veggieburgerwithbacon

The last time I wrote on here was almost 4 years ago and I said I had a lot of catching up to do…and that is more true now than it has ever been. I’d written briefly about Wilder coming into my life like a giant wave that pulls you in, and to this day it holds true. She was 10 months old when I wrote that. She’s now 6. Aubs graduated from college, Lulu followed in Micah’s footsteps and is at UCSD. Finn makes me wonder if he was adopted because he is way too nice (and good at math) to be my son, and Hayse ain’t going down till the sun comes up and I love that about her.

 They are intoxicating, authentic, and the absolute joy of my life.

What else is new? Um… Well my dog Willie is dead. So is my old man. Not much else to say about that. My older brother won’t talk to me anymore because he has some delusional idea that he was left out of an inheritance that never existed and his emotional intelligence is a negative number. Debi is dead to me. So is my little brother. Sometimes the trash takes itself out. Fuck those dorks.

Moving on.

Life is now so much simpler than it ever was. I cut ties with everyone who didn’t deserve space in my mind and that made room for the ones that do. I’ve spent the last 5 months falling in love again, unapologetically, with the one person who has been in my corner since I was 7. He’s honest, kind, intelligent, witty and he loves the hell out of me. But more importantly he respects me and my kids.

It doesn’t hurt that he also loves and misses Micah the way I do.

Life is great. Its weird to write on here being in a place in life that isn’t survival mode.

I hope to write more later but who knows. I have no expectations other than to do what I am doing now in life, which is being happy and in love.

Fuck the rest of the noise.

Wilder came into my life like a giant wave…the kind that you feel start, even when your feet feel they’re on sturdy ground. You feel a force pull you in. You could run away and try to get it behind you, maybe. Or, you can take a deep breath, let go of all control as you once knew it, and trust that the light above you will be what guides you back to the air.

Before I click bait anyone, let me be clear: I don’t believe in God or Jesus or Heaven or Hell or anything you throw a name on. My beliefs are sacred, private, and nunya.

My faith in my beliefs are all that matter.

Before I met Wilder I held onto the faith that the universe doesn’t fuck up. I knew one day, I’d know the reason why. My pregnancy was shameful, terrifying, and lonely.

I didn’t know if I’d uber to a hospital if I went into labor, if I’d have to leave sleeping babies to drive myself, if I’d have to call an ambulance, or if I’d be lucky enough to have anyone there to hold my hand. And I didn’t want to ask anyone to make sure they were there to hold my hand. Why? Because I was ashamed and scared and didn’t know how many people would’ve loved to have been “that person”.

In hindsight, my pregnancy was fucking traumatic. Her birth wasn’t joyful. It was relieving. She was out and I could stop worrying about what if.

I remember just looking at her and asking her where she came from. Over and over. I kept saying “I know you. Where did you come from?”

Have you ever had a vivid dream and when you wake up it’s a little bit of a let down because it wasn’t real after all?

The last year since I’ve met Wilder, has felt like that.

Only she’s proof that believing someone….something…somewhere has a plan and trusting whatever that is to you, is worth it.

Letting go of control is scary. I guess sometimes it’s worth it.

For me, I feel like I’m living the win money vivid dream…but I wake up and it’s real.

My daughters are all real. They’re healthy and happy and yada yada yada and the baby is such a tyrant but we love her still.

Guys, the universe puts who you need in your corner. No mistakes.

This is one of those rants that I’m hoping no one reads other than me. However, I have to write it and I’m going to allow myself a forum to get my own words out there before someone else speaks them for me.

I’ve been an open fucking book as far as damn near everything in my life goes. I talk about my PTSD, my kids, my shitty dating life, my Sun Devils… I don’t talk about my so much but I fear my audience now since people read this now. I’m just going to let the fingers dance and see what the fuck happens. I miss writing and don’t do it like I used to.  I have to now though and I don’t know what to write about. There’s just so much to say and so much to not say and so many things to discuss… I’m just going to see what happens now because I can’t stop…

So much is coming to mind and in time this will make so much more sense, so I’m feeling.

