No vacancy

I don't have room for this hole you think you left me.

I have every moment I spent at my grandmas law school desk on summer vacations.

I have the echoes of rain on tiny apartment windows.

I am filled with the lyrics to every song I heard in my little Hyundai Excel running streets I wasn't supposed to be on.

I can remember the jab of my mothers chin in my collar that one time she hugged me so tight I thought she squeezed a little love into me.

This hole you imagine won't fit between the scent of rain when I left my best friend to move across the country and the sound of the first breath I heard my oldest child take.

There are spaces filled with the bad hair days of high school and those of the poor judgement days that followed for miles.

There are vast areas filled with first words and wobbly steps and long naps on my breast.

There is no room for that hole.

Of course, there are boxes in closets in rooms in me that are overflowing with real sorrow.

I watched my first soul take her last breath in a hospital room as I held her toes.  I can still hold the shape of his hand as the first little boy I truly loved struggled to come back to life.  I have been abandoned by too many people to remember their taste, yet I can recall the weight of the air that drowned me as their doors closed.  

I have made room for the struggles each of those things recall for me.

But you and the insignificant tear you made in my fabric?  Won't even leave a scar.  Not because I didn't care while you were pulling me in at three am, but because the one word message you left proved it wasn't real.  

Only the truth can leave holes inside.  And you, sweet boy, are a lie drawn in sand.

I do not have room for the hole you imagine leaving behind.  I am too filled with significance to notice your trail.

Oh, you're looking for the spark

Well.

Sometimes - most times in my experience - that feeling you're looking for isn't really a spark.  It's a warning flare.  A goddamn forest fire.

Run!  It says.  Bad idea!  It screams.  Come on, not again!  It pleads.

No one feels the spark with the nice guy because he isn't going to break your heart and leave you wondering.  The spark is for the bright blue eyes that saw you falling four steps before he even asked your name.  The spark crackles in plenty of time for you to lace up your running shoes, but it's that sound that glues you to the trouble instead.  

Like the first idiot to fall when running from the zombies, you walk up the stairs rather than out the front door.  Because the ever-storied spark is danger.  It is embodied in the urge to tear clothes from defined shoulders.  It is the heat that melts all your good common sense.  It is every self-preserving notion leaving your brain and headed straight to your ....well....you get the idea.  And the spark will be your downfall.

Because it doesn't last.  It can't.  Even if he isn't the Don Juan of Forgettabletown, USA.  Even if he doesn't have a revolving door installed next to his pool tabled living room.  Even if he's a good one.  Of course, the spark fizzles.  It's supposed to.  That's just the hook.  If you don't want to still tear those clothes off of the man who forgot to take the trash to the curb on Tuesday morning, than maybe you should stop searching for a spark.  When you come up for air - because you always have to eventually - and your returning good common sense tells you to fake a terminal illness and change your route to work, than stop running toward the fire.

Give the nice guys a chance.  There may not be a spark, but there probably won't be a required clinic visit either.  

Here wasn't on the map

This wasn't where I was going to be.  Not this table and chair in this art class-covered kitchen in this humble debt clouded house.  Not this lonely town in this passing through state.  Not this thoroughly used body in these well worn shoes.

This isn't where I ever dreamed I would be.

I remember like I always have.

I was headed to rain.  I was on a single lane road to pounding quiet and soaking emptiness.

From the days when other girls were dreaming of kids and houses on hills, I knew that wasn't my story.

I knew it like the broken sound of my voice.

And I made every turn I needed to get nowhere.  I shook myself out of every moment of maybe.

I was purposely lost.

And still.  I find myself here.

Where there should be dusty corners, there are soccer cleats.

In every darkness, there's a giggling dance.

Where there is supposed to be silence, there are eyelashes brushing my shoulder.

It still rains, but oh my the light show I am treated to if I just look up.

The storm rages in my chest and behind my eyes are waves held back by trembling hands, but this house is covered in the dreams of bright smiles.

This chair is not where I am supposed to be, that is certain.  I am made of too many wrongs to end up in a space so imperfectly right.

And yet.  I can be found, on any given day, staring at this art class covered kitchen table wondering how I got so lucky as to be witnessing the start of the three most gifted journeys the world has ever seen.

And yet.  I am found surrounded by the only three things I ever got absolutely right.

And yet.  Here is where I am.

Divorce sucks.

Seems pretty obvious, right?  Divorce sucks.  

Well, it's supposed to.  That's the point.  Stay married because divorce sucks.

You're weak if you give up on your marriage.  You're a coward if you run away from your commitments, especially the one to give your children an intact home.  There's no problem so insurmountable, no reason so set in stone, no excuse that makes divorce excusable.

Except what if there is?  What if you fought like hell until you were broken beyond repair?  What if the home you were holding onto was nothing you want those children to move into on their own?  What if divorce is the only answer?

Nope.  Even then, divorce sucks.

It's watching their little faces disappear behind an old apartment door.

