The Ties That Bind and Gag

Family Ties is streaming on Netflix right now. I've been completely unable to resist the lure, mostly because I loved that show and everything it stood for, but also because I don't sleep all that much and it's a lot more wholesome than looking at porn.

As a kid, I remember being so excited to dive into the world of the Keatons each week. I have no idea what day it was on or at what time, but now, as I re-watch the old episodes, I vividly remember the feeling of comfort and security when, at the end of an episode, the family rallied around each other, safe in the knowledge that they would always choose home, family and each other. I remember it the way you remember and respond to the scent of the person you love most in the world. In the Keaton house, parents turn down high-powered jobs to spend more time with their kids, daughters chose not to quit school or to have sex too young, based on Mom's wise words, brothers blew off college interviews to help little sisters grieve first love, friends from all over the neighborhood were always in and out of the house and though Dad might have been tempted, he never cheated on the wife of his youth. No mistake was too big to be forgiven and no tragedy drove a wedge too deep. The Keatons were there to stay and we, especially I, believed in, and was inspired by, them.

That was the family I wished I could be part of and even secretly hoped I would someday help build. It's never been clearer to me than now, at 3 am, when I'm sitting hunched over my iPad, crying as I watch my favorite sitcom family parody my heart's tenderest wish. I know the show is cheesy. I know it's outdated. I even know that it's unrealistic. Families are crazy. Every, single one of them. Nobody's family is perfect and they certainly don't wrap up their problems in 24 minutes, with two commercial breaks. Also, there's way more zits and bathroom breaks and nobody's bathrobe is ever completely closed in real families.

Apparently, that hasn't stopped me from chasing the dream. I've come face-to-face with my secret hopes a lot since I got that positive pregnancy test result. I've run up against some hard truths since then, too. I've started my son off in life using the same formula that was calculated for me. The players are different, but the acting, much the same. I've realized that the line between arrogance and humility is only about 5 feet, 4 inches long--the length of my body, fallen flat on my face. I've realized that I somehow managed to fulfill the life I tried for so long to overcome. Damn.

I've tried to make up for and to cover over my mistakes since that day in October 2010; to give my son the best of what I wished I'd had as a child, what I wished I'd seen modelled for me so I'd know how the hell to do this thing as an adult. In the last few weeks, it seems to have come to a head, after an awful struggle. I've pursued hope, love, a nuclear family, even redemption, for all I was worth and for all my striving, I think the only thing I've managed to do is exhaust myself. I'm very tired. Too tired, anymore, to try to push against things I've never had the power to change or to control. I need all the energy I have left just to live the life that's been put in front of me.

At the risk of going back on my word not to show pictures of the cutest little boy on the planet on the internet, I'd like you all to meet my little family. I justify it because I'm in the picture, too. For protection.

We don't have the same last name. His mom and dad don't live together and are not committed to love each other, 'until death do us part,' and if he ever gets siblings to fight with, they likely won't look like him, but he's mine, I am certainly his and there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. We're not sitcom-perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we're all in, 100% for each other.

I'm just gonna sit here and do that for a while. I'll worry about the other stuff, later.

Why It's Never A Good Idea to Write In The Middle of An Attack of Insomnia

I don't sleep well. As a general rule, I guess I gave up sleeping along with my 20's and neither was my choice. I've never completely nailed down the reason(s) for it, but I've pretty much accepted that it's just not a thing that I do well any more. It's not a total lack, or I'd be a zombie, but on a bad night I can more or less expect 3 hours or less of quality sleep. This night is turning out to be a doozy.

I can't even say that I accomplish other things that I could only accomplish if I magically had 6 or so extra awake hours/day, either. Why is it when someone can't sleep in movies, they always write songs or figure out complex mathematical equations, or something? Lies, all lies. I'm awake, exhausted and unable to sleep more than 10-15 minutes at a time until the sun comes up, but for all that I'm a career insomniac, I'm incredibly unproductive. Nothing is getting done. My brain races, but it ain't going nowhere, people (or, who am I kidding: person).

Fun fact: I only have one reader this week and apparently they read at least one post from Latvia, if the blogspot stats are to be trusted.

On one hand, I'm demoralized. One reader?! Then, on the other hand, the idea of a Latvian readership is kind of cool. Or at least novel.

The boy wakes up in an hour and a half. I am so screwed.

Girlfriending

Girlfriending is a term that an old friend and I coined (we think) many years ago on one of our epic road trips. We drove halfway across the country in a tiny Honda Civic with credit cards, snacks, 7 mixed cds that we had made to help us power through the 16-hr drive, and a dream. These cds were no joke, either. They were all themed around travel, road tripping and pretty much anything else we thought was awesome at the time. Some, looking in from the outside, may have thought we were crazy. I disagree. We were setting a precedent that has yet to be surpassed. It was necessary. It was girlfriending.

