Dear Diary...

Dear Diary. It's been a long time since I've written...

Boy do I EVER remember beginning my diary entries that way as a kid. I'd write consistently for weeks, then take a break, my thoughts all locked away in a bedazzled diary with a tiny lock. I'm smiling now just thinking of all those times I'd sit and write - it's just part of who I am. This is not my first go at blogging. I've started a couple of others, but let them go for one reason or another. I told myself I'd aim for one post a month for a year with this one, and have already lost that bet with myself. It's been over two months and I've been silent. I've thought about things to write about, but the same things swirl around in my head. Life, death, meaning, and purpose. Not weird at all, right?

The last two months have been a whirlwind really. Soccer season nearly killed me. Just kidding. Maybe. Two boys, two different soccer leagues on two different sides of town, one family car, and a partridge in a pear tree. My husband and I did it though - we divided so we could conquer. One of us had the babies and one older son at one game after dropping the other parent with the other son at the other game. WHY? Well, luck of the draw I guess. Even thought they were on two SEPARATE leagues (not teams, that would be obvious), their games were at the same time 99.9% of the season. 

There has also been a lot of learning and changing and GROWING going on. My oldest son has grown 1.75 inches since moving here a few short months ago. Along with this growth came the morphing into a cranky teenager who can't go to bed or wake up on time. Also - all hail Xbox1 and woa to the fool who does not yet have one! This is the message I got for about eight weeks straight, anyway. We ended up buying one for said morphing into teenville, and less than 14 days later were BURNED. My son had to earn a hard lesson as I took it and sold it and used his allowance to help pay back the fees he caused us to have at our bank for...OVERDRAFTING our account by several hundred dollars while playing. He was of the mindset that he'd pay us back with his birthday riches, but little did he know we had just (no, really - JUST) made a down payment on a truck and nearly emptied our account that the debit card is connected to. Insert prime time for charges he thought he could pay back. Now, I'm not cruel - he WAS told repeatedly not to charge anything ever without asking. He did this to himself. He learned his lesson...I hope. Not only did he have to tell his friends he no longer had one (it's how they play together and communicate - no joke), but that his mom sold it! I didn't tell him to say a word, he volunteered that last part. When the anger subsided he found just the right time to tell me how all the kids think I am mean now. Well I'm just going to have to deal with that now aren't I? I'm fighting an uphill battle - but I have a lot of stamina. Oh, and did you know that "WAY BACK WHEN" some people thought getting C's was ok? I seriously didn't know that - oh how grateful I am for this education. 

My middle son has been excelling at school and honestly needs a bit more of a challenge in certain areas. He's also become the token "good kid" and while I love that, I can see a little perfectionist budding - and that was how I was. It was very hard for me to accept failure or anything less than an A. We'll see how this goes. What is clearly evident is that he is athletically gifted and a treasured member of every PE team, recess team and soccer team he is on. He has no idea how good he is. I can't wait to see him grow in this area. 

I've started teaching yoga again at a local studio and absolutely love it. I may also have a regular gig with a wonderful company that services mothers throughout the state. I had my first yoga event with them the other weekend it was quite memorable and I am so thankful for that opportunity to really do what I do. I'm also studying to earn a basic nutrition certification. I'm always interested in ways to heal the body naturally, feel and be the best that I can - and help my family and others along the way. It's going well - my goal is one chapter a week for the next four months. 

Hey - so far this blog is pretty normal!

Nevermind - here comes the weird stuff.

