No Backsies.

What I want to say is hard to put into words. Mostly, because I feel like I come off sounding like a pompous philosophy PhD student. (Note: I do not think all philosophy PhD students are pompous. Or useless. At least you are putting money into the higher education economy.) So I have started and deleted a couple times, but I really want to write it, even if it means using three conjunctions in one run-on sentence.

There are moments when I am struck by the permanence of life. I know that mostly poetry and priests will comment on the little time we have here, so sin wonderfully or live like a saint, depending on whether you take the poetry or priest more seriously. But the things I have done, the choice I have made, the things done and the choice made that impact me, will forever be solid events in history. My footprints are not impressions in the sand, disappearing under a wave. They are crushed into granite by the pressure of living. I stop and marvel at that. This is my life, unchangable behind me, nothing but change ahead. It is not what I imagined for myself at fourteen or eighteen when I was going to be a veternarian with a independent practice attached to my house, so I could be home with my two kids I had with my college sweetheart. I was going to be the Dr. Huxtable of the animal kingdom. (Of course that is the way it should be. If your life is what your fourteen-year-old self imagined, I don't know whether to envy or pity you.)

No matter how much I protested it, I really did eventually become a teacher like I was meant to. I live in my hometown willingly, happily, which my twenty-three-year-old self would never believe for any amount of money. I really am that person who adopted a kid days after finding out I was pregnant. I am that person no matter how many times I denied the possibility before it happened. I do drive a minivan. There is no erasing that from my exisitance.

This is my life, no backsies. I'm glad I wouldn't take them anyway.

Six Word Sunday

Cranky toddlers suck your immortal soul.


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Mythical Creatures

This is not about a tattoo. It inspired my tattoo. It was orginally written for the blog John and I wrote to document our adoption process. If you are interested in reading more about that, batzeradopt.blogspot.com.

Mythical Creatures
I had a unicorn baby. I would glimpse his hazel eyes giggling at me from his carseat in my rearview mirror. I would hear her cries echoing through the house at three in the morning, and the phantom me would get up and go smooth her sweaty dark ringlets as she cried for no good reason. I would feel the weight of his tall-for-his-age body on my pant leg as I went about changing laundry loads and emptying the dishwasher. He was going through the clinging to Mommy phase, you see. The petite, too-small-for-her-age length of her would fit perfectly in my arms as I sat doing nothing at all but zoning in front of the TV and she slept, refusing to be put down.I had to let my unicorn baby go. He and she waved good-bye as they went to fulfill the promises of that twit, Jackie Paper, and have adventures in the Land of Hanalee.Now I have a phoenix baby. He rises out of the ashes of disappointments and fear to create hope with his golden song. She does all of the same things the unicorn baby did, taunting me from around corners, but her features are blurred like a hummingbird's wings. Yet the outline is more defined. She is coming. He will fly, maybe long and far, maybe short and near, but he will come. And we will make her song powerful and strong to withstand and fight against the wind.I may always miss my unicorn baby, but I will always love my phoenix baby.

Quiet Ceremony

I stepped through a door and became a mother. There was no pushing on my part. There was no surgery. There were just years of trying, changing, hoping, and heart-breaking, the labor of adoption, but there was no physical change or birthing process. Without the physical challenge of birth there was no build-up. The only difference between one moment and the next was the baby in my arms. It was the most surreal moment of my life. When you imagine something a million times a day for five years, you start to believe that it can’t really happen outside your head. And then it does. And it is going to change everything. You’d think there would be a ceremony or something, a Lion King moment if you will. Instead the moment is quiet. The brave woman who did go through the physical labor whispered to our son, “Look, it’s your mom and dad,” and she placed him in my arms. It will always be the strongest act of love I will ever witness. Through my tears I managed to whisper, “Thank you.” Then because it is the way of adoption, I turned away from her and her pain to join my husband in our joy.

Perhaps not all ceremonies need be showy.

Prepare

Moist. Moist. Moist. A hated word, but accurate for her surroundings. Water dripped from every surface, horizontal or vertical. Drip. Drip. Drip. It was also dripping off her skin. The minutiae of her body's contours, hairs, pimples, cuts, scars, fat, dictated the path the rivers of water took as gravity's uncompromising grip drew it down and away. The escaping water was also taking the warmth with it. Stupid physics. One last time she leaned her forehead to the smooth wall in front of her, closed her eyes and took a deep, moist breath, trying to make it reach her toes before expelling in. Then she turned to part the curtain that blurred the outside world and stepped into her day.

Six Word Sunday

Sleep is worth millions of dollars.


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The Moment I Knew

Flashback Friday
John and I met on April 17, 2001. By Memorial Day, I knew there was a whole lot of potential for the relationship, so I figured it was a good time to bring him home to meet My Big Fat Greek Family. If they were going to scare him off, better sooner than later.
Part of our weekend was taking my much younger (20 years) brother to see Shrek. During the scarier part of the movie, a big fiery dragon chasing around the intrepid anti-heroes, I glance over to see my baby brother curled up against John, clutching his arm, just peeking out. And that, my friends, is that. I melted and haven't truly solidified in the ten years since. Tonight we laid in bed and watched Shrek with our children. How does live get better?


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