Jackpot

Sometimes they waste their dinner.

They spend way too long in the shower considering their hands are still vibrantly colored from art class three days ago.

I've bitten back countless four letter words from the indescribable pain of discarded Legos meeting soft arches.

They haven't put their laundry away properly since 1943.

There is a defined trail of sunflower seeds leading down the hall -- though no one did it.

The tears I wade through to get homework completed correctly could drown a country.  A mountainous country.  A mountainous country on Mars.

Their shoes cost more than half my closet.

Their bathroom floor hasn't been dry in months.

They clog toilets and peel paint and leave lights on.

There are fingerprints on every wall of my house four feet up from the crumb covered floor.

Socks stuffed between couch cushions and twisted jeans behind dressers reveal themselves to my nose before they reach my eyes.

Pink toothpaste should just be the official color of their sink.

And, if I won the lottery tomorrow, my luck factor won't have increased an inch.

This is the life no one tells you to aim for.  But they should.  This is the life.

And I'm grateful for every headache, every sleepless night, every slammed door.  I'm grateful it's my house they're destroying.  It's my heart they're filling.

Damn, I'm a lucky one.

Let them see you do good or they may never know how to do it themselves

We had just had the need vs want conversation for the zillionth the time.  They wanted the fancy cotton candy milk.  I said that's a want and we're not doing that kind of shopping today.  They tested me by pointing out the coffee flavor milk.  Would I be a hypocrite?  Of course not.  I again reminded them that I don't need coffee flavored milk, coffee flavored coffee is of course another matter.  So we made it all the way to the checkout line with only a cart full of vegetables, protein & plain old cow udder flavored milk.  Our needs met and my paycheck mostly gone, we declared ourselves victors!

In line in front of us was a familiar face.  A guy I had seen a few times at the bank who was always so very sweet and friendly to me.  He had a young boy no more than six years old at his side.  I don't think he noticed us at all, but I immediately remembered how nice it had been to see his smiling face on the days that tended to drag me through the muck of cranky at my former job.  

I heard him say, "I only have $50 on this card, so we won't get that stuff."  Still with that genuine smile, he gave the cashier his gift card and left the several boxes of jello pudding on the conveyor belt.  His son, only two years behind my baby girl, looked disappointed but didn't once even consider throwing a fit about leaving behind the only treat they'd chosen. The gentleman grabbed his two small bags of groceries and kindly thanked the cashier.

And I knew it wasn't much, but I couldn't just do nothing.

"Sofia, will you do me a favor?" 

"Yeah."

"We're going to buy that stuff the people in front of us couldn't afford, but I don't want to embarrass him.  So, I need you to run the bag out there as soon as I pay for it."

I quietly asked the cashier to pull the boxed pudding out from under the counter.  

"That's very sweet of you."

"No.  It's really just a tiny thing."

Sofia took the bag out and came back to the cash register quietly smiling.  

"He said thank you very much, mama."

Another daughter asked why I did it.  

As we walked our own groceries out, I explained.

That guy was always nice to me.  We had talked about his struggles to raise his son on his own.  He had never once complained about how hard it is.  And, an opportunity to put a smile on a kid's face is never one you should pass up.  Who doesn't smile at pudding?!

But I thought we were only doing needs right now - that's what you said.

Yep.  But sometimes we just need to do nice things for nice people.  One day I might not be able to make you dessert.  We'd want someone to help us.

My girls want for a lot.  They don't have the newest, nicest clothes.  They don't carry the shiniest gadgets or the name brand purses.  But they get pudding when they want it.

And, today with our little $4 donation, they gave a sweet little boy and his humble dad the chance to smile even wider.

So, here's to the dad that had to make some hard choices, but chose correctly.  Here's to the man who didn't take his money to the beer aisle, but put food on his son's table instead.  Here's to the little boy who's learning to sacrifice without letting it hurt.  And, here's to my three luckies who not once mentioned that I could've used that $4 to buy cotton candy milk instead.

The opportunities to teach right are always there. Take them and enjoy the pudding.

