Fiction: The sappy story I'll never finish.

I watched them line up carefully.  Some wore tweeds.  Others wore pin stripes.  It's not the clothes that individuates them.  There's something more.  I saw him from behind.  His slacks were pressed and his windsor knot was perfect.  What gave him away was the oval of sweat in the small of his back, and the way his hands in his pockets pulled his pants across his backside. He reached into his back pocket, producing both his wallet and the turned out pocket that held it.  He wore the right clothes but he was the wrong fit. Armed with my knife, I wove my way through the lines to him.  His hair was shaved close, but his underlying tattoos were visible when I stood right behind him.  He was easily a head taller than I was and the broad line of his shoulders indicated he worked those muscles harder than any of us in the city would.

My training told me to call for backup once I was sure of what he was.  My gut made me stop. We're also told to trust our instincts.  I was right behind him and close enough to smell his cologne and there were other officers around us.  They just hadn't noticed him yet.  Getting past my nerves on my third day in the field, I stretched my hand out to tap his shoulder.  With surprising grace, he grabbed my hand while turning to face me.  His calm gaze and serious brown eyes pinned me to the spot, making me forget the weapon in my hand.  With an eerie calm he leaned in to whisper in my ear, "I don't want to break your wrist, but if you raise that knife, you will take that choice from me. We're going on a trip."

At that moment, I decided I could get away.  He would break my wrist.  Putting him in restraints myself was unlikely.  I should not have let it get this far.  I could also do as he says and wait for the opportunity to get the upper hand.  I was born to be an officer.  I could handle him.

The tremble in my voice gave away the real fear I felt when I said, "I'll take you anywhere you need to go but you have to let go of my wrist."

"You came to me with a knife.  You can't leave with my trust, " he said.

Switching his grasp from my wrist to my elbow, he took my knife and pressed it into my side as he took my knife and pressed it into my side as he led me through the front doors of the building.  My plan to get the upper hand quickly unraveled.

You never know the value of your weapons until you're forced to choose something easy to carry and conceal for foot patrols and that choice bites you in the rear.  I chose a knife for it's size and because it was a skill I was good at in training, and now my knife was gone because I was afraid of a broken wrist.

This man looked at me with a fleeting tenderness and in that moment I knew a broken wrist would be safer than the heart I wanted to hand him.  Just as quickly the hard edge was back in his glare and I my quaking fear gave way to rage.

Deep End Love

I'm excited that I get to fall in love again.  I'm not saying I'm there or it's happening as you read these words.  Maybe I'm just not saying.  Maybe you are overthinking my love life. Love comes with variables and accepting the ideals of romantic love means you are willing to accept what you cannot control.  You are willing to take a risk because something may be worth doing in spite of the fear that grips you.  Really, I love lots of things and lots of people.  If I love everything, I can allow that love to flow freely through me and it's not being poured into an abyss that will dissolve love into memories that are ephemeral visions without depth or meaning once my love object morphs into someone I don't recognize or my tastes and desires shift because they will. I'm in this moment, loving each moment for what it is, without adding the weight of possibility and plans because I'm not there yet.  I want something strong that has teeth and those teeth better mark me, or it won't be worth that first bite. I want right now because I'm not living in the past or the future. What I'm finally writing about is the big scary idea of falling madly and deeply in love.  It's big and scary because it's a topic I've been avoiding but my latest muse has my mind turning things over in the way a muse is supposed to inspire deeper thought. Half the time my muse has no clue because I don't share every thought I have, but it's often written all over my face. At least I keep hearing that from those willing to pay attention. It finally seems like something I can look forward to because the dread I felt was washed away when I removed the bandages and discovered I didn't only heal in the last year, but there was growth, and it's not the gangrenous type.

I couldn't honestly say how many times I've fallen in love.  I've lost track.  I think my first love was a blonde football player.  That was obsessive and  really scary.  I was scary.  Fast forward through many others and the last true love experience was with the man I married.  These feelings are almost instinct and familiar and  I don't have to assume every guy I imagine playing with is the one I want to settle down with.  I have talked about wedding bells seriously with 3 men and even received tokens of promise before I actually exchanged rings and vows.  Falling out of love and releasing the future you planned is a process and I'm familiar with each step.  I can embrace them.

I love the feeling of falling in love.  I don't even mean that silly infatuation stage that makes my inner whore want to dance and play and learn every single detail about the man I am so happy to talk to and be around.  I mean deep, resounding love that makes you want to plan for a future together because you can't remember the last time you cared so much about someone. Their desires and needs are important to you because somehow their happiness makes you happy and selfishness doesn't occur to you first where this person is concerned. I fully embrace the idea of being the only one falling in love because as terrifying and risky as that is, the reward is always greater than being closed off.

The big scary part of love is the part where you trust someone else with your fragile parts.  You know how delicate your feelings are and you have to trust that someone else will care as much as you do.  You hope that you are handled carefully and with compassion.  You want to be safe because you know that you are choosing to fall and you want to believe they understand this concept because they are doing the same thing with you.  You aren't jumping or aiming but falling freely and only holding out hope that you will be caught because there are no guarantees in love.