I had to take a break for a second (or an hour) there to really think this through. Who will benefit from this? Who will hurt to read it? My biggest fear is that this will in some way hurt my little brother.

Fuck.

Micah just got showed up. Here we go.

Purple Rain came on my shuffle. I don’t have this song on my playlist…Fuckin’ Micah.

Rant time.

You guys don’t know what it’s like to lose a brother like Micah, obviously.

Mikail does.

Mikail knew him the way I did.

Mikail loved him in a different way yet he loved him with the ferocity I did.

We both looked up to Micah, literally and figuratively.

Mikail misses him the way I do.

Back to my point, if I have one.

Mikail.

No wait. Why am I typing?

I never know what will come out of my rants when I do this, and this is the first time I’ve written with the overwhelming feeling that Micah is sitting next to me. It is palpable. He is here, this isn’t a “feeling”. He’s annoyingly watching me type but I don’t get to see him anymore.

Cock. Ha. Wtf. Just keep typing. Words are popping into my head and I know its him.

This is what he’s playing. It’s a Jared and the Mill song.

Hourglass inside of my bones
Trapped inside a picture frame above your throat
You were someone else when I was too
Weren’t we someone else, wasn’t I?
Weren’t you?

But giving up is harder said than done
Throwing stones, set love on fire
We thought we’d won
I thought I was the man that you thought I was too
But he went away
He ran away with that girl I thought was you

But we both know this is the life we chose
We both know that the hourglass inside my bones
Will wither down and run out of time
We’ll try to mend it but we’ll end up dying
We both know this is the life that we chose

So teary-eyed and desperate we manifest
Into a creature brought on by fear of a destiny we dread
Our four walls come down but somehow the roof suspends
It changed to a cloud, and down comes the rain as we near the end.

I’m gonna go sit with an old friend.

he’s proud of you kail.

I

My senior year of high school a group of my friends and I all went camping over a long weekend. Initially it was a lot of fun and we were all pretty stoked just to be there and  able to enjoy the freedom that comes with being a teen away from their parents. By the last night though things weren’t nearly as cool. We were tired. We were bored. Some of the kids on the trip were doing way more work gathering wood than others. Some of the kids who had ran out of beer were bumming off the ones who brought extra. I think more than anything though we were just sick of the same shit night after night. One dude thought it would be funny to piss in a beer bottle and see if anyone drank it. There were a lot of us that knew what he was doing but when this other kid come over and grabbed what had been his beer, no one said anything. We knew it was piss though. But no one said anything because we were either laughing too hard to talk, speechless and in shock that it was happening, or just too afraid to say anything because the guy who pissed in the bottle to begin with was popular. Anyway, right before this poor kid goes to take a drink of the piss, someone yells not to and bats it from his hand. And thank God he did too! I was one of the one of the quieter kids off in the corner mumbling inaudibly that I thought it was a bad idea. But I sadly just covered my eyes as he grabbed the beer and joined the campfire. That kid almost drank piss you guys.  And if he had he would be gotten sick, felt bullied, and gone home told on all of us for drinking on the camping trip. We all would have been so fucked. But we weren’t because he didn’t drink piss because someone decided to jump in at the last second and knock the piss out of his hand. My point is that Trump is to America what drinking piss would have been to a bunch of teenagers.

I have to wonder what it that makes us have faith in anything. I mean, it takes a lot of balls to trust in something you cannot see. Recently I’ve been dating, or trying to at least, and it has been interesting to say the least. I haven’t been on many dates or anything so when I say dating I mean just talking to more people I meet. For a little while I was talking to this really funny and good looking Army guy. And honestly, there were times when I wished that things would work out with him because he was so good looking and he made me laugh. But, then I was able to spend time with him and he wasn’t all that I wanted. So I knew it wasn’t something to invest more time in. Because I don’t want to settle again. God, I knew the whole fucking time I was with Crash that he wasn’t exactly what I wanted. He was cool at times but he changed and I stuck around to see if he would change back. But in all reality he was always a asshole and just hid that side of himself because I was knew to him.

