living for today

It takes some people a lifetime to wake up from the fantasy worlds we have all been guilty of creating at some point in our lives. Some people snap back into reality in the blink of an eye. Others call for a huge tragedy to see themselves in a mirror. Nine months was the lucky number for me.

I was always maturing faster than I should. Started out by tagging along with my older siblings every chance I got. Learning the lyrics to The Doors around four years of age. Getting along with my sisters and brother encouraged the development of relationships with older friends as well. I just wanted to be grown up. A common desire among children but rather than just wishing for it I consciously worked toward it. I wanted to be a woman, not a little girl. I wanted to be listened to when I spoke, not just heard. Maybe I can express the extent of it more clearly through an example from my memories...

When I was about nine years old, my parents bought a big motor boat. My family would load up on the weekends, always stopping by the local grocery store and stocking up on fried chicken and beer, and head out to the barrier islands for a day of sun bathing, snorkeling, and relaxing. We made those trips for about three years. My siblings were all in their twenties so for them it was a social time to drink beer with their friends and smoke cigarettes. I was so jealous of their cool, grown-up friends, and all their freedom. Nine years old and I never once built a sand castle. Instead I sat in the water as close as they'd allow listening to stories I was much too young to understand. If I just acted a little more mature, maybe they would accept me.

When my foot out grew children's sizes, I just knew I would finally be accepted as a woman. How could I not be if I wore the same shoes as my sisters? Before I know it, I was taller than my very petite sister Samantha. Surely that would give me some kind of credit. It went on and on and on. One day I find myself married with a three week old baby in my arms. And my family still referring to me as a child, their baby sister.

The previous nine months foreshadowed that moment or really my whole life. It was foolish of me to expect even motherhood to change my fucked up relationship with them. So I am not trying to prove anything to them anymore and I am no longer seeking their approval or acceptance because in my attempt to gain their respect I have realized that there is more to be respected for than they have ever known in their own lives.

The pace at which my life has gone shouldn't really surprise them. I have been growing up faster than anyone else in my family my whole life. Pregnancy and marriage before my 21st birthday is different from the way they did it. But even in ways as small as high school participation, I have always been different. Unfortunately it did take nine months for me to realize that it's a good difference. In trying so hard to be just like them, I have realized I am not and don't want to be anything like them. With marriage and children they stopped. I am just beginning.

birth story

Good thing it took nine months because it took me that long to accept it. My life was changing. I was going to have a baby. The most influential person in my life had changed from my mother to a man I had only known for about a year. I was exactly what I preached against for at least the previous 6 or 7 years of my life. I was a girl who got pregnant. It wasn't until about month 8 that I accepted my reality and acknowledged that I didn't have to be labeled as a stereotype. Not as a tramp, not as a dumb young girl, not as a mother, not as a housewife. Only 20 years old, I still had my whole life to decide what I wanted to be. Becoming a wife and a mother didn't have to mean that's all I'd ever be. Some people make those the main labels of their lives. I plan for them to mean no more than tall, short, skinny, or fat. Housewife and motherhood are definitely big enough to stand alone but for me they are simply a strong base to be build upon.

