Fire and Frost

I'm back at the Bay. I'm sure none of you are shocked by this fact. The high for today is in the mid-50s, but there's a Nor'easter blustering its way toward us, so the wind chill is much cooler than mid-50s. The sandpipers are running in wild, dizzying serpentine lines, skipping in to the foam forming the shoreline, then scurrying away just as quickly. The waves are kicking up, the sand is cold and clammy under my bare feet, and I'm wrapped in the Mexican blanket I've had for 20 years. Braving and embracing it all, because I need this place, and this is where I come when I get full up of feels.

In a recent Instagram post, I said I hoped that someday soon I would find some words that are worthy of what this month has done. I don’t know if I’ve found anything worthy, but the words are dipping and swelling and spilling out all the same. 

October is my favorite month. It always has been. I adore summer, and Christmas is my favorite holiday, but October... October is new moments and old memories, the birth of change and the death of sameness. October is fire and color and frost and fade. It’s smoke and moss and wind and twilight. It’s air crisping up in your lungs and leaves crunching down under your feet, expansive clouds in blue and exuded clouds on your breath. It is everything. 

And my October, my beautiful October, has hurt me this year. Is it ridiculous to feel betrayed by a month of the year, by a calendar, by something that doesn’t know I exist and doesn’t know that I just.needed.peace? 

This year, I hate October. 

I don’t see the new beginnings, I only see the endings. I only see the loss. 

My stepdad passed away on October 10th, less than two weeks after his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It happened so quickly. So quickly that it still doesn’t feel real. I know it happened. I watched it happen, day after day, watched him suffer and waste away, kissed him goodbye and whispered my love to him after he was gone. I watched, aching and heartbroken, and at the same time, perversely relieved that he was no longer in pain, as he was taken from his home for the last time. I was there for all of it. And yet all of those moments feel like a memory from a dream. It happened too quickly. Beyond my comprehension, beyond my ability to believe.

October has been hard. The fire of it has burned me. The frost of it has numbed me. And I’m tired. I’m so tired. I’m tired of being needed, even when I need to be needed. I’m tired of not sleeping, I’m tired of not eating, I’m tired of crying, I’m tired of the heaviness of grief weighing me down to my very bones, weakening me in my joints and my shoulders and my spine and my neck. I’m tired of mediating, and monitoring, and mothering, and, oh, please, God help me, I’m tired of mourning.

And I’m tired of complaining. I’m sure there are those around me who are tired of me complaining, too. I don’t mean to. I don’t want to. I don’t want this to be the gravitational pull of my life that every day, every thought, and every thing revolves around; but this is what grief does. It consumes. It consumes as surely as the fire and frost of October consumes the last lingering days of summer. 

I wanted these words to be worthy of my stepfather. To tell the story of my life with him, my love for him, and why the loss of him is so monumental. And I will. Someday I will, I swear it. 

But today- just for today, I need to burn. I need to freeze. I need to die with the old and rise again with the new. I need to see the color and smell the smoke and live in what is left of my favorite month, and I need to forgive. Forgive what I can never comprehend, forgive what I can never forget, forgive that so, someday, I won’t be consumed. 

And then... then, the stories, the memories, the words worthy of a man who was a father to me, who lived a worthy life, will be born. Soon. 

Siren Song

I’m sitting—Surpriiiise! not at the beach— in the lone chair in my kitchen, my hair twisted up in sticky coils in my second attempt to make my gray dye stick (I'll update on that later, but whatever happens, we know the dye works on fingernails). I’ve got half a bagel in front of me, and now I’m debating if I even can stomach it.

A month or so ago, I wrote a blog that was vague and a little sideways and everything I hate when people write that way... that vague sense of humble superiority, the one that says, “I’m going through SO much and it sucks SO bad, and I want your sympathy but, sorryyyy, can’t tell you why.” I didn’t write it that way because it’s what I wanted. That’s not my writing “voice”, as we all unfortunately know. But at the time, there were things going on that weren’t definite, answers we were still waiting on, and fears I, in all honestly, did not want to give voice and shape and power to.
It’s been about six weeks now, and I have a few answers, although they aren’t what I’d prefer. At this point it seems that maybe giving voice and shape and power to it all doesn’t even matter, because it’s already there.


