Round and round

Emma: “Who has two thumbs and wants to get a beating?”

Me: “Yourself?”

Emma: “No” pointing at each of us, “you and you and you.”

Gerrit: “Emma, you don’t have two thumbs?”

Emma: “No, a Great White bit one of them off.”

Gerrit: “Emma, when were you ever in the sea?”

Emma: “I never said I lost it in the sea.”

Gerrit: “Then how did a Great White bite it off?”

Emma: “I didn’t say it was a Great White Shark.”

Gerrit: “Then what kind of Great White is it?”

Emma: “It was a Great White… labradoodle.”

If you saw that one coming, you’re better than me.

Labradoodles… the other Great White.

Leave my body

As the weeks pass after my surgery, I can feel the fog I’ve been wading through the last few months starting to lift.  Like the sun has broken through and is burning off the lingering haze in my mind.  Things have become much clearer to me and it’s with a massive sense of relief that I begin to feel like myself again.

I had been on the losing end of life as of late.  If I didn’t think it would bore you to tears, I could easily tick through a lengthy list (again) of things I’d consider lost.  Some of which were expected and some that were not.  Both were more disconcerting than I ever expected them to be.

I could feel my comfort, my control and my vision of reality slipping away too easily.  Everything seemed different and it made me different.  For a while I fought it, clawing to keep it all from flying away.  Convincing myself that if I was strong enough, I could turn the tides of change.  Stop the loss.

But you can’t stop the world from changing.  Relationships, people, situations… they all evolve and life moves on, with or without your permission.  Raging against it to stop it from doing so is almost as effective as blowing into the wind to change its direction.  Your fight will leave you out of breath and exhausted, but trust that the wind will carry on as long as it desires, despite your best efforts.

As the fog clears around me, I can see that truth again.  Instead of wailing against the winds of change, I’m tucking to roll with it.  Using its great and mighty power to propel me out of the storm rather than fight against it.  It’s time to leave behind what may, and make my way to what lies ahead.  Only by letting go of my struggle can I move forward with freedom.  It’s time to release what gets pulled away from me and feel reassured by the firm grasp of those who would not see me taken as well.  I am still here.

The fog, it burns off more every day and with it, my vision becomes clearer.  I can see now that of all the things I’d thought I’d lost, it was losing me that I mourned the most.  The surgery took away my tumor but there’s been a poison that’s been coursing through my mind.  It’s time to release it.  It’s time for it to leave my body.

Some nights

Dan: “Man, my stomach is really hurting.  I don’t know why.”

Me: “You don’t think it was something you ate?”

Dan: “No, I didn’t eat anything that should make it hurt.”

Me: “You made dinner tonight.  Maybe you didn’t wash your hands after you touched the chicken.”

Dan: “I wash my hands a lot when I’m cooking.  People would be surprised.”

Me: “Ok.”

Dan: “I wash them like 5 or 6 times at least.  Not because I’m worried about me getting sick but I’m worried the people I’m making food for, like the kids, will get sick.”

Me: “You wash them with soap?”

Dan: “Yes, with soap.  The kids are actually more likely to get soap poisoning than food poisoning.”

Me: “Soap poisoning?  Is that a thing?”

Dan: “I hope not.  I really don’t want the kids to get it.”

And that my friends, is a good dad.  Even when his intestines have turned against him and he’s half asleep, he’s still hoping his children won’t be stricken with an imaginary illness.

Death and all his friends

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low’r'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.” ~ Richard III

They say March comes in like a lion but my beast was found in February.  We began the month with an impromptu move 2 weeks before we had planned on leaving our house.  It took approximately a week and a half to move all of our possessions from what had become John’s house (the buyer) into 3 different locations… a storage unit, Dan’s brother’s house (for things that needed climate control storage) and Dan’s parents house, where we’ll be living until our house is done being built.

We had finally settled in and were just adjusting to our new surroundings when it struck me.  Exactly one month to the date of my scheduled surgery, it hit me while I was packing the kids’ lunches and emptying the dishwasher.  A terrible pain seized my body and stole my breath away.  It was a pain my brain remembered all too well… labor.

Punching in a dream

I am the queen of change.  Well, if not the actual queen, then at least a member of the Royal Family of Change and heir to the throne.  I have spent the last 5 years documenting on my blog the pursuit and exultation of growing.  I’ve been the purveyor of evolution.  The champion of change.  The curator of mobility and adaptation.  The Caption of Becoming!

And you… you’ve all been my witness.  The audience to the Evolution of Chris.  You’ve been my cheerleaders and advisors.  My silent watchers and loud appreciators.  The readers to my testimonies.  You’ve seen me start fresh and new in chapter after chapter of my life.  You’ve looked on as I discovered and uncovered pieces of myself.  You’ve followed the horrors and follies as I’ve tweaked and twerked my very being.

I’ve told you my dreams and schemes.  My plans to shape and mold myself.  You’ve heard my plots to transform me into the best me I could be, then start all over again in a new way.  You’ve seen me try to pass along that legacy to my kids and the passion I feel about teaching them that they aren’t limited to who they are naturally.  That LIFE is about growth and the only way to truly LIVE is to chase after your own transformation.  To BECOME the person they’re almost afraid to believe they can be.  That their DREAMS shouldn’t ever stop evolving and neither should they.