I'm still consumed with life. WHY, HOW, WHEN will I understand it all? My mother died April 15, 2016. This was a very hard day to get through this year. Harder than last for some odd reason. Maybe it's because I'm so far from the home she lived in, we lived in, and away from her essence. Maybe it's because I know I wasn't enough for her to want to stay. It's ok, really. No one should live with the quality of life she had - or lack thereof. She was 100 years old in a 66 year old body so suddenly. She was so sick and so frail and so desperately alone and missing my father. I couldn't and can't imagine trying to live with a chronic illness along without your partner. Sure I was there - but I was her daughter and to need me and rely on me was in her eyes a burden. So instead of wanting to be with me, she pushed me away in every shape and form. I know she really did want me there but was trying to be mean so that she wouldn't be a burden and I would leave. It didn't work.  She took risks with her life and didn't care. Or so it seemed. I understand NOW why it seemed she didn't care. Maybe she didn't - her right. It must have been mortifying for her to find out my husband had to pick her up off her bloody knees and put her back in bed when we went by for routine checks. I had to be a total bitch and just stand my ground when I wanted to crumble at her feet. I was pregnant and so scared for my babies inside and so scared for my mom. I had to spend my dad's money on care for her because she wouldn't allow me to move in. She wouldn't allow full time care...until I took the choice from her. Oh how she hated me for the staged intervention just before Christmas and treated me like Satan himself in front of those nurses. But I understand. SHE WAS MOM. SHE WAS THE BOSS...not me. I did what I did to protect her and tried to limit my overbearing self as much as I could, but she was unsafe. I LOVE HER...it's why I did everything -for her to be safe - to have dignity. Hiring care, interviewing private care because she hated all the nurses, begging friends on the police force to run background checks...That all came to a head when she could no longer let her own dogs out  - and the one time she tried they knocked her over and she broke her humerus clear in half. There would be no surgery. There was a sling and pain medicine and rest. She was gone two weeks later. Oh, mom...I miss your silly jokes and your laugh and the way you would touch my face. I knew you had only a few days to a week left the last night spoke. I'm glad we said I love you, but I wish I had KNOWN it was the last thing we'd say. I would have said it more slowly and carefully and brushed your hair a little longer.

I have been hearing in my head so many of the things my dad used to say to me and I get this sinking feeling inside when I think about the fact that this July will be three years he is gone. I know that you don't really ever get over the death of the ones you love and that it's totally about US and how we feel about it...at least that's what people tell me. But for some reason, with my dad, it is so very much about HIM. It's about his tears when he would have lucid moments and he knew and would just cry and then suck it back in - and wouldn't really be able to articulate (brain tumor) what he knew (because I'd ask because i was the ONLY person who thought he should know he was dying when he was so that maybe he could say or think or pray anything else he may have wanted to). He reached his peace with his situation and with God long before that moment, but...still.  Father's Day 2015 has permanently burned hole in my heart. I brought him gifts he could enjoy - taste. He was on steroids and ate everything he could! I cried buying his donuts and Yoo-Hoo (he always got them for me as a kid) and flowers. It's all I knew to give him that he could comprehend and experience. It had only been a couple of weeks that he was really out of it - he was a different man who needed care but yet who thought he could get up and walk (and fall, and crash, and bleed...and so many other things). When he took a sip of the Yoo-Hoo I said "Happy Father's Day Daddy." He replied "Happy Father's Day." Then he stopped and looked at me and cried hard. I said "What daddy, what's wrong? You can tell me!" He just shook his head, swallowed, and said "We'll get through it." He was EVER THE WARRIOR.

In the end, I know he knew. I know he heard my goodbye wail, felt my lifetime of tears strolling down his chest as I choked out what I hoped were the words he needed to hear to be set free. They were, no matter what, the words I needed to say to him. I miss him with an unquenchable feeling of - well - misery. I MISS HIM. I do believe I will see him again someday when I pass on in heaven. But I think it'll be so different. He'll be different - I'll be different...I hear we'll be even better. Like the Twighlight characters when they are bitten and become vampires... maybe? The same but spruced up and strong and more than we ever thought we could be? I know that sounds funny, but it's totally what I think about. Before my dad died, actually over a year before he died, I went for a run, totally panic stricken at his diagnosis and feeling like everyone should know him, his kindness, his goodness...and then facing the fact that I may lose him...but not facing it...I was literally running from it. "NO GOD! NO! I have begged you for protection for him for YEARS - you KNOW I have always asked you to keep him around for a long life. I NEED HIM. I LOVE HIM!"  I stopped briefly to catch my breath and I was bent over at the waist crying. I am not a big "vision" person...but this image came to mind...undeniable. It was my dad - in his white thermal long sleeved shirt, his muscles poking through, his cuffed jeans...and he had his arms out...and his hands - had 10 fingers. He had eight fingers on earth since he was 20, as two were taken in Vietnam. I cried harder knowing what God was telling me but then doubting it was God and rather a figment of my imagination. But my dad was illuminated. He was whole. He is whole.

Aside from these little activities and thoughts - I am, um, well, getting adjusted. I love the weather here, the close proximity to lakes and mountains, but I remain unsettled. I look for opportunities to be around people, to invest in people, to love and laugh with people. They've started coming in - and I'm glad. I KNOW what happened these last few years would rock anyone. I know that. I am simply trying to put one foot in the other and KEEP ON TRUCKIN' as my dad would say.