My stepdad is sick. He’s really, really sick. They’re throwing out terms like “mass on the pancreas”, “spots on the lungs are likely metastasized”, “keep him comfortable”. Bad things. Things you don’t want to hear doctors ever, ever say to you, and at the same time, part of me wants to reach out and hug the doctor, because my God, I can’t even imagine it being my job to constantly give these reports to terrified families.I’ve been blessed to have a stepdad I can truly, deeply love, whom my kids view as their grandfather, no caveats, no questions asked. The way my parents’ marriage ended almost 17 years ago has left its marks, that’s for damn sure. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t find a new normal, and we couldn’t create some love out of that chaotic explosion. And to bear witness to this, to yet another loss in my life, and, God help me, in my kids’ lives... it’s killing me. It’s the thing that keeps me awake at night, watching the ceiling fan spin around and around in the dark, wondering how am I supposed to tell them? Do I let them see him the way he is now, or let them remember the way he was and take away what is, in all likelihood, their chance to say goodbye? Do I ask them and let them decide? Are they even old enough to make that kind of decision? Why is this happening? I can’t bear it. I honestly feel like I can’t bear it.


Add to all of this something else I’ve only touched on here and there— Atleigh has struggled with anxiety and mood swings ever since the loss of Jeremy’s grandparents. Things got hard and kept getting harder ever since. Finally, after some bullying incidents at school and a disturbing drawing done during class by Atleigh, we’ve put her in therapy. And yes, I can hear a lot of you now, probably we should have gotten her into therapy sooner. We didn't know. We just didn't. And we aren't perfect. We made a mistake, and we're doing our best to combat that now. I'm grateful we've gotten her in to an amazing, faith-based local practice, where they work on healing as well as treating any issues that come up.
Emotionally reactionary.... that’s a phrase they used to describe her extremely volatile, up in the air emotional state, what they said to me as they told me they’d like her to undergo a psychiatric assessment. Out of all of my kids, she’s the one to whom I’m most terrified to tell this news about her grandfather. How do I do it? What do I say? How do we all handle the fallout together?

Jesus, this is hard to write out. Hard because it's vulnerable, it exposes me, it exposes her, it opens up a situation that strangers feel they can be experts on and give me advice about. But as usual, part of it is to let you know, you’re not alone. You’re NOT. I'm not alone either. We’re here in the trenches right next to each other. Maybe fighting a different battle, a different demon, with different weapons, but still together.


I’m so tired, friends. So, so tired. Even when I sleep, I’m tired. There’s a weight on me that feels like it can’t be lifted. The weight of grief, the weight of uncertainty, the weight of expectations and responsibility, the weight of disappointment, the weight of love. So heavy. So heavy.
There have been two things getting me through this week, which has been an especially hard week— two things that two of my brothers have said and given to me, complete unconscious of the gift they’ve offered. I suspect they’ll be getting me through a good many months.

This past Sunday, my brother Ben said in a prayer, completely randomly, completely without inkling of how hard it would hit me, “God, broaden their shoulders.” That was it. He prayed other things too, but after that I didn’t hear anything else. I immediately picked up my phone (yes, in the middle of a prayer, okay??) and typed into my notes is all caps

BROADEN MY SHOULDERS

Then I scrawled that same phrase at the top of the page of my notebook. Then I repeated it to myself every day, every hour, every minute of exhaustion, because. I can’t broaden my own shoulders. It can’t come from me. But my shoulders CAN be broadened. Even so, God. Even so. Broaden my shoulders.

The second strengthening came in the form of a few quotes from a story my youngest brother Isaac has been working on and shared with me. Actually, he shared the first chapter or so with me about two years ago, and I was so hooked I haven’t forgotten it since. I brought it up to him again earlier this week, and he shared it with me again, now new and improved with two whole chapters (HURRY UP, WILL YA IKE??). I won’t go into the whole plot, backstory, et al. Just a few short lines. The protagonist’s mother says to her, in the midst of hardship, war, gripping fear and gaping hunger,

“Hope is a song.... God’s favorite song, I think–beautiful when sung and played by His own grand choirs and orchestras, yes, but I think He likes it better still when you sing it.”

A few paragraphs down, there’s a reference to that first line about Hope, that says,

“Hope was a gateway to loss. God’s favorite song was that of a Siren.”

I don’t think I’ve ever, in my entire life, read anything that struck me quite so deeply. God’s favorite song is that of a Siren. According to mythology, once a person heard the song of the Siren, they chased it until they died. Until they dashed themselves upon the rocks. And isn’t that what Hope is? A Siren song that we so desperately need to grasp onto that we will dash ourselves upon the rocks again and again and again, in order to reach it? Maybe it’s a bit of that innate human selfishness we all have. We need that Hope. We’ll do anything to know a few lines of that song. Maybe we’re all a little greedy. Or maybe, God’s favorite song floats around us, in us, through us, waiting for us to recognize it and sing it with Him.