I hope I’ve inspired some people along the way.  I hope someone along the way, at some point in time, has read one of my posts and believed that they too could change their life.  I love to think that a person or two have said to themselves “self,” (cuz I don’t know their name) “if that little lady with the blog can try on something that terrifies her, something that is completely foreign to her tiny mind, well maybe I can too.” 

I really do hope that.  And I hope what I say next won’t deter some one else from committing to that journey because it’s worth it.  It’s so totally worth it and gratifying and wonderful.  But there’s a truth that I don’t talk about a lot on here.  It’s one I don’t even say out loud to myself that often… All that growing and changing can hurt sometimes.  A lot.  Because often times, when we move onto something new, we have to leave something behind.

In the last year I left behind a job that was comfortable with people I loved working with to tip toe into a new, exciting and challenging career.  We sold and moved out of the home we’d lived in for 12 years to tackle the terrifying and amazing opportunity to build the house of our dreams.  Now, I’m about to evict my uterus and the large growing tumor inside that I’ve come to lovingly refer to as my ‘big, fat, stupid, baby head’ (cuz of it’s size, I don’t actually think babies have stupid heads).

And so, my brain is screaming to me… “ENOUGH!!  STOP CHANGING STUFF!!  HOLY HELL LADY, HAVEN’T YOU DONE ENOUGH?!?  STOP, JUST STOP!!”  and I’m like… “Right, brain?  It’s been really crazy around here.  Let’s hide out in a hole until the whirlwind stops.”  

Soon (very soon I’m sure) I’ll be back to my quest for change.  I promise.  I just need a minute to center myself before I get back to rebuilding me all over again.  When I do, you’ll be the first to know about it.

Cosmic love

 

God made me with light hair but dark eyebrows and I’ve always wondered why?  Everyone knows they’re supposed to match each other and yet, mine do not.  I’d come to think of it as a massive oversight on God’s part.  Probably, he was so busy looking after the heavens and Earth he didn’t notice he’d make a mistake on matching me up.

He must have been very busy when he made Dan too.  He’s got a mismatched brow/hair combination as well.  Our birthdays are 17 days apart so one easily assume it must have been a busy time in the world for the big guy to make such an obvious error not once but twice in such a short time frame.  It was a bicentennial year, after all.  Things can obviously get overlooked with such excitement happening.  No big thing.

Dan and I have been together for nearly 18 years but it wasn’t until the other day that a new thought dawned on me.  I was getting ready in the bathroom when Dan came in and hugged me from behind.  As I looked at our reflection in the mirror, the same reflection I’ve seen a thousand times, I saw something different.  Instead of seeing the oddness of our eyebrows on our faces, I saw how they complimented each other.

Me: “Our eyebrows don’t match ourselves but they match each other.”

Dan: “What?”

Me: “You have brown hair and blonde eyebrows, while I have dark eyebrows and light hair.”

Dan (slightly mocking voice): “Aw… we complete each other.”

Me: “We do!  It’s like God knew we’d need each other to make a normal person.  That’s why our kids hair and eyebrows are right.”

And that’s when I realized that God hadn’t made a mistake at all.  It wasn’t that he’d been too busy to put us together the right way.  He’d matched us up perfectly.  It’s just that our perfect match is found in each other.

He knew I’d have endless ponderings, so he gave me someone who could answer them all, even when they’re ridiculous.

He knew how much I’d love to laugh, so he gave me a guy who could always make me smile.

He knew sometimes I’d be weak, so he gave me a spouse who was strong.

He knew I’d be quick to anger, so he gave me a companion who was easy-going.

He knew there’d be days when my heart was heavy and lost in darkness, so he gave me a man who could lift me and show me the sun.

He knew there’d be times when my mind was a tornado, so he gave me a partner whose thoughts were calm.

He knew I’d be overwhelmed by things sometimes, so he made my other half a problem solving wizard.

He knew I wouldn’t always believe in me, so he gave me a husband who always would.

Our eyebrows are really just a visual of something I already knew… apart, we don’t make as much as sense as we do together.  And when I think of it like that, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes…

 

Cough syrup

I’m hiding in my basement.  Not because there’s an impending tornado about to hit my house but because of the one that already did.  Metaphorically speaking, of course.  The contents of my kitchen drawers and cabinets have been vomited onto every available surface… countertops, table, floors.  It’s a disaster.

There’s approximately 493 things I should be doing right now instead of writing this but I don’t care.  It’s winter in Michigan and with no chance of burying my head in the sand to avoid the chaos that’s enveloped my life, I’ve chosen instead a brief respite in the form of my blog.

So much has happened in the last few months and I miss having the chance to put it all on here.  The chance to vent and digest.  It’s making me crazy.  Literally speaking this time.  If I started with my pinkie finger, counting the number of days I’ve gone without crying as of late, I wouldn’t even make it to my wedding band.  And even as I type that, I see how horrible it sounds.

I’ve come to realize that