At The Corner of Inn and Sane

Puerto Fuckin' Rico

It's someday in September, and we've got a Labor Day BBQ planned for tomorrow with guests already making the side dishes they're bringing. We sit down for dinner, then the phone rings.

"Just got the call. I'm leaving tomorrow. Puerto Rico."

I'm mid-bite between flank steak and zucchini when my stomach drops. His bag has been packed for two days. I knew he was on the national response team with a 2-hour call-out for the next tropical storm brewing somewhere in the ocean. He had already told me that there was a 100% chance that he wouldn't see Tuesday. Yet, my stomach still turns at the thought of him leaving. I take a moment to text everyone coming to the BBQ to let them know we have to cancel.

I'm not one of those moms who do stay-at-home mom-ing well. I've found that the more I'm around the house, the more I fill up on junk TV and facebook. I've found that I'm most productive when I'm lost in something else. Nooo...life for me is so much better when I'm juggling - work, kids, activities. I've known this for awhile about myself. Sadness and jealousy sweep over me as I struggle to swallow my steak. Sadness because I'm going to miss him, and there's always a chance...jealousy because I know that going to Puerto Rico to work will be hard(ish), but staying at home with three kiddos is a helluva harder.

Puerto Rico.

The conversation fades into some talk about how granola bars and potato chips should be saved for school-day snacks and not consumed on weekends. Voices fade. I can hear people talking, but I have no idea what they're saying. When I'm asked for my opinion, I cannot contribute. I think..."Who gives a fuck about granola bars..."

I see a bottle of wine in my future.

This is the life. This is the moment-to-moment, I don't know what tomorrow brings, I'm going to raise my kids and hold my head up and appreciate every damn second life. I'm new to it. Other women, much better and stronger than me, have been doing this life for much longer. Lifetimes. This is where we earn the military dances and the free health insurance and the no-tax grocery benefits that we get. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and the fact is that this is the price we pay so that our children can see the world and we have guaranteed income doing work we love.

Last week, we went away for my birthday. It was a 7-hour drive. As on all of our road trips, I lose myself in him. I purchase the 2 for $3 Rockstars at every gas station even though I know they can send me into renal failure. I find the best cup of coffee an Exxon can offer, and I listen to his voice. I ask him about something that I know nothing about. He explains, often going on tangent after tangent. I allow him to lose himself as I listen. The song list plays in the background. Sometimes he'll sing along in his off-key raspy voice. And I'll think about how lucky I am...that I have this moment.

Because tomorrow he'll be in Puerto fuckin' Rico with a bunch of men telling dirty jokes...and doing work that keeps our country safe. And our bed will be empty. I'll make my own damn coffee. The kids will wake up and get themselves ready to catch the bus as I'm getting report at work. The world will be just a little smaller without him in it. And after a dinner of leftovers and conversation, I'll lay my head down in our lonely bed. I'll close my eyes and think of his voice. His raspy, smoky voice.

Self Reflection On My 43rd Birthday

It was 5am on my 43rd birthday. In usual birthday fashion, I arose early to find a quiet place where I could be alone. A moment of stillness, this time on the balcony of the vacation-stay we'd rented. I felt a feeling...you should write, I thought. I hadn't had that feeling in such a long, long time.

Its been years since I've written. It's been years since I've wanted to, needed to. I used to feel like I'd write out my thoughts and sort them out fully to provide myself clarity and perspective. I'd share them with the world on a blog, which means I attempted to appeal to an audience as well. But, with the shame of the demise of my marriage and the inevitable pain that followed, I felt it difficult to even begin to put words on a page, thought to meaning. I was wiped.

And now...this. Sitting in quiet stillness somewhere in nowhere Tennessee. My kids both physically and emotionally safe sleeping inside. My heart full. A few more pounds on my body, a few more lines on my face. The tear down, the desolate wasteland, the rawness and the bitterness having already swept over me. Then, the rebirth where buds sprout, then begin to mature into fruit. I sit outside looking at waterslides I will ride on with my kids later that day. How beautiful the pain was...how this moment couldn't have gotten here without the pain.

It was a hard road. People say that you've got to be brave enough to tell your story while being kind enough not to tell someone else's. I'll attempt to do that. So here's mine...

I loved. I loved deep, and hard, and fast. I loved my family, my children, my husband. I felt that I often tried to love people who I thought were unlovable, did despicable things. I'd look at the good side of them and focus on that, I'd turn off the bad things, the aggressive, volatile things. I found happiness in my life, fulfillment in my job. I started seeking out friends and counselors. I went to therapy. The more happy I became in my own life, the more difficult certain relationships became for me to maintain. And then, the crack and fault lines really started to show. Aggressiveness started looking less like aggressiveness and more like abuse. The honeymoon periods between episodes became shorter. Volatility became the norm. Eventually, I would look in the mirror and I would no longer see a wife and mother. I would see myself as a single mom. I had a life, and I shared it with my children. I was striving to make it a healthy life....and the unhealthy just didn't have a place in it anymore. I could no longer tolerate the intolerable because I was no longer the person I once was. Compassion left me. Empathy was nowhere to be found. Encouragement and enabling were replaced with a fiery strength...the kind a mama bear can muster to save her cubs, but cannot find to save herself. .