Confronting ghosts

She had been a giant.  Cast a huge shadow over every piece of light I tried to filter.  Directed and produced every imagined scenario for years after I last heard her voice.  She had been a battering ram in my glass house.

But not this day.  All that's left now is a shrunken, broken mosaic of anger, sadness and confusion. Still refracting my light while no longer controlling the scene.

That's what I'm left with two weeks after meeting my mother for the first time since she couldn't remember my face.

Before this starts to sound like some sort of tragic Nicholas Sparks novel, let me just say that she did this.  My mother isn't of an advanced age or suffering from some horrible fate of fate's design.  To save time, and a story that I may never be ready to share, let it just be known that her condition is entirely of her own making.  Pity her if you must, but she chose Jack Daniels over her responsibilities.  Worse - she chose numbing the present over knowing the future, and my girls deserved more.  The sole purpose of me walking into the facility where she will live out her days in comfort was to get out the words that might give me a little of my own.  

But first we had to meet.

From the end of the hall and around the corner where the nurse had disappeared, three people slowly came into view - two nurses and a small, round figure in between.  As soon as she saw me, she started yelling that she didn't know me.  

It had been nine years since we'd last spoken.  In that time, she had gone from living in a big house she didn't own and pretending to be the wife of a man who didn't love her - through several sinkholes of her own creation - into a nursing home in a condition I can best describe as what lies at the end of the road you pave with a child you abandon and grandchildren you forgot while you pour yourself another drink of self pity.

And she didn't believe that it was me.  Though, to be fair, if I hadn't been warned about what to expect, I may not have recognized her either.  Smaller than I remember, I suddenly couldn't recall why she scared me anymore.  

Over the next hour, I answered the questions she repeated and waited through her yelling at me for things I wouldn't try to understand.  Sometimes it felt like she was inches away from the woman whose messes my childhood hands had tried to mop, but she always faded back before I got a real look.  Her broken heart, the one I had spent so many years trying to glue together, almost appeared to be back in my grasp moments before she'd wander off again.

Finally, I realized why I was there.  

"They're good girls.

You would've liked them.

Sofia is a nerd and she's beautiful and special and smart.

Eva is an athlete and she's sweet and good and everything I could ask for.

Maya is my queen.  She's daring and freaking funny and three handfuls in one.

They're good girls.

I'm a good mom."

I had spent weeks trying to decide why I was going, trying to figure out if I even had anything to say to her.  Sitting in the well lit dining room of a place where she comfortably forgets our existence, I wanted to tell her that I did fine.  Turns out I didn't need her at all.  

And, though my grandmother in heaven would've never allowed me to say those words to her daughter, I knew she gave me permission to tell her in my own way.

You chose you, mom.  I choose them.

And we are fine for it.

I made it to the car before I cried.  I got my breath back before I made it back to the girls.  It took two weeks, but I finally put words to the healing.

And ten minutes after I left, she wouldn't have remembered my face again.

But I'm ok, mom.  

Paving my own road with real memories and undiluted love.

We're just fine.

The word of the day is

Progress.

I messed my back up over the weekend and ignored it.

I ignored it until Monday morning when I sat down to have my cup of coffee and very definitely couldn't get back up.

By Monday evening I was flat on my back with my knees in the air contemplating when that particular spider had made himself a trail across my ceiling.

Tuesday I sneezed once and knew in my soul that death would've been easier.

Thursday I sneezed again and would've only preferred a toe removal at best.

Progress.

Now I sit (really, I'm laying because sitting feels like I have angered the troll whose job it is to hold my ample rear end and my hips together but sitting just sounds better in this sentence) realizing that progress has been happening in me for a few months now.

When it didn't matter how pretty he was because every moment together felt empty and I walked away dry eyed.

Progress.

When I accepted that not being able to work out was resulting in the loss of a body I had worked really hard for but I had to stop anyway.

That was progress.

When I learned to stop being baited into endless arguments just because my attention was guaranteed.

Silence was progress.

When my old shadows came flooding back and I was able to avoid them once or twice.

Even baby steps are progress.