It took 41 weeks and one day for me to come to that conclusion. Wednesday, September 16, 2009, turned my life around for the better. A day I regained my confidence after 9 months of doubt and self-pity. As of January 5th of the same year I thought death would be the easiest, and somehow I almost convinced myself, the best option. Like the ribbon in the middle of the tug-a-war rope, I let myself be pulled in opposite directions by myself and everyone around me. Finally, my body knew I was ready to bring Sophia Irene Marie into the world. Wednesday morning began around 11am for Daniel and me. I casually walked to the kitchen with my mind racing trying to decide whether or not the ache in my lower back was really there or just wishful thinking being as I was over a week past my due date. I expressed my discomfort nonchalantly to my husband and nonchalantly recommended I get some Vitamin D by the pool. After a couple hours of sunbathing and debating whether or not this ache was coming and going at any consistent rate, I headed up the curvy stairs to our simple little condo. It was time to travel to Mississippi to have dinner with my parents and my mother-in-law at the Singing River Yacht Club. While laying by the pool accompanied by a good friend Alicia Reeves, I had concluded that the ache was intensifying for about a 45 seconds every 20 minutes. So for the 45 minutes car ride to the club Daniel was adamantly timing my "contractions", although I was still hesitant to claim that I was actually in labor. From that point until we arrived back in Mobile around 9pm, this back ache had been consistent every 5 minutes. Walk. Walk. Walk. All we heard in Bradley class. So what did we do albeit tired and hot? We walked. Around campus with Marley and Dylan, our pups or oldest children. Stopping every 3 minutes to deal with contractions as they started to get stronger by this point. We made it to the top of the steps just as the rain began to fall.

The next several hours consisted of warm baths, lavender oil, very interrupted sleep, and finally left me sitting on my exercise ball in the middle of our living room around 4 a.m. Thursday morning. I was in a different place as if all by myself. I didn’t think of anything else in the world. I was focused on a different level, an out of body experience as if I was floating above the Earth. For the next hour, I went from covered in blankets to naked with a cold rag on my forehead. It was a quiet affair until I was suddenly puking in the garbage can. That's about the time I recommended we call our midwife. It was about 5 a.m. In the silence of the morning I could hear everything she was asking my husband on the phone. It wasn't until I heard him respond with "they are about 1 minute apart" that I had a negative thought. And that was simply, "This car ride is going to suck". It was time. I slipped on a dress and we headed out the door. I closed my eyes and focused on NPR. My husband admitted later that he was sure my labor had slowed down because I didn't make a peep the entire ride.

After arriving at the cottage in Long Beach, Mississippi, the midwife checked my progression and to my relief announced that I was already 8 centimeters dilated. Only 2 more to go before I would possibly be ready to push. After about 5 contractions standing in the middle of the room swaying with my eyes half closed as my husband and midwife scrambled to unload the car and set things up, I decided to try a different position to deal with the strongest contraction I had felt thus far. As soon as I knelt on the bed, I realized it was not comfortable for me and as I leaned back to stand my water broke. Strangest sensation I have ever felt. Just like a water balloon fell from between my legs. Luckily, I was standing right over the lap pads, which soaked it all up.

I was standing in the bathroom as my husband helped me take off my wet dress, when I first felt the urge to push. It was uncontrollable. I couldn't resist. So as I sat on the toilet to rest I shouted for the midwife. Once the contraction passed we moved to the bedroom just a few feet away. I sat on the bed with my husband, my support, my love right next to me and as he talked me through it I began to push with each contraction. The pressure was drastically increasing with each contraction as the baby made her way down. Wanting to show me that I really was making progress, our midwife grabbed my hand, and I felt just the crown of the baby's head peeking out of my body. Between each contraction, I fell back on Daniel while he shoveled Sonic ice chips into my mouth, and I chomped like a cow. Finally, I was almost there so I decided I was just going to push until the baby came out. And then at 7:30 a.m. in a quiet, simple, little bedroom there was a wet, floppy, Big baby on my stomach. As we all anticipated that first cry, I anxiously flipped the little human being around to announce that it was a girl. A big girl (10lbs. 3oz.) who after a brief second of hesitation relieved us all with her first cry. To watch her skin go from blue to pink was like seeing God’s hand reach down and touch her. We all cried and gasped for the breath the moment had stolen from our bodies. I would have told you labor was over at that point if I hadn’t caught a glimpse of my knees shaking. It was about 20 minutes before the placenta delivered and my job was finally over. Or really just beginning.
It was about 5 p.m. when I found myself back at Spanish Villa resting in my own bed with the baby that had just been inside of my body less than 11 hours before lying next to me. Her father restlessly peering over us snapping pictures.
For me there was no specific moment when I really felt like a mother. The transition happened smoothly. I don’t feel much different. Life is a lot more fun though.