It's late night pleas to come give them hugs.

It's excited squeals when he promises them the world.

It's their first firsts that happened on his weekend.

It's arguing over things that never mattered before he packed up his truck.

It's lonely Sunday mornings spent crying in a quiet house that never felt so empty.

It's realizing his control didn't walk out the door with him, it's only gotten stronger.

And.  It.  Sucks.

There are good and valid reasons for divorce.  There are situations so desperate that there really is no other answer.  There are people trying really hard to do the right thing for their children, even in the face of a crowd yelling that they're wrong.

And there are people who, despite the monumental effort it takes at each step, still think sometimes it isn't worth the fight.  Who still sometimes wonder if they shouldn't have just stayed.  People who get so worn down in the struggle.  Who just want divorce to not suck for ten minutes.

If you ask me, and some actually have, don't get divorced.  If you're just tired of the way he ignores you or tired of the way she treats you, stay for as long as you can.  Show up and stand in your marriage, even past the point you marked in the sand as "breaking".

Because divorce sucks.  A lot.

If you're hearing applause, it's in your head

I am a parent.  Have been now for 13 years, 3 months, 28 days, 7 hours - if you don't count the 44 weeks I was a mama before Sofia was where the world could see her.

I have been on duty for every minute of that time, but I'm not a mathematician so I cannot calculate that number for you.  What I can tell you, however, is that parenting is hard.  And, very often, it's not even a little fun.  There's a mountain of work required to call yourself a parent.

And not a single bit of it is done for an audience.  Not a drop of it can be shown on a receipt.

It's sweaty soccer socks and dirty kid panties being washed at 4am because you found them thrown behind the dresser.

It's the hours and hours and days and days of doctors office waiting rooms holding a kid whose nose is basically glued to your shirt with more fluid than can be held in a McBiggie cup.

It's standing in the rain/blazing sun/whiteout blizzard with them while they splash in puddles or practice their new dives or speed headfirst down the backyard slopes.

And it's cleaning... Behind ears and under toilet seats, blowout diapers and projectile vomit, mashed peaches and urine soaked carpets.  It's vacuuming suspicious things because you're afraid to touch them.  It's changing sheets at 2am.  It's bringing fresh clothes to the nurse's office.  

It's quiet.  It's listening to the same story again because they still giggle at the end.  It's calming tears from an hour away because there's nothing else to be done.  It's knowing your children, all of them, whether you understand their passions or not.  

Parenting is regardless.

Of your needs.

Of your schedule.

Of your agenda.

Of you.

Parenting is a lot of work. Boring, mundane, no-accolade work.  It's hard and it is, mostly, thankless. It's not done to impress or sway public opinion.  So, if you're only going to put on an act for the audience, step to the left.  Real parenting is done right.

Freedom isn't free

I don't have a 220+ lb weight on my back anymore.

I don't look at 2 am on my clock anymore in disbelief.

I don't go limp at the sound of a door being nudged open when I clearly closed it for a reason anymore.

And I don't quietly sob in the corner every single night anymore.

Nope.  I got freedom.

The freedom to not know how I'm going to do this for one more minute.

The freedom to have to wait for the kindness of others to get my knee-high grass shorn down.

The freedom to choose between cable and soccer. (Soccer wins every time.)

The freedom to walk out into the world to a job that bores me silly.

The freedom of every other weekend and each Tuesday evening without the three reasons I wake up every weekend and every Tuesday.

The freedom to start at the dirty bottom again.

I gave up everything when I chose to marry him.

And I gave up an all new set of everything when it was well-past over.

Today I lost the last little thing I was holding onto by my last thread of hope.

And I can't tell if it was worth it anymore.

Freedom isn't free.  It costs everything that mattered in the belief that what matters now is worth more.

Today it hurts...it breaks.  

Please let tomorrow be worth it.

Sexy

Know what's sexier than a man who unendingly adores his children?

Nothing.

I don't mean the guy who makes a show out of showing up to some of their public events.  Not the every other weekend man who can only cheer for one kid on the team because that's the only one he knows.  I'm not talking about the father who leaves his kids at home unless there's an audience to impress.

I mean the dad.

Who coaches his daughter's team with no regard for his busy schedule.

Who quietly holds his son's hand to cross the street on the way to the library.

Who takes a seat and lets her splash in the puddles.

Who gathers kids in his front yard for a pickup game.

Who knows the difference between the iwantattention cry and the thisreallyhurts cry.

Who is there rain or shine, audience or no one, regardless of what other plans he made, despite anything else the world is offering on a Friday night.

There is nothing hotter than a man who, without fail, chooses his kids first.

I've known some extremely physically attractive men.  Less than 10% body fat doesn't make up for less than 20% parenting time.

And, I know some *ahem* less than model types.  I don't care what your waist size is, if you know what your son's batting average is and the names of the last two girls he had a crush on - you are my kind of idol.

No, there is nothing sexier than a man who puts his children above all else.  Nothing.