Holding my children to the standards they set for themselves rather than the bar I invariably raised over their heads.

Basic Dr. Seuss progress.

And, when I finally spoke into the darkness the words I had never said aloud knowing it would permanently change the way he looked at me.

Letting someone witness that fall was major progress.

Learning that it only takes an inch to show you're moving in any direction - and moving is everything.

Progress.

Soon, I'll be back to full, upright, non Neanderthal posture.

And that, I assure you, will be welcomed progress.

To the people who will one day break my daughters' hearts,

These are my girls.  My flesh and blood, walking on their own two feet, unique and beautiful people.  And, one day, you will wander by and decide to stay awhile.  It'll be great and you and I will hopefully be friends and get along great.  We will all hope to make it a lifelong union - you, her, and distantly me.

Unfortunately, there's a chance you will break her heart.  Or she will decimate yours.  Either way, you and my girl will break up.  It will be sad for both of you, and maybe even for me.

Maybe she will be the one at fault and maybe she won't.  Maybe you will have destroyed who she was as a person or maybe you won't.  Maybe it will be fast and loud and maybe it will be drawn out and bitter.

Either way, you will be on the outside.

Doesn't matter if you and I have bonded over cars or fishing or the color of the blissful morning sky.  Won't matter if she set your house on fire or snuck off with your brother or robbed your bank at gunpoint.

I will be on her side.  

Because there is absolutely nothing anyone could do to turn me against my daughters and toward a stranger.  Nothing.

She is mine, for more than better or worse richer or poorer in sickness and in health.

She is my daughter.  Nothing comes between that and certainly not some man who broke her into a million pieces, neglected his children and destroyed their peace.  Nothing.

I can promise you this from where I sit this morning, regardless of the backs turned to me today.

No, I can promise this because of them.

Imagery as a goal

                                                

The caption said that the goal was to reach behind your back and touch your belly button.

The goal.

The average healthy person's reaction to this image and it's stated goal: that's ridiculous and disgusting and dangerous.

The average damaged and struggling person's reaction: close bathroom door, try to reach belly button from behind back, fail, make this an actual goal.

The goal.

This imagery is everywhere and not everyone is strong or comfortable enough to see the idiocy.  Not everyone can see the airbrush strokes or the broken capillaries.  This imagery is, for some, the real life goal.

And, it's not vanity.  It won't be a public victory.  It's the kind they'll reach in the darkened silence of their own sadness.  Then they will be battered with another image and a new goal.

Because there's always always always another image.

And another goal.

Until someone finds a solution and these images are replaced with healthy, smiling faces.

Until that is the goal.

Random advice inspired by the first cup of coffee on a rainy, quiet morning

Be an adventure.  Be the off-road.  Oh, girls, be the I've never been this way before and it looks too challenging for me but my God it would be worth the effort experience.

Wear the lacy, no support, thank goodness for youthful muscles bras as long as you can.  Later, they'll be strictly for function, so enjoy the form as long as you can.

Know the difference between what you can handle and what you should.  Some things have to be endured (death, knock down drag outs with your sisters, bad hair days) and some do not (cheating boyfriends, backstabbing friends, red dye #8).   You are worth more than struggles and not everything has to be hard.

There are a million types of boys.  It's fine to have a type.   Dark hair, light eyes, tall, broad shoulders, the "V" which you will discover one day, no one knows what it's called but everyone will follow it to the closest cliff, whatever you deem to be your "type" is fine.  But, know this:  lots and lots of types of boys, but only two types of men.  Good and not good.  When it comes right down to it, looks don't mean a single thing if all you're looking through are tears.

If you like it, that's all it takes to make it important.  Decide for yourself what floats your boat, then get in and row row row.  People of value will follow or cheer you on and that's how you will know who to leave behind.

Fall for an accent.  It's fine, everyone does it.  There's a lot to be said for having to lean in close and stare at a mouth as it forms "excuse me, miss, where is the library?  And one beer, please".

Love your mama.  She sat down one day and wrote random lessons she learned the hard way while praying you'd sleep long enough for her to finish the last sentence.

Then she made you waffles.