Broaden my shoulders. Hope. Broaden my shoulders. Hope.

Chasing each other around and around in my head, in my sleep, every day and night, every hour.
I’m tired. My shoulders feel thin. But I’m not without Hope. Dash me on the rocks, if that’s what it takes. I won’t be without Hope, I’ll be as greedy for it as I need to be. I’ll remember the song sung to me from the foundations of the earth and of my being and I’ll sing it back to the One who loves it best from me; I’ll allow my shoulders to be broadened, and I’ll be strong.

Rally Cap

[Bear with me, folks... my stream of consciousness may be even harder to follow tonight than it normally is.]

Back in February, I got the first tattoo in a black line half sleeve, that I’ll be adding on to as I’m able. 

The tattoo wraps around my lower bicep, just above my elbow, with a single dogwood bloom, to represent being a good ol’ Virginia girl (and also the first tree I ever learned to identify and love), and the Avett Brothers line from the song No Hard Feelings, “I have no enemies.”

The Avett album True Sadness released the summer of 2016, shortly after Jeremy’s Mema passed away. It took me about a week to get around to listening to it, right after what would have been her 84th birthday, and that particular song stopped me in my tracks. Literally: I was in the middle of cooking tacos for dinner, and I laid my head down on the counter, right next to the chopping block covered in onions and tomatoes, and I wept. I wept more than I can ever recall weeping with a song, and that’s saying something. 

The lyrics are:

When my body won't hold me anymore 

And it finally lets me free 

Will I be ready? 

When my feet won't walk another mile 

And my lips give their last kiss goodbye 

Will my hands be steady?

When I lay down my fears 

My hopes and my doubts 

The rings on my fingers 

And the keys to my house 

With no hard feelings

When the sun hangs low in the west 

And the light in my chest 

Won't be kept held at bay any longer 

When the jealousy fades away 

And it's ash and dust for cash and lust 

And it's just hallelujah 

And love in thoughts and love in the words 

Love in the songs they sing in the church 

And no hard feelings

Lord knows they haven't done 

Much good for anyone 

Kept me afraid and cold 

With so much to have and hold

When my body won't hold me anymore 

And it finally lets me free 

Where will I go? 

Will the trade winds take me south 

Through Georgia grain or tropical rain 

Or snow from the heavens?

Will I join with the ocean blue 

Or run into the Savior true 

And shake hands laughing 

And walk through the night 

Straight to the light 

Holding the love I've known in my life 

And no hard feelings

Lord knows they haven't done 

Much good for anyone 

Kept me afraid and cold 

With so much to have and hold 

Under the curving sky 

I'm finally learning why 

It matters for me and you 

To say it and mean it too 

For life and its loveliness 

And all of its ugliness 

Good as it's been to me 

I have no enemies 

I have no enemies 

I have no enemies 

I have no enemies

I hadn’t heard or felt anything so profound in longer than I could remember. If that song isn’t a hope filled capsule to stack with what’s important to you and find again later in life, I don’t know what is. I tattooed, “I have no enemies” on my arm as a reminder. A reminder that you can connect with, empathize with, and forgive pretty much everyone you come across. No one out there is my enemy; my biggest enemy is myself. I’m prone to self sabotage. Every year my New Years “resolution” is this (not so) simple phrase: Don’t self sabotage. 

Don’t see offense where none is meant to be given; or even if it is meant to be given, don't give it soil to root in. Don’t hold onto grudges that were never meant to be tangible, to be clasped tighter than intangible love and grace and mercy. Don’t read my own writing on the wall regarding other people. I have no enemies on this earth... except myself. It’s a constant reminder for me to maintain perspective. I haven’t learned it all yet. Who knows if I ever will? I have a difficult time separating other people’s actions in reference to how they affect me. Everything feels personal, because I’m a personal person. 