I no longer cared if people liked me, instead I cared if I liked them. I wasn't paying attention to whether or not they wanted to be around me, instead I'd pay careful attention to the way I felt when they came around. I started following the good energy. I stood up for myself. I thought about something I'd heard in an al-anon meeting once...

"Every once in awhile, I'd get angry enough to actually take care of myself..."

What came after was a whirlwind of a dissolution of my marriage, the restructuring of my family, and grief. I lost myself in chocolate. I found friends, amazing friends. I stopped caring about what people knew or thought, and I just told my truth...if people self-selected to not be around after meeting the real me...well, they did me a favor. I fell in love with myself. And then, I fell in love with someone else.

I had one of those moments that 43rd birthday out on the balcony...one of those moments when you just cannot believe life gets this good. As my therapist once said to me..."Mariah, you have an amazing life waiting for you. But you cannot carry it yet. Your arms are too full. You must first put down the burdens you are carrying in your arms so that your arms are empty. Only then, will you be able to grasp what is waiting for you..."

I hope you find the courage to find what is waiting for you.

The 4th in Mayberry

I've been thinking about what to call this post - my first post after a 2 year hiatus from blogging. I've decided just to call it what it is, July 4th in the place I call home.

As I sit here at my computer chair in the light of the desklamp that kept me company these past several years, I listen. The cricket that made its way up the drain pipe is my only company right now as I hear the soft sounds of children sleeping in their beds after sunshine and waterslides have taken the best of their energy. We managed to make it through this day with only one meltdown, a blessing indeed. Yet, I know that there will eventually come a day when I just wish I could get that one meltdown back so that I'd have another moment with them when they were little.

Not so little, really.

The day started with a parade. The bikes spent the morning in the garage with wheels up in the air, trying to get them aired up and working. We succeeded with one. Red, white and blue decorations adorned us and our puppy as we walked the 3-block parade on a street that I've known well since I was fourteen. One light nap later, and we were off for some swimming. It was a hot day, and we reapplied sunscreen twice. We spent time with friends, one in particular that I feel sad when I see because he's moving away from here. Away from Mayberry. He's such a calming presence, and he floated into our lives and is now floating on.

After swimming at the pool, we were off to a friend's home for a barbecue. It was a beautiful night, and some bug spray and sparklers made it all the more perfect. An oasis of a backyard was our dining room, and we visited as the sun set under twinkling lights. People I've known my entire life, my children and their children in a home that their mom grew up in. Three generations sharing a magic moment. Fireworks and a city view together with our shameless children singing the star spangled banner.

The last photograph I took of the evening was one of a wall of crosses I admired at the home of our host. I was amazed at how an instrument of torture could turn into one of the most beautiful symbols, the irony of how to gain our life we must lose it....how freedom finds us.

Self Reflection On My 38th Birthday

There once was a king who governed a kingdom of subjects whom he loved dearly. The king's soothsayer predicted that on a certain day, the river they all drank from would become contaminated and everyone who drank from the river would begin to hallucinate. Knowing that the king must stay healthy to protect and serve his kingdom, he built a cistern so that he could store and drink clean water after the river had become contaminated. Because there would not be enough water in the cistern to nourish everyone, the king made the very difficult decision to ration this water for himself. As predicted, the river became contaminated and everyone drinking from it started hallucinating. The king, drinking from the cistern, remained healthy.

Days turned into weeks...then months...then years. The king was filled with great sadness as he saw the people he loved so dearly become sicker and sicker, speaking to the air as if someone was there. He searched frantically for a cure, but none was to be found. After a few years without a cure, the king was devastated. He was filled with sadness and the most profound loneliness imaginable. One morning, the king awoke. He looked around at his castle and cistern. He looked at the people whom he loved so dearly. He went down to the river.

And, he drank.

My 38th year was one filled with lessons. Some of these lessons, I'd already received previously & didn't fully learn before. Thankfully, where there are lessons, there are amazing teachers and friends. Bits of wisdom came from the most unsuspecting sources. Moments that I considered deeply painful I began to understand as profound blessings. Where I am is exactly where I'm meant to be, every moment of my life has been ordained. I've learned to be true to myself and honor my feelings, realizing that pain is there for a reason. The moment I put down baggage that doesn't belong to me, I am able to pick up the burdens that are mine. My crazy attempts to advise, control, minimize, change, influence, coerce, or bend a person, place, or thing serve only as distraction from the real work I need to do on myself. I've come to recognize that I have no right to have any expectations of others, the path to serenity is accepting others completely without reservation, accepting myself just as I am, accepting life on life's terms, and detaching from situations that are painful. Showing gratitude towards others is best done by honoring them as they are and letting them be without my reckless attempts to intervene. I recognize that just as my stretchmarks are signs of something beautiful, there is a quality that is both mystical and magical in my flaws. The same is true of all others.

This year was also one filled with blessing. We've had a few amazing family trips. We moved. We tried new things - our son started swimming competitively, I humbly took salsa lessons which brought about both physical exhaustion and humility. Our daughter, our youngest child, starts kindergarten tomorrow. I have the most amazing therapist. I had loving visits with lifelong friends. The healthy new buds of intimacy began cropping up with people I have so much in common with...people who passionately love those who drink from the river, while at the same time humbly ask God for the courage, the serenity, the strength, and the compassion to drink from the cistern where the water is clean.

Sources: How Al-Anon Works For Families and Friends of Alcoholics

King's Story: Mariah's Therapist