haunting hope

frozen images in my head

catch my breath

keep moving

you stop me in my tracks

wake me from my sleep

just to be disappointed

when reality reminds me

it was just a dream

literally, figuratively

hope is what we need

hope is what I need to let go of...

you and hope

Goodbye and Hello

distrust in someone else

simply a reflection of the distrust of myself

but can't i fix that?

so i'll take the roses out of the glass
i'll take the love out of the frame
and i'll leave the heart behind
so long to the memories of you
so long to the memories of me
Today is a new day.
A new life, with memories to make
Memories with two, forever.

to death

to love an idea
an idea of love
better to be loved and lonely
or to be lonely and love
loved and love don't so often pair
walking on water to find both
drowning along the way
optimism or pessimism
doesn't change fate
it is what it isn't
can't trust yourself
but a strange heart can't
save your own

don't take the world,
take the heart.

the world will disappoint you.
a heart, a whole heart
will only love you.

should be sleepin
or cleaning,
reading
but crying seems a
better fit.
the first drop
fell to the bottom of that
lonesome hole
vulnerabilities only told to the
sharpest thorn
and still go back there to spill.
i can't or maybe i just won't
which is worse
too much pride or the wall of silence
we built
my memory won't fail me
when i want it to the most
i was wrong
i was wrong
i was wrong
still not convinced
stubborn, always said so.
just comfortable
i could save the whole world
and only want to show you.
i smile for you,
thursday nights are you.
afraid to tell any soul
all my scares,
you know them by heart.
never feared
all the wounds
roses grew again, again
again
to be happy
when you knew exhilerating
awfully scary
so i call on this warm-
cold night
to tell the most painful thorn
my troubles,
wouldn't admit gray water to
anybody but you...
comfort me and
wound me in the
same voice.

but i won't call.
i'll open a file and
write another chapter of
memories.
in the morning
i'll feel like a fool...
all over again.

hidden but not lost

suffocating in a thick fog

reaching out into the darkness
only to feel a mist
of what could be
the dreams are the hardest
ground my feet have felt in a
long, long time
waking up,
hesitant in deciphering the
nightmare from the dream
comfort becoming nocturnal
but to lose the endorphins of the sun
is to die a slow death
if not for your touch
of fresh air and
hope, lost is all life would be
what a sad thing to lose
i'd fall just to be this high

lost in a dream again,
what a nightmare.

tomorrow will be different

you're crushing my heart as if it were
the fallen leaves on the ground
wandering into a black hole, deeper
where are the dresses and awards?
i need to tell me what i would say
i would know exactly what to tell me
how to believe what you believe
with everything you know?
personal happiness is not enough
glory fades, there's always better & younger
i used to know...but then i was wrong
just once
and everything left with it
there's a piece missing
small piece, key piece
i wish i could find it.
i can tell you how to be okay
i just wish i could tell me...

So glad I gave her my email

aannmason wrote:

Just came from top of barn
Mind full of memories.
The loft always makes me feel alive when it is full of hay
and on a brisk day........
Probably five- in my Grandfather Brubaker's big red barn
chasing baby kittens in the piles of hay and peering down on huge cows
and smelly momma pigs with sucking piglets.
I can close my eyes and see the barn in flames...
Fifteen- the shed on Fuller street full of hay. Learning to smoke.
Best friend Carol, Eddie and Griff.
Rainy day in Big Point, new barn,
all of us sitting in loft waiting for the rain to stop...forty three and pregnant.
Fifty with a barn full of hay and a romantic place to get away.
Now just a grand spot to watch back field, be alone and read a book.
Come home and enjoy.

Her next email: "About now you are thinking Darn, why did I give her an email ...sorry. Just got my new Paolo and Amos cds"

two minds looking for the same "forever"

I got things to do
it might be a while
but just enough time for you
to do all those dreams of yours
I'll meet you in Montana.