So this time I set the bar really fucking high and decided it was time to just wait it out. And then when I wasn’t expecting it, I meet someone. And no, its not someone I’m saying more about at this time because he is brand new and there isn’t much to tell, other than he’s rad. I literally have just started talking to him so its really not even a thing yet. But its gotten me thinking because of some of the bullshit that seems to surround my life.

Background story- Go!

So recently I went to have drinks with a good friend and the topic of snowboarding came up. He hadn’t been yet so I said I didn’t mind at all to teach him. Then a trip got planned for some friends to all go up North. The initial friend is this guy Justin. Just-a-friend-Justin. So I invite my girlfriends and he calls his friend that I happen to know a little as well. That dude decides to go and bring his teenage son too. So its all set for us all to go. I’m game for everyone and anyone to go because the more the fucking merrier ya know. But then it hits me that this friend knows someone I dated briefly over the summer. So I call the dude to let him know some of the “rules” of the trip. Like, if he HAS to let me know if he isn’t coming since he is Just-a friend’s date and not me. And that he is not allowed to invite the dude I’d dated last summer because fuck that ya know. He agrees that he wont and says that he already rented his kids board and he’s good to go on the trip. All is well and this is gonna be fun. But then my own friends fucking bail. And then Just-a-friend bails out. This is Thursday. We are leaving Friday. So now what? Welp, Mikail to the rescue. He’s now going up with Drew and Brian. Backup is on the way so I head up before anyone else to organize a closet that’s been bugging me.

It’s a really innocent night. We start drinking and bullshitting and it’s a normal night up in the woods. Then keys get lost. Yes. The only keys to the hot dude’s truck. So we call the bar and we all look. I take my phone to the truck to look in it with the flashlight. Super hot dude comes to look in as well since I’m not sure what keys I might be looking for. Anyway. They aren’t in the truck so I kill the light on my phone. And them I’m standing in the dark forest with Super Duper Hot guy and its quiet. Like awkwardly quiet. We kiss. I laugh and say something super stupid like “Hell Yes!” because he’s really good looking and I honestly didn’t think I had a chance here and what not. So I was excited and also shocked and all these fucking emotions.

Later that night we’re talking in the kitchen and the topic of the dude I dated over the summer comes up. He says he wants to talk to him before anything “happens”. Let’s be clear. Mikail, Drew, and Brian are there; Nothing is happening on this trip.

But the convo gets me thinking. What exactly do we owe our “exes”? The dude I dated over the summer made a mountain out of a mole hill and acted like we had years invested in that deal so in my mind I don’t owe him shit. Especially since he’s not a part of my life so why should I care what he thinks. But Hot guy IS friends with him and they do have a history. So now what. At what point is a friend allowed to date someone he his friend dated? When does the “Bro-code” set in? If your buddy dated this chick for only a summer and that was it, is it ok? What if you really like her? What if you know that your friend hasn’t talked to her in months and he’s been seeing other people? That’s the new shit I have to deal with. Because this new hot dude wanted to talk to my summer fling first. I get it, but to me its like why the hell does anyone have to know about our personal lives until we have some idea of what the fuck we want as well? For all we know we’re gonna hate each other and not talk again after 2 weeks. Why inform the buddy about something like that? This is where my mind is right now. I can’t predict anything so I’m forced to just roll with all this and trust that the universe is going to make choices for me that are right. I have to say, how some people never waiver in their faith is amazing to me because it is really a lot of hard fucking work!

THIS. IS. BEAUTIFUL.

The emotions of being a parent are rarely captured in words..

This is my vow to you, my girls.

—————————

Each night, know I’m dreaming of you.
You will always keep my gaze
You’re the only one I see
And that won’t change

I’ll never stop trying
I’ll never stop watching as you leave
I’ll never stop losing my breath
Every time I see you
I’ll never stop holding your hand
I’ll never stop
I’ll never get used to you

This love is not a momentary phase
You are my life, I don’t deserve you
And as the mirror says you’re older
I’ll want to look the other way
You are my life, my love, my only
And that won’t change

These artists, them, I thank them for doing what I couldn’t.