Today has been a cruddy, crappy, no good very bad day. I have a twitchy, tired headache from editing photos for nearly a dozen hours, and tense neck and shoulders from folding piles of laundry in between editing. I’m exhausted. I’m emotional. I got bad news today. I hate when people are cryptic about news, so I'm sorry about this particular cryptic reference, but in this case, it’s not my news to share. But it’s thrown me into a spiral, a never-ending drop, off a cliff I’ve clumsily, catastrophically tripped over, falling right back down to rocky ground I’ve had to navigate too many times.  I'm scared this time it will shatter me. And it’s too hard not to be selfish. It’s too hard not to say to myself, over and over, “I can’t do this again. I cannot. I can’t do it again.” But here I am, having to do it again. It’s like a lead blanket thrown over your shoulders, sinking you flat onto the floor, facedown, limbs and joints completely liquified and useless, unable to move. That’s what this feels like. 

Tonight, after an incredibly long day, I’m sitting at my safe place. The beach proper closes at sundown; as if the water stops working when the sun slips away, even though I can see the moon reflecting on the water perfectly well. 

It’s humid. It’s so humid here this week- maybe even more so than usual, which is saying a lot. Humidity doesn’t bother me. I’d rather be hot than cold. My hands feel tacky and grimy, the creases of my elbows are sticky and pulling away from each side of the crease slowly every time I bend my arms, my upper arm stubbornly clinging to my lower arm; my sinuses feel stuffed with cement and my hair is springing out of its ponytail in a riot of baby hairs; but I don’t care. I’m here. I can hear the water, I can breathe, I can smell the salt and brine, and I can write— as I usually do by the Bay. 

I can’t do this, friends. All of my wells of strength and support and self preservation were poured out like oil, like blood, the past too many years. The thought of trying to refill that well makes me feel so weak and drained. I feel like there’s a part of me, that hollow in your stomach, the physical reflection of your psyche- a correlation of mental and emotional pressure turned to physical panic- that is turning me inside out trying to produce a few more drops of faith and ferocity. I think I can literally feel it, flipping around, floundering, squeezing.

But what can I do? I can do nothing but rally. In baseball, there’s an event called a “two out rally”. I don’t know that they do it in the major leagues, but in little league, the boys punch their fists into their hats and turn them inside out, wearing them with the white lining showing. Their rally caps. They chant “TWO-OUT-RALL-YYY!!!” over and over. That chanting, the symbolism of those inside out caps, jolts them and hypes them up to a degree that no amount of full jugs of Gatorade and all the Double Bubble they can shove into their cheeks could ever do. A two out rally means something. It means hope. It means faith, it means a chance to FINISH THIS.

Maybe that’s what this inside out, anguished feeling really is. My two out rally. My time to punch my fist into my safe covering, and to hype myself up for a repetitive, brave, jacked up, faith-filled chant. Maybe it’s time to start chanting, maybe it’s time to repeat that I have no enemies, besides my own weaknesses and doubts. 

Bring on that last out. I’ll wear the inside outness, I’ll hype myself up, I’ll chant out the faith I don’t even feel yet, and I’ll rally. I can't hold back, I cannot allow "the light in my chest to be held at bay any longer", over some misguided sense of self preservation, a fortress against feeling. I’ll rally. 

I'll rally.

I See You

I’m sitting at the beach again this morning— after a Walmart run to get some Banana Boat dry oil spray with the lowest possible SPF you can buy that still contains SPF (it’s 4, if you’re wondering, and after a few more visits I’ll buy another container that contains 0 SPF... what can I say? I like to be tan) —because lately, the beach is where I go when the writing bug bites me. Words build and build, like the waves which I’m currently watching, and I find myself texting mini blogs, full of alliteration, philosophy, and a high adjective and superlative content. As my friend Julia can attest to. She’s borne the brunt of it this past week.

This morning, my spirit is heavy. It’s so heavy. Part of it may be my (sometimes accursed) empath nature, but the truth is, all of our spirits should be heavy today. This morning, we lost another human— I won’t be flippant with the loss by labeling him a celebrity, because his life is of the same value as any “regular” human; no more, no less— to depression and suicide. The second in the media this week. 

I’ve heard more times than I can count, just this week, “But they were rich. They were famous. They had everything.” 
“Everything” is utterly subjective, friends. Maybe the people who have what we deem “everything” realize “everything” isn’t enough. Maybe the people who have “nothing” are also acutely aware that they’ll never “have enough”. Maybe what it all boils down to is that, somewhere, deep inside, there is a fundamental lack that screams they are not enough, everything amounts to nothing, and therefore there is no such thing as everything. It all totals not enough. Every “everything” in the world can’t fill a fundamental conviction of not enough. 

