he does.  Everyone stands up to greet me.  They ask me how I want to serve.  I am putty in your hands, you delightful piece of heaven, you. 

Little C doesn't like school.  "They treat us like servants, mom.  School is no place for me!"  It's a rigorous environment.  I knew it would be.  I know she's a different child than C.  Her new music class (deserves a post of its own) and her dance class light her up.  She likes recess.  She doesn't like classwork, feels like worksheets are a waste of her time.  She wants to stay home with me, but doesn't want to be treated like a baby.  I've talked about creating a different experience for her.  It's late and I'm tired and I need to write this out and revisit it again.  I don't see her caring that she's in Algebra and Latin like C or wanting to be in the top of her class like C and maybe this is a mistake having her there, but I can't send them two different places.  Aackity aack aack aack.  See what happens when T leaves unexpectedly???  I should be in bed and I'm not and it's drama, drama, drama.

Day 250

I wish the words inside my heart were alive and could do the work my body is too "human" to do.
It's official.  I can't write what's inside me.

I take walks.  Miracles happen.  They happened today and I can't do it justice at this keyboard.  Suffice it to say, this is what life's about.  If we are willing, God will use us. 

I'm so grateful for this gospel.  On anxious days, I feel trapped in this little "bubble" and long to travel to far off places, but on days like these, I realize that my little neighborhood is an entire world and if I spent my entire life giving all I am to this family and to those around me, it's a full time mission.  I can walk around my ward boundaries and the work to be done could last a lifetime. 

I know its about balance and pacing myself, but wow.  

Day 249

The original day 249 was quite a doozy.  Til I deleted it.  I don't generally quit on a post in a place I have tried to consistently feel safe being exposed on.  This was an exception.  I've been ok this week and I mean ok in the best possible way.  I've been competent.  I've been capable.  I've done what's needed to be done.

Why is this a novelty?  For the same reason that I handed my car keys to T on our third date.  I made him take the driver's seat.  And I've leaned on him ever since.  Granted, we didn't know what a free fall my health would take, but when did I hand over the things that scared me and when did driving scare me before that day?  It didn't.  I didn't ask him if he wanted the job and I didn't check in with myself and realize what the symbolism in that one act was the precursor of.

So the real deal is I don't want to be in charge, not because I don't want to be in charge, but because I don't want to be responsible.  I don't feel comfortable with the buck stopping with me because I don't feel competent, capable or able to handle what needs to get done...and T does such a good job at sweeping the anxious crumbs of me under the rug and making the floor all shiny again.

So when he leaves on business the entire first week of the kids' school experience and life just inhales and exhales - I feel NOT anxious.  No one was here to take it from me.  Not T, not my mom (who had the job before T and to be truthful, created the 'spare the firewoman any travail at all costs' career) God blessed me, gave me peace and I couldn't hide away.  There was no time to retract within myself or stare out the window at my own life and not be living it fully.  And that is what really causes my anxiety.

It's that.  It's me when I choose not to act, but to be acted upon.  That is my truth.  That is how my anxiety is handled.  I'm not the saying the same goes for everyone, but when I don't just go do, it's always a problem.  So this week has been the best week I've had in a really long time.  I kept going, I kept breathing, I kept praying, and praying, I kept living.  And this is how it feels.  I like it.