We got lost time to make up for
when I get to you,
I'll be nothin' but yours
Pass the time by a camp fire.

Of all the lives I could lead,
all the dreams I could achieve,
I just want to be
next you, yea you and me.

We'll be able to see for miles,
but all I need to see is your smile.
Blue eyes and blonde curls
we'll drift to sleep in our boots and jeans.

I can't wait for that special breakfast
you promised me in Jackson.
We drift apart but you
always come back to warm my heart.

You'll sing your songs,
I'll laugh until I cry.
You're my Robert Redford,
better yet my Monty Roberts.

Our own Hope will be Rising in
Montana
I'll meet you there.

Love- Your Mississippi

good lines from Garth

Both needing something from each other
Not knowing yet what that might be
That summer wind was all around me
Nothing between us but the night
When I told her that I'd never
She softly whispered that's alright
I often think about that summer
The sweat, the moonlight and the lace

Waking a friend in the dead of night
Just to hear him say it's gonna be alright

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go.
Our lives are better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain,
But I'd have had to miss the dance.

Red Dirt

You put me back on
with trembling hands
but then
you walked away.
i didn't need you
because you taught me not to
but when fear stole you from me
it took half my game.
You left me alone to carry what
You built.
i was good but i was young.
You hammered
consistency consistency consistency
then you quit.
i pushed on
thought i could bring You back
with success.
couldn't reach it without you.
eventually my eyes quit searching for you.
she tried to fill your shoes.
not possible
not because she was my mother
but because who you were and what you meant
was not replacable.

but even eight years down the road
i still had you standing there
everytime the gate opened,
if only in my heart.
on the road i would find
pieces of You in other faces
but they'd always stand by her
she didn't know enough
and you
You only stood for me
You were only there for me
but You walked away

now i spend saturday nights by the sea
far from the red dirt that
dusted my hat, little on the back end
for luck, right?
guess i never scooped up enough.
if you hadn't left, we'd be on the road.
Waco. Cheyenne. Tulsa. Amarillo.
i wouldn't be trapped by these four walls
and all this choking structure.
You walked away
and hear these tears?

i could keep going,
but then
she'll be gone.
i didn't think i could even
attempt without You but
without her...
i wouldn't even want to.
i avoid tests of my emotional strength
because You built half my strength
and she built the rest
but people, even the strongest
People always leave.

thanks buddy

To Z: Thanks for expecting the best.
I love you, man.
you sing your heart's cry in my ear
in a badass tone of course
but it is always pure, real, real talk
you come when i call
you tolerated the cold, hard tile
to give me your shoulder
you call me out every time
don't accept my mistakes
you expect better of me
fresh air when i'm drowning,
in the thoughts of tomorrow.
when i need to hear what i would say
i turn to you
you say it for me
a mirror of my words found in your thoughts
simple, i love what we have

vote

a great man sacrifices his personal success for love
a great man does not seek glory
a great man wants the best for the world
your world is now our world
what a beautiful thing
if you believe in yourself
i'll believe in you
there is no longer A country
at least... it is fading fast
i don't want a "fighter" for this country
i want a fighter for the world
fighter for the world
it is not all about me or you
it is about Us.
He is about us

be my song

i'm not thinking about forever,
i may not even want forever,
but just for tonight
you be romeo and i'll be juliet,
lets live like a song, Etta James please
i want a dream to speak to,
and a thrill i can press my cheek to,
name the place, i'll be there.
just stand by me in the moonlight,
catch me when my balance slides.
my love,
after time- i'll Need your love.
your touch is "like the rush of the wind"
i could sail with it everyday,
at least through the night.
just like The Monkees
i'm a believer,
at least.... for tonight.
take me as i am, Brooks said that may mean
you'll have to be a better man.
after tonight maybe,
maybe
i'll be ready to jump from the highest swing.
lucky you, i am already back from my soul vacation.
in the morning, if you still love me...
my heart will stay behind when i leave.