I’d say there’s a sudden epidemic of suicide, but that would be, again, making less of something so large. An epidemic, at least to me, implies a sudden surge of a disease or phenomenon unlooked for; and that is not what this is. This... this is an insidious, long buried, long ignored, long building illness which, because our world has grown smaller due to the internet and media and our constant connection to one another, because of our tiny steps toward acknowledging mental illness as a real illness, is finally rearing its head in a culture that slowly, oh, so slowly, is becoming aware that this issue, this creature, even has a head to rear. 

When I was in high school, I thought I was depressed. Twenty years later, I realize that all I was was a highly sensitive person, with a melancholy disposition that led to a penchant for melancholy music, bad friends who treated me like garbage and contributed to a feeling of isolation that I didn’t deserve, and big heaping helpings of 16 year old “I feel sorry for myself”s. What I felt then wasn’t even on the same planet as clinical depression or anything under the mental illness umbrella. 

Recently, depression has reared its head all around me; from strangers in the news, to friends and family members who have their own stories to tell and who can tell it all in their own good time if they so choose. If it’s this exhausting and weighty to me, I can’t even begin to fathom the everyday battle these brave humans are waging to keep themselves pushing through, when all they want is to embrace the creature that rears its head to them regularly; a creature we don’t even know about or understand, because it’s buried deep to the rest of us. 

I have a confession. One that has kept me awake many nights for the past several years; a wasted opportunity on my part, a failure. A failure. One I don’t even want to share because it’s an ugly truth that I’m ashamed of, but nevertheless feel compelled to share (as I so often do).

When Robin Williams killed himself, I posted a beautiful photo of my daughter in Peter Pan tights, with a favorite quote from Hook. “To live would be an awfully big adventure.” 

I talked about one of our dearest friends, Tommy, who battled depression for more years than many people knew, and finally committed suicide just two weeks before his 27th birthday. I pleaded with people, to please, please, seek help. Seek friends. They weren’t alone. People loved them. 

Following that post, a person I knew remotely contacted me, asking if I would ever be free to hang out with them. They saw my post and it spoke to them. I knew for a fact that this person struggled with dissociative disorder and psychosis. And—oh God, forgive me— I got scared. I didn’t feel equipped mentally or emotionally to dive into a situation like that. I knew this person had endangered themselves on more than one occasion, and there was a possibility they could or would endanger others. I thought of my kids. And I got scared. I didn’t educate myself the way I should have, and I sure as hell didn’t understand half of the compassion I had so fluently written about. So I chickened out. I told this person I didn’t feel like I could give them what they wanted or needed. I referred them to suicide hotlines, programs, churches, organizations. 

That person then told me, in no uncertain terms, what they thought of me and all my words. 

They were right. They were too right. I’ve told very few people about that incident, because I was so ashamed. And now, almost four years later, I think— dear God, I hope— that I would respond differently. I remember their words in vivid detail. I stare at the ceiling at night and wish I could go back and give a different answer. And I wonder, if I am so tortured by what I did, if I relive my words and their words so often, how much more does that other person relive them? A person- a brave human- who stiffened their spine and took an extra shot of bravery and reached out, and was summarily rejected by another human who hid behind words and couldn’t come out from behind them and at least try to be equally brave. 

I don’t share this for absolution. Not even a little. I was wrong. I was so wrong. I share this because I know I’m not the only one who has been presented with or will be presented with an opportunity to shine a light for someone who is surrounded by darkness. I fumbled. I dropped my light. You don’t have to. 

I was afraid of something I couldn’t understand. In a society that wears “happy”; that sloshes the word around like a can of paint for us to slap on our walls and cover up drywall damage, 

we are horribly, woefully, unacceptably undereducated.

It isn’t right. It’s a travesty. People- humans- who run the gauntlet every single day against themselves, just to win the battle to live- something that is a basic human right, the most basic and fundamental of human rights- shouldn’t have to buy cans of that paint, shouldn’t have to wear it like a second skin over what our culture has too long deemed as damaged. It. Isn’t. Right. 

I don’t have answers. I don’t have training, or the right words, and a lot of days, I don’t have a whole lot of bravery. God knows, I wish I did. What I do have is a heavy, still heart, a desire to educate myself, and a big can of paint remover to help scrape that coating off of my fellow humans who are tired of wearing it. 

You are not broken. You are not alone. You are not a waste of space, you are a part of what makes this space we live in so worth occupying. There are those who consider it their supreme joy and honor to occupy this space with you. You’re not alone. I see you. Always. 