I haven't ever heard anyone else use the word, but anyone who's ever done it effectively knows what it is. Need a working definition? Girlfriending is a single-minded determination to wring every ounce of joy out of a given situation with one, or a group, of your favorite females on the planet. Not because guys aren't a lot of fun or to be exclusionary, but simply because there is a certain magic to finding other women in the world who not only get you, but who you can both laugh with and potentially make a complete ass of yourself with. It usually involves some sort of out-of-the-ordinary experience, but doesn't have to, either. I've known some incredible girlfriending moments doing simple stuff like going for a jog or trying to buy alcohol in a Scottish grocery store at 7:01 pm on a Sunday night (You can't, you know. It's against the law, no matter how persuasive you think you are or how almost 6:59 it is. Give up; you will not win).

I've been thinking about the concept a lot, lately. Maybe it's because I've been in one of those sweet-spots where I've been able to connect easily with people. You know how that goes, sometimes? When it seems like all the stars align just right so that phone calls are always answered, emails are responded to the same day they were written and someone is home for the random drop-by? That kind of sweet-spot.

Maybe, too, it's because I'm so excited that one of my cohorts will be in my time zone for the first time in 6 months, this time, tomorrow. Whatever the reason, I've been having the time of my life reliving some of my best-of girlfriending moments from over the years. I'm so full and so blessed to have lived them all and to have so many incredible people in the hopper, ready to create new ones at any given moment. Or after we put the kids to bed, at least.

So, here is a short list of some good moments I've shared with great friends, neither chronological or in any particular order of importance, just so that I never forget what a great life I get to live. Thanks, ladies, for the adventure. You know who you are.

1) The birthday baptism & skinny dip
2) All-girl prom. Men were invited as bouncers & djs & we all got to be prom queen. 'Nuff said.
3) Two words: apple butter.
4) The Price Is Right. Ugh, I think my PTSD just came back.
5) Europe, 2007
6) Sunday night pillow fights
7) FNWBL
8) Fantasy football
9) Trifecta
10) Lady Marmalade
11) Probably every Thelma and Louise road trip I've ever taken
12) Progressive Sunday dinner: bread sticks from Fazolis, salad from Pasta House & cherry limeaids from Sonic. I'm surprised we are all still alive & have all of our teeth.
13) 'Name That TV Show' charades in Malawi.
14) California Dreamin'
15) Bob Dole's presidential campaign, 1988.
16) My entire junior year of high school.
17) John Burroughs

I'm only stopping because I could keep going. I'll let you stew on that one for a minute, then I demand that you all get out there and make a memory!

Where You From, You Sexy Thang?

IT'S A MIRACLE!

That's right folks, the brown maxi-dress has done it, again. It perpetrated a miraculous return to my closet, where it has been warmly welcomed by it's other bosom friends, a.k.a. the girls of summer.

And, oh yes, it still makes me look like a skinny waif when I put it on.

Welcome back, sweet girl!

Beautiful, Beautiful Boy

I have had a post about taking my then 10-month-old to Scotland all ready to go for over a month now, but when I went in to do some final editing, the thing was gone without a trace, and since my brain has turned to post-partum sludge in the last 1+ years, I couldn't remember a word of it to recreate it. That's too bad, since I have the impression that it was a really sweet post. Oh, well, I guess that's a sign that it wasn't meant to be.

Thinking about him did get me thinking about the valuable lesson I learned the first time I walked into a room with my pregnant belly leading the charge. That belly got attention. For the rest of my life, I would no longer be the most popular kid in the doorway. My baby boy had taken center stage, which, when I reflect on it, I totally get; first he was this hidden miracle of creation that everybody couldn't wait to see in person. After he was born he got even cooler. He became 3-D helpless and adorable, making all these wonderful squeaks, grunts and coos. He was also squishy soft and after a bath, smelled like pure sunshine. And don't get me started about the smell of baby-head. Ann Lamott wrote in her book, Operating Instructions, that her son, Sam, smelled like God. Not like a god, but like the God. Who could compare to that? I'm certainly not stupid enough to try.

Considering how irresistable and popular that boy is, I feel a bit sorry for many of you. I don't write a whole lot about my son on here. That unfortunately means that some of you who may be visiting the site every now and again are not getting what you probably came for. *shrug* No apologies on this end. The interweb is too open for me to like sharing pictures and updates on him, here. Check out FB if you want to catch a glimpse of Sir Yumminess. He's the main event over there. Or come over to my house. He's even better in technicolor.

Until you can hug him in person, I wish you all well and I wish you love.

Where Did You Go, My Lovely?