My Teeny Tiny,

I have written about you and what is has been like to be your mother, but I haven’t written to you. You. My baby. The apple of my eye. You child, you made me who I am. You child, you are why I am always trying harder to make something of my life. It is never for the glory of my life, I can easily get by with Ramen and water. You though, you my child, you make me want to make so much more of who I am. And you have done this since you were smaller than a grape. The mere idea of you being in this world changed who I was and who I thought I wanted to be. Before you even were visible, you had changed lives. You had this world by the lapels before you came into it. That is you and who you are and who you were meant to be; You were born to change this place.

I will never forget the first time I saw your face…Not even your face. The first time I looked into you eyes, I lost who I was and I became your Mom. It was worth the exchange and worth the wait for it to happen.

The first time I hear you cry, I cried. That first laugh you belted, that laugh, made me see that life before you was not even close to what fun could be. You were going to be, and have since been, the best adventure of my life. Your voice alone, the sound of you now, makes me feel grounded and in place.

You will never know how much you make me happy to be alive. If I had done nothing else on this planet, I made you. And you are the best thing I have done. Because of you, I got ot be a mom. But not only that, I got to be your mom.

No one in this world has changed my life, the way you’ve done.

No matter what happens now, I am your mom.

Come hell or high water, you can count on me.

You cannot lose me.

I will always be your soft place to fall.

Looking at you today, I am beside myself that you came from me. You are so far beyond who I was as a teenager.

I keep watching you grow up and I want to slow time down. I want you to stay small. Stay ‘Man Cub’, always.

Right now, you have nothing to regret.

Just stay this way.

Just stay this simple.

Just stay this kind.

Just stay this youthful.

Just stay this you.

Just stay, just stay.

II

One thing I tend to do a lot is to look to my past to try to figure out where I need to be going in the future. It makes so much sense since you can learn so much from the mistakes that you  make, and you can fix them, right? No. This is so fucking stupid. A little self-reflection is good, but too much is bad. Thank my ex-husband for that gem. He was right.

But sometimes, its time to stop looking back for good. It’s time to just accept the past for what it is, and begin again.

I haven’t done that before. I have been defined by my missteps, my regrets, and my lowest moments.

And now I feel like now I’m just excited. I’m excited to see where my life will go.

You all know my story so now bore sesh needed for that. But recently I swear my mind is just so new. I had to lose it for a bit but when that fucker came back it was so clear and new. I like it a lot more now.

So I can rant about work or the kids or dead siblings, but the newest thing I’ve been so damn clear headed on is my love life.

I know now what I want. I don’t have a list like I did a few years ago, which in hindsight was cute but it was limiting on who it was I would be with. I left out a huge component; connection. I am now looking for a connection. I don’t care about height or education or age. I want THAT connection. I want the feeling that its safe to just jump in head first. So, I’m holding out for that. And, I won’t settle again.

So, what led me to this? Well, one night sitting at Applebee’s, I looked at my now ex, and realized in no way was I in love, and if it were our first date, it would have been our last. He was wrong for me in so many ways.

And then I talked with my therapist who made me realize I needed to hold out for someone I hadn’t met. No idea why, but for me, I have assumed my someone was someone I knew already. I am so impatient, I need to be still. I need to wait. To let go and let God (I don’t believe in god but you get the idea).

I spent some time with my good friend, and just let myself be me. Years of faking it and lying to just seem like I was happy, I checked at the door when I walked in. It was a fresh start to a new life. A realization of what life will be like if I stop faking it. I sat by a river and told him shit I don’t tell anyone. I let myself cry. I never do that. It felt so right to just be me. He is my hero and I need to tell him tomorrow how much I love him for allowing me to just be broken for a bit.

I am letting the past go. I know there is nothing left there for me. I am moving full speed ahead now. My future days look so much better than the past, and this is the first time in my adult life I am saying its been long enough, but I forgive myself, I forgive others. And this is going to get real interesting now.

I mean, aren’t you guys tired of my depression shit? I AM.

FUCK IT.

It’s time.