my mistake

these breaks are yours,
the lines on my heart etch your name.
you cannot test God,
you cannot test love.
karma is a bitch
i said goodbye once,
you said it over and over, with love.
so i held on tight
i'm not a quitter
and i'm never wrong, or never was.
push hard enough and anything will give.
it doesn't go away, it just doesn't work.
Eddie said it all in Better Man
i feared there wasn't one
but the red has seeped into my open eyes now
and now, now, finally now,
i see that i cannot be right until i've seen it.
at the end of my life
i'll remember your name but
i'll have his.

12:41AM no essay

got to write something about Jane Austen.
she wrote words just as i do here.
thoughts overwhelmed her mind,
flowing through her finger tips
to the ink that painted her pages.
now my pages are bare
but with a heart of red.
refusing black ink,
words of love and devotion
come out of my mind.
no words of Bath or charming Mr. Tilney.
well maybe charming Mr. Tilney
but with a different name,
all the same appeal.
sadly i lack the naivety of Catherine.
i have feelings of fear.
i need to leave the future to my
dreams in the darkness and
live the daylight for each beam of
sun that warms my “chubby” cheeks
but my mind takes me to my flaws.
greatness in my mind is not so in anyone else’s.
for what do i have to offer that cannot be found
better in another? well lots of things
but only seen through the eyes of the beholder, right?
love can catch you but so can lust.
loneliness will deceive you.
then it will all bust,
i will rewrite my dreams in darkness all over again
with more layers of scarring, less hope.
for now, for tonight, i will not rest.
i will push you out of my mind
just for that smile to ease back on my face
every 5 minutes.
only tell me your heart’s desire,
not the desire of your mind.
that will only fill in loneliness and lust.
loneliness and lust always say goodbye.
…….the darkness is seeping in my window,
i light a candle and close the blinds; i will
refuse the thoughts of forever.
i will enjoy the moment and only what the sun brings.
i am letting go. come what may? still doubtful

stay

"well actually you can"
really? no. i cannot. i will not.
i want to, and i know exactly what my answer would be.
but i just don't trust myself enough to let you risk it.
in one dream i see you at my doorstep,
holding that one white rose that you left out.
in my next dream it's not you.
but know that one more week was added to our story.
staying up late just to think of you,
i wanted you so bad,
for just a few days.
i had your entire visit planned out day by day.
i even had it rationalized in my mind,
but it is not okay.
i don't trust my heart enough to let you give up hers.
you could make me happy. you always did.
that is just not enough. i see a weekend adventure,
but you see a lifetime.

a different kind of heartbreak

i turn up the music, fill the tub, hoping the water drowns the sound of my tears.
God forbid you hear me pleading for answers.
but the ceiling just stares back with emptiness.
my heart is empty, suffering from a death.
might as well be a death, they do start with the same letter.

your watering eyes pour so many questions.
you get your temporary comfort from forced giggles and innocent affection,
but as soon as he's gone you'll drag yourself into my room.
i'll try to take us back ten years,
sitting at the bottom of the hill
under the oaks...day dreaming of boyfriends, first kisses,
and the day we would drive jeeps.
our lives were filled. we had seen no example other than love.

every tear i have cried has dripped down my cheeks next to you.
you were there for every dissappointment,
every time he left me
and every time he came back
you would curse his name for me.

i cannot curse your mother's name.
it will not help but i desperately search for what will.
your composure is slipping from your finger tips
but you being you and knowing me too well just say,
"it's okay if you want to cry"
that's what i am supposed to be telling you.
but you know my tears don't fall so freely.

so i turn up the music and drown the sound of my broken heart because
when it does hit you, when that half of you drives away for the last time,
i want to be as dry as that dirt road on those summer days when we were ten
so i can be your anchor when your tears try to carry you away.