**I'd be remiss if I didn't list resources here for those of you (or someone you know) who are bravely battling depression, any type of mental illness, and everything that goes with it. Maybe you've seen and heard it all before, and maybe you won't call. But maybe, just maybe, you will. And maybe "not enough" can slowly become enough.

**The National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741

**https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

**For those of you who, like me, want to be better educated and better equipped to shine some light, there are more websites available than I could possibly link. If you know of any in particular, please comment. 

The Teenage Years

When Ashton was an infant, he had reflux to a horrifying degree. I’m talking so much puke that there would be a reverse silhouette (I guess that would just be an outline?) of my body on the wall when he burped over my shoulder. I carried full sized bath towels and multiple changes of clothing for both of us at all times.

One night, when he was about 10 days old, I couldn’t get him to stop crying. All night, I nursed him, rocked him, bounced him, patted him, and still he cried. I ended up lying on the couch, shirtless, Ashton nestled in the crook of my arm, skin to skin, with him screaming relentlessly against my chest. I sobbed with him, finally half shouting, “What do you want from me?? I’m not even wearing a ****ing shirt!!!” 

In that moment, I thought to myself, “It can’t possibly get worse than this.”

When I brought a newborn Chloe home from the hospital, Ashton had managed to contract double pink eye in the two days I was gone. Try telling a 2 year old that he can’t come in contact with Mommy or the new baby, all while trying to nurse said baby, and recover from giving birth, and comfort the 2 year old who feels miserable— at my ground zero as a mother of two. 

I told myself, “It can’t get harder than it is now.”

When Atleigh was born in a home that we had outgrown before we’d even moved in, to a family that was taken completely by surprise by baby number three, I suddenly had more children than I had hands. Those early months are a haze, punctuated by sleepless nights, an ER worthy bout of strep, and trying (and often failing) to figure out those dang sling carriers with the double rings, because baby number three could not stand to be set down, could not handle not being in the middle of everything that was going on at all times, and nine years later still has the most chronic case of FOMO I’ve ever seen. She would only ever let me face her outward where she could see everything. 

I said to myself, “I couldn’t be any more exhausted than I am with three kids under four. It’s all downhill coasting from here.”

And for several years, it was. We found a rhythm, I learned to not take myself seriously, and we carried on. 

Until about three years ago. When Ashton hit the preteen years. A year later, Chloe joined him across that line in the sand, the line that divides them against me and leaves me wringing my hands, a hairsbreadth away from the babies I nursed and coddled and cuddled, knowing that I can’t cross that line no matter how much I want to. 

And all of my metaphorical shoulder rubs and head petting, telling myself it couldn’t get worse than the infant and toddler years, were a cruel cosmic joke that came back to mock me everyday. 

Nothing— nothing— could have prepared me for the teenage years. So many mothers told me it would get easier: the toddler years wouldn’t last forever. They were right. Those years don’t last forever. But most days I’d pay good money to go back to those sleepless nights and the potty training and the fermented juice cups under the couch and the trying to keep them from accidental grievous injury everyday of their little lives. 

Being a mom of infants and toddlers is exhausting. Don’t get me wrong. I honor all you moms who are in the trenches I’ve clawed my way out of. But it’s a physical exhaustion. We’re tired. All the time. ALL the time. We’d give our kingdom for a full night’s sleep; we’d settle for a nap. 

Being the mom of two teenagers and a tween is exhausting on a level I never could have comprehended in those years I was sleep deprived, begging for reprieve. I’m exhausted in a way that no mother who has been in my shoes could have prepared me for. It’s a mental exhaustion, as opposed to physical exhaustion, and I’d take waking up four times a night with an infant over this almost any day.

It’s bone deep. It’s soul deep. It bows your head and hunches your shoulders and it turns you inside out with worry and weariness. It exposes all those ugly, weak spots in you, and it leaves you raw and shivering and wondering how, how, HOW, could that obnoxious, cheeky, clever little angel I hugged mere years ago turn into this. Could somehow embody all the worst parts of me, bleed it out, and shove it right back in my face? How? When? Why?

Nothing has made me weaker, nothing has made me question who I am as a person, and Who God thinks He is, like raising a bunch of teens. 

I’m tired, y’all. I’m so tired. I’m tired of being pushed against at every turn, argued with and questioned and huffed at. No amount of discipline sticks, no amount of reasoning gets through their thick heads— seriously, do their skulls get thicker when they hit twelve?? I may as well be trying to communicate with a cinder block, and honestly I’d probably get through to that more easily than I can to my kids. 