I love summer, probably mostly because I love summer clothes. That dress I'm wearing in my profile pic? It's my favorite dress, maybe of all time. I spent entirely too much money on it three years ago and it has been worth every penny. That dress is like a miracle. It is the perfect color (a deep, chocolate brown) against my skin, drapes like a dream and makes me look like a skinny waif. It even regenerates itself. I accidentally put it in the dryer during my first year of ownership, shrinking it from a maxi dress to almost knee length. It was tragic. But since I loved it so, I couldn't bring myself to be selfless and give it to my much shorter friend who I knew would wear it with all the love that I'd ever felt for it. I mourned, hung it in the back of my closet for the winter and swore I'd figure out a way to wear it again, even if it was as a repurposed tank top. Against all hope, I pulled it out to try it on again some months later and THE THING HAD STRETCHED BACK TO IT'S ORIGINAL LENGTH. No lie. Without me having done a single thing to it. The color was still true, it still draped like a dream and hope was reborn in me. There is no doubt in my mind that a wardrobe miracle had occurred. Love this dress.

The last time I put it on was a year ago. I was about 4 weeks post-partum and still managed to look like a skinny waif. Some would argue that was due to the stress of bringing home a 4 lb preemie to raise, but I maintain, it was the dress.

I was so excited when the summer heat really set in this year. I went to my box of goodies to shake out that dress so that I could feel like a skinny waif again. It was gonna be good.

I'm devastated to report that I can't find it anywhere and it's driving. Me. CRAZY. However, I haven't given up hope that another brown-maxi-dress-miracle will occur. I will keep looking. Probably one of my other dresses wanted to look like a skinny waif, too, and is wearing it somewhere in the back of that closet. That's what I would do if I had to stand next to that dress every day.

Wish me luck.

Love Stinks, In the Best Possible Way

I've had a problem coming up with a hook for this blog. What can I possibly say that people want to hear, or haven't already heard a million times, in a million different ways? How can I make my blog interesting...creative...relevant?

My first idea? Dating as a single mom. Specifically internet dating as a single mom, which seems to be one of the few ways people like me with limited time and child care can meet other (sometimes) viable heterosexuals, except at church, or unless we live in hippie communes. I'm not knocking church. I love church. I even love a lot of the people I meet at church, but the idea of going there to look for a mate has always rubbed me the wrong way. I heard a pastor say that if you go to church to find God, it's likely that you'll find the other things you might not even have known you were looking for (i.e. community, friendship, a life partner). While that's very encouraging, I'm just gonna be honest and say that what I got out of that was church + God = mate. My over-simplified understanding of that formula has been making me uncomfortable ever since, so as a reaction, I go to church specifically not to find a mate. I don't think I've done a wedding ring check since the day I heard that sermon. I'm also not knocking communes. The idea of living sparingly, off the land, in community with others who share the fruits of our labors and barter for services that we each provide according to our individual talents is actually pretty appealing. Then I think how much I like shaving and wearing bras. And people who bathe, regularly. Maybe there are communes where people do those things, but...*shrug* I'm skeptical.

Eventually, I threw the dating blog idea out. I think they're only interesting to people who don't have to live the daily agony of dating. For the ones in the trenches, reading about other people's relationship hijinks can be like fingernails on a chalkboard. Maybe that's just me, but I still think that most singletons would stand with me when I say dating is a necessary evil that we do in order to get to where we want to be, which is in committed relationships. No one really wants to date forever, for it's own sake, unless they're lying to sound evolved. I'm not evolved. So, I've wracked my brain for a hook and finally accepted that I don't have one. This blog is really nothing more than random, neuronal firings that I occassionally have the energy to put in written form.

Today's firing, while not specifically about dating, is about love. In my 20's, I pretty much avoided it. I've always had lots of people that I care about, but most I kept at arm's length. Romantic love proved elusive, for reasons only my therapist seems to know. It's probably because I've always known on some level that I'm a no-take-backs kind of lover. Try though I might, if I let you into my heart, digging you back out again comes at great personal cost. I'm sure it's that way for everybody, but this is my blog, so it sounds like I'm the first person who's ever loved, I realize that. My point is that for most people, it's a worthwhile risk. For me, it's taken a while to believe that. Instead I pretty much chose a sterile existence--never risk, never lose.

Somewhere in there, though, I got all brave and decided to live the adventure. It has been a mess! You can't believe the mistakes I've made and the starts and misfires I've had. But, in many ways the messes haven't been all bad. I have loved some pretty incredible people, most of whom I still enjoy relationships with to this day. I hope that I'm a composite of all the amazing people who've poured into my life. I've loved true, I've loved hard, I've loved hopelessly, and most recently, since I became a parent, I've learned truly to love selflessly. It's been great, but I haven't known a moment's peace since. Instead of being comfortably insulated the way I used to be, I'm exhilarated, broke, nervous, joyful, heart-broken, concerned, over-worked, sleep-deprived, careful, celebratory, protective, wary, drunk, infatuated and covered in snot. All because I'm hoplessly intertwined in the lives of people who are living lives as risky as I have decided to live. It's a total cluster and I love every second of it. Mostly. ;)

Hope you're living and loving every second of your adventure, today, too.