4/25

Well today is April 25th...

If you have lost someone special in your life dates take on different significance.

Your wedding date becomes a joy-filled celebration that you share with your partner...or a day you take off work and drink yourself silly telling yourself you are totally over them anyways and hardly even care they took off three years ago.

And today would have been my parents 61st wedding anniversary.

So all day I thought about my sweet Dad. He really would have been so damn proud of nurse Karen :) He would NOT have wanted a big party for today...in fact, I am pretty sure he didn't really like being around my mother all that much. But I adored that man and miss him still. When I dropped out of college, or got my heart destroyed, or was negotiating a new salary, he was always there. There wasn't a problem too big for him to listen, put his arm around me, and offer advice.

Four years ago, in preparation for April 25th, I learned how to play Tony Lane's "Learned that from you". The very first time I heard this song I wondered if that had been how my mother had felt about my dad. Because for all his greatness he also was a horrible alcoholic who drank himself into a stupor nearly every evening. I am sure it is one the reasons I hate being drunk. Nighttime Dad was a totally different man than Daytime Daddy.

Unlike the woman in the song, my mother stayed in her marriage. She wasn't strong enough to face life without him...and though I don't fault her for her choices, I have spent a few nights thinking about how her life would have been had she stood up to him.





Today I called my mother...like I always do on these special days so full of memories for me...but I didn't bring up the date or the significance. As each year passes, she talks of him less and less, and I didn't want to make her sad if she hadn't thought of her wedding day all those years ago. The conversation ended with no mention of it, and maybe that is better for her.

 But tonight I am filling my head with memories of all the best of my dad...he was the greatest cheer leading section I have ever had and I'll light a candle and try my best to go to sleep with a smile.

what if...

what if you grew up thinking that motherhood looked a certain way?

Maybe we all do that....

Dreaming for years about the perfect baby, and the perfect family surrounding that baby...

the perfect house and enough money to pay for the best opportunities for that baby and laughter and songs and kisses goodnight.

We imagine catching our partner's eyes smiling as our child takes his first step, learns throw a ball, and borrows the car keys for the first time.

But then life has other plans. Far from perfect. We spend lonely nights in hospital rooms wondering if that baby sleeping in the bed will survive. Looking around for that perfect partner that is long since gone. We feel the sting of shame as we sign up for food stamps and wonder how to pay for the field trips, soccer dues, and tattered shoes. There are so many storms you feel that you just can't weather them all....

But somehow it still feels perfect most days. Even though it couldn't be more different than you imagined. It can even feel perfect in the hardest moments.

So what if perfection is just plain messy? What if it hurts and heals and destroys and builds and terrifies and soothes?

If you knew that when you were building your dreams of the future, would it help?

Do we keep ourselves from finding perfection because it looks so different than we imagined?

What if you could you forgive the girl who tore your heart into a million unrecognizable pieces? Would you if she sang this to you? What would happen next?



Maybe the space between fear and peace is faith...and that is where the perfection is.

Mighty....

I got some great bday treats this year.....and this is one of them.  The letters came in a cool plant but were getting wet with each watering.  So I decided to affix them to my favorite window in the house.

Don't tell my landlord  ;)

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handicap access only

The thing about trying is that in order to try you must have hope.

and hope is a dangerous emotion.

Sure hope can fuel dreams, help you overcome obstacles and all - but it is just a few clicks away from expectations - which go unrealized quite often.

So one is free to create a profile in the online dating world...but then one must be prepared to get emails from one-legged, 300-pound toads who can hardly string together a group of words into coherence.

For example...an except from a recent email:

I notice you have rode on kayaks on that picture. Love it ride on kayaks too:) I sometime go out on weekend to ride on kayaks when nice weather.

I can promise you, that the excerpt is a direct cut and paste. Not embellished to get a chuckle.

Now of course I could laugh it off and be grateful for the blog material...

Or I could review my profile to see exactly what compels these type of women to reach out to me...

Or I could, as a person struggling to stitch together at least one week of happiness, choose to see these romantic advances as proof that my sense of self worth has been greatly exaggerated.

Here is another:

HEY THERE I LIKE KIDS HOW ARE YOU WANT TO HAVE SOME COFFEE

OK people. Don't type in all caps. It looks like you are an idiot who yells. And the world hates loud idiots even more than they hate quiet idiots. Another tip is to not freak out a mom by telling her you like kids. Like kids how exactly? As playmates? Served over rice with some orange duck sauce? And how about considering some punctuation? Maybe that is asking too much...

Perhaps I should give up nursing and be an online dating consultant.

Nursing it

Sometimes I take a break to drink water...or pee.

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