A thousand nights of sleeping clean through, a car sans car seats, a recycling bin full of sippy cups and lids, a wasteland of a living room (and bedroom, and kitchen, and bathroom) strewn from wall to wall with Matchbox cars and Barbies and sandals and Carter’s pajamas, all the toddler tantrums in Christendom were not enough to prepare me for the mental and emotional wasteland that I’m in now. The constant battle of wills. The role reversal, going from toddlers tugging on my shirt to beg for my attention— craving it, needing it, prizing it— to me knocking on a bedroom door, craving, needing, prizing one scrap of insight into their days, into their world. Any tears of physical exhaustion that I wept a dozen years ago have long since been eclipsed by the tears of mental weariness that I keep hidden, that I cry in the bathroom where they can’t see, that roll down my temples some nights after they’re asleep and it’s just me, me, me and my memories of those obnoxious angels that used to be mine. 

But don’t despair, Mamas. 

One: We are surrounded by a great and mighty cloud of witnesses, of mamas, parents who have gone before, who have walked and staggered and crawled through the minefield, the wasteland of being a mother to humans straddling the dimensions between childhood and adulthood. 

Two: Speaking of no comparison— that first gassy smile from your newborn, that first babbled “mamamamama” pales— pales— in comparison to a genuine smile from your teen, a voluntary, albeit mumbled, “love you” from a creature who, lets face it, at this age doesn’t love a whole lot. In those moments when you feel like if you have to face one more day of these brass heavens they build against you, you might just vomit from the sheer stress of it, if something doesn’t give soon— those are the moments when they look at you, really look at you, and smile. And those smiles, sneaking out from the corners of their faces where the baby still lurks, hidden and angular.... somedays, the sun rises and sets on those smiles. 

Three: There is a camaraderie with my teens that I treasure above most things; that I store up in my heart for those days when the brass heavens bruise me and make me feel broken, and that keep me tiptoeing through the minefield, knowing, knowing, KNOWING, that this is just a season. This won’t last forever. And someday... someday my babies will be back, but better than ever, because they’ve made it through their own personal teenage minefields, and I’ve been waiting for them on the other side; holding my hands out to them the way I did when they took their first steps, cheering them on, calling out warnings and encouragement, believing they can do it and will be the stronger for it. 

Take heart, parents of teens. We’ll be stronger too. 

Flight Risk

Whoever decided it was a good idea to take a several ton chunk of metal and send it hurtling through the sky, going hundreds of miles an hour and hovering miles above the earth, was probably on hallucinogenics. 

I’m all for exercising your imagination, creating new things, pioneering in our culture, etc.... but I don’t like flying. I HATE flying. I have a just this side of sanity fear of flying. 

And the people who DO love flying? I don’t understand those people. And I’m good at understanding people, as a rule. I don’t understand air travel lovers. What’s there to love??

So here I am, sitting on a gray vinyl end seat attached to a row of identical gray vinyl seats, outside my gate at the airport, surrounded by strangers in various states of inertia and alertness. My legs are crossed and my dingy white Chuck Taylors are rocking restlessly back and forth, the only outward sign of my inward panic, and the only thing keeping me from getting up and running in a tight circle, screaming and flailing and getting tackled by security. 

This is my first time flying all by myself. I know, at the age of almost 35, this probably seems pathetic. But sister prefers road trips, and the east coast, and places moderately accessible by road trips. This is also the longest flight I’ve ever taken, aside from a trip to Newfoundland, Canada, a whole EIGHTEEN years ago. And at 16 you’re not afraid of your own mortality, especially if you have your older brother with you, and your Discman playing Starflyer 59’s latest release. 

I’m trying to chill. Really I am. I’m trying to keep my stomach from churning and keep those panicked tears that keep pricking at the back of my nose and eyes and trying to close my throat at bay. Because I’m a grownup, dammit! My dad tried to make my feel better telling me that I’ll get to fly over the Rockies, and all I thought was, “Flotation devices won’t work in the Rockies!!!!”

