Blast from my Past

It's been awhile. I miss it. I miss writing my thoughts. I miss the moments of clarification when I'm a spelling out my tensions and a clarification blossoms on the page. I miss connecting to friends, family and perhaps others, through the stories of my day to day life.

But I had to prioritize. Kids came first. Feeding said kids. Cleaning up after said kids. Not killing anyone after feeding, cleaning up after, and spending every waking moment with said kids. Vegging out to a good novel (actually, right now it's a memoir called The Dirty Life which I highly recommend!) after all of the above is done. These were my priorities.

But now I have an hour. A whole hour. By myself. At the library. And so.

Hmm. This is slightly awkward. It's been so long. What do you want to talk about? What's new? What's been happening. It's like that conversation you have with a really good friend, three months after they've had their baby, and you don't even know if it's a boy or girl, because you haven't talked for so long, and you're all like, “so, how's the babe?”

So I guess I'll just talk. Fill the awkward silence with my ramblings. You haven't seemed to mind that in the past.

I still want to write a book. But I think I will have to wait until my hubby is living with me. I need to be able to write for consecutive days. And as a single mom, for the present, that just isn't going to happen.

Have I mentioned my incredibly profound appreciation for all single parents out there? This shit is hard! I mean really hard. And by the time I'm older, and I've home-schooled my kids, and built a homestead, and a community, and stayed married and not killed anyone, I am expecting myself to be the next Dalai Lama. Because I will have enough patience to fill Fenway Park. And more spirit than a Red Sox fan after the world series in 2004.

Instead of just rambling, maybe I could review a bit of history and tell you how this story, my whole story, got started.

And the best place to start is the day I met my husband.

At the time I was attending an alternative, democratic, founded-by-hippies school called Sudbury Valley. I was 14, but turning fifteen in a month. I was outside, because at that school I spent most of my time hanging out outside, and I saw him. Loose Jeans, soft t-shirt, baseball cap, curly locks down to his shoulders. A gorgeous face that said... Well, I didn't really know, but I really wanted to find out. And when I say gorgeous, I mean BoyHeartThrobRomanNosePerfectSmileTwinklyEyesStrongJawed-AbsolutelyPerfect gorgeous.

And right then and there I said to myself, I totally want to marry that guy. No joke. And as I slowly got to know him, I fell so hard in love. He was everything I wanted. Slightly shy in that super cute, not awkward at all, sort of way. He didn't seem to need to impress anyone. He had a shadowed past but he was good. Really good. The kind of good that doesn't make a slightly dorky, braces wearing, flat chested, slightly naïve girl from a wholesome family feel like a slightly dorky, braces wearing, flat chested slightly naïve girl from a wholesome family. He made me feel like I was a person worth getting to know. And sometimes, due to my lack of worldly experience, plain looks and small stature, I wasn't always sure that I was.

He tells me now that he saw something in me then. Something that attracted him. But he was so good at playing it cool, I had no idea. I thought I was going to have to do everything in my power to let this guy know that I was the only one for him. Even as I thought it, I knew that he would have to look past all the other girls in my school whom I deemed way more worthy of his love due to their feminine shapes, tattoos, experience with drugs or sex. And their height. I was so short, so small, so easy to overlook. I thought tall girls automatically earned more respect and were treated differently due to their ability to look a boy in the eye and look down at all us short girls.

Oh. And he had a girlfriend. Did I forget to mention that?

Sorry y'all.  Hours up.  Stay tuned!

1. No damage from the storm
2. my kids are driving me a little less crazy
3. I just got an hour away, alone
4. I just got an hour away, alone