My suitcase was five pounds over the check limit, meaning my check fee would jump from $25 to $100. They can’t even gradually increase the weight to cost ratio. 50lbs, $25! 51lbs, $100 and also we’re gonna require one of your kidneys, if you please. The exceptionally kind American Airlines clerk saw my panic, undoubtably thought I was at least 10 years younger than I am, and told me he could sneak about an extra two pounds in if I could weed out three pounds. So there I was, holding up the check in line, trying to figure out what I could take out— and hang on a second. Yes, I’m a clotheshorse, but I’m not THAT big of one. I only packed TWO pairs of shoes, and TWO pairs of pants, I’ll have you know. There are several sweaters and layers, because while my beloved Virginia will be enjoying 60-70° weather the next week, I’ll be in Idaho, where it’s a WHOLE lot colder than my best friend assured me it would be. And the rest of the weight is gifts for her kids, which mainly take the form of books, so. Now you’re informed— I ended up grabbing the first few items I saw: my jean jacket, a pair of gray velour sweatpants, and my stuffed puppy (everyone who’s seen my on trips knows about Lumbar, my floppy and well loved stuffed dog that Jeremy got me for our first Christmas 16 years ago). Then I had to carry all of that in addition to my carry on backpack, my jacket, and my scarf (because it’s COLD where I’m going, remember?), and try to figure out how I’m going to squeeze it all into my only allowable carry on, which is also packed full. There was a kind TSA agent who watched me struggling to wriggle my ID out of my wallet, one handed, sweat beading my brow and breath coming fast, and graciously, without comment or censure, placed his rubber blue gloved finger on my wallet to hold it in place while I worked my ID out of the sleeve. 

Several times I dropped several items, and had to scramble to gather everything back up, while onlookers no doubt watched me and figured I was drunk at 5:30 in the morning.

Currently, I have a chambray shirt on over a t-shirt, with my scarf and my denim jacket tied around my waist. My other jacket will have to go on OVER my over-shirt AND denim jacket, and essentially I’m going to burn alive. The velour sweatpants are rolled tight and shoved into the side pocket of my backpack, but if I have to, I’ll put those on over my current pants, too (Maybe I AM drunk?). 

I just spoke to the clerk for my flight and he told me the puppy is allowed to be carried on with me, which nearly made me weep with relief. There was no way I was going to manage to squeeze it into my backpack, and if it came down to the puppy and several other items in the carry on, almost all items in the “other” category are only so much ballast. The velour sweatpants and the small lap blanket my sister insisted I bring since I’m in the cheap seats and will get cold, and yes, possibly even my makeup bag would have ended up in a trash can in the middle of Norfolk International Airport. 

In 20 minutes we’ll begin boarding, although I’ll be boarding last so I still have time to sit and stew and maybe put my head between my knees for a bit. And— assuming I’m alive to see them— I’m sure the Rockies will be beautiful from above. 

Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Eyeliner?

I'm going to go ahead and answer that question for you all right off the bat, and the answer is, absolutely not. There is no such thing. I am firmly ensconced in the "go big or go home" camp when it comes to makeup. If I don't look like a drag queen, I'm doing it wrong.
 However, I do believe there can be such a thing as too much mascara; but that's only because the clumping, and I have an anxious habit of pulling on my eyelashes when I'm stressed out. I won't reveal how many times I've pulled out chunks of eyelashes and ended up with bald patches.

All of this is just to segue into the fact that some days, for me, are just an utter waste of makeup. Some days are just a constant raining of eyeliner tears; when it feels like all the makeup I wore as armor drips down my face, bit by bit: tracking down my cheeks and clinging to my chin for dear life; for hope, for strength, for bravery... until they finally give in to gravity and accept the grief.

Today is one of those days. One of those wounded, broken, Why and What If and What Next type of days.

And no. I'm not happy that my first blog since the birth of this year is me writing about melting makeup. But if you've read my blog enough, you know that I don't fake it. I write what I feel from where I am and I make no apologies.

Because more than anything, I strive to be real.

And today, my reality is hurt and broken and betrayed and frustrated and confused, and my reality is dripping my Go Big Or Go Home makeup down my face.

And you know what? That's okay. This is okay. There is no such thing as perfection and there is no reason to pretend you've achieved it, or pursue something that can never be caught. So these pageant queen tear tracks on my cheeks are fine. They're not forever, any more than perfection would be if I could catch it.

Hurt comes to us. Rejection rears its disfigured face. Stress strangles us. And eyeliner will sometimes leave tracks down your perfectly primed and applied matte powder.

But none of them last. They appear, they swirl around, they rain down, and then they head on their way. Because there is no permanent strength in these things. They're sprinters; they're not marathoners.

So I'll wait out today. And tomorrow... well. I wouldn't be a proper drag queen wannabe if I didn't own plenty more eyeliner.