You choose to take a risk. You choose to love. If you're already infatuated it's easy. That heart is already racing at the thought of this person.  Random things will constantly remind you of their smile or something they said. If those initial feelings have faded into the realities of compromise it can be harder. But you choose and feelings follow. You make a decision and that choice helps you follow through.  That's how couples grow old together.  They make a choice on a daily basis. They don't see a life together as being victimized and bound.  It's a choice and there is freedom in it.

It's not love that hurts us.  It's not love that leaves an empty ache that makes breathing painful and silence agony.  Love doesn't make you question who you are.  Love fills you so much that in its absence you feel the ways you were supported and the pain of its loss is what drives so many to protect themselves so carefully.

There is something so beautiful about a woman in love.  When a woman loves and is loved back, she walks with confidence and grace.  Smiles are genuine and given freely.  Laughter comes easily and stress is manageable.  She is attractive and others are drawn to her because they can sense how loved she feels.  She gives what she's received.  I've had the pleasure of really feeling love for myself in the last few months.  I love being able to put myself first.  It feels like freedom.

The love I felt as a Mom was instant.  The moment I knew there was a life separate from mine thriving inside of me, my hand was constantly on my belly, touching my now 14 year old son.  The love was immediate and overwhelming.  I started planning a future and daydreaming our existence together.  I had adjustments.  It was a long time before I was completely at peace with the idea of a parasite leeching off of me and the fact that I was growing a penis was mind blowing for a bit.  But the love was there.  My maturity is subjective. My motherhood looks like choosing to do what is best for my sons.  I want to do what is right, even if it's not the easy thing to do.  This looks like hovering, giving space, fighting for, with and against them, and trying my best every single day to be the mom they deserve, and not the mom I want to be. It means I can't disappear.

Even as a surrogate mother, I was in love with the children I carried. I still love all four of them. I never distanced myself so far emotionally that it was a paycheck or that these children were not mine. Those babies are all in my heart.  I was able to find peace in never seeing them again in the love I have for their parents.  I have so much faith in the women that shared my journey, that I have enough love to let them go and believe they are happy and healthy and loved beyond anything simple words could ever express.  My love was in my release and the faith I have in them to care for their children in the many ways they cared for me. My love is in letting go because that is what is best for the families that I will always love.

In the transitional training I experienced a couple of weeks ago, I was able to fully examine what it must have been like for my mom to find out she was having me.  She was a teenage mom.  She came to the States from Thailand and left her entire family without knowing the culture or language during a time when interracial marriages were shunned in local churches.  The eldest was 10 and the one closest to me had been the baby for 7 years.  My mom was past diapers and chasing toddlers.  During her pregnancy with me, she experienced varicose veins and thyroid issues that my sisters didn't introduce her to.  She opted for sterilization with my birth, but this was 1978 and the doctor wouldn't do it without my Dad's consent.  In all of the bitterness and rage that flowed through me at what I did to her, I never once felt that from my mom. I've only felt unconditional love and experienced what it looks like when you know without a doubt that the person loving you only wants what is best for you. To this day she will sacrifice her needs for mine and I'm a grown ass woman.

I love my sisters.  Growing up there was a large enough gap that I couldn't get in trouble with them.  I was telling on them because of what I saw them do with the boys they brought around.  Later they were telling on me.  When I was younger, they had moments of trying to be the sisters I needed them to be but I was too selfish to appreciate it.  One sister would pick me up for lunch during junior high and we'd sit and chat and she always made me feel so great when I went back to class with a doggy bag full of yum.  Another took me to a house party where she threatened me not to take anything.  It was years before I realized she meant drugs.  Eventually I was acting out in terrifying ways and they stepped in as mother hens, pecking and guiding me in ways I rebelled against.  As a wife, and later a mom, we found a place where our commonalities no longer throw us into a system of dominance, but allow space for connection.  They still have moments where I feel they are shocked at the things I say and do but the overall feeling is that we are so blessed to have each other.  We will defend and guide each other.  We want what is best for each other and that looks like happiness.  Even if we have to tell each other how we think they should do it.

Romantic love is so often written and sung about because we're all excited and confused about it all.  The hard reality of a love that I let consume me is that it often means I'm so happy with what it feels like that I'm willing to accept the bad and even the abusive. With all the bad, it's still a risk I am willing and happy to take.  There is freedom in letting go.  There is joy in the unexpected.  There is love and it's everywhere and I get to pour what I have into someone else and that ability to give love, whether or not I receive it in return is where my joy is because I have learned how to love myself first.  I don't need to be filled and fixed but there is freedom and peace in what I can give.

I'm excited that I get to fall in love again.

Give it to me because I want it.

When I was a little girl, my parents would take us into the heart of Hollywood where we walked along Hollywood Blvd. and read the names on the stars on the sidewalk. We stopped for ice cream in freshly made waffle cones with a maraschino cherry or a ball of bubblegum in the bottom and checked out all of the stores selling souvenirs. On one trip I remember putting a red plastic toy watch in my pocket. I also stole candy that night. They were little individually wrapped hard candies and I shoved them deep into my pocket, hiding them carefully for later. Later never came because as we continued along the street, I pulled out my new watch and got caught.  I couldn't wait for what I wanted and needed to have my immediate gratification. My parents did the responsible thing and made me go back and return it.  Getting caught sucked.

I feel it's normal to want something we don't have.  We go to extremes because we imagine how wonderful it would be to have that thing we want.  My first example for you was stealing.  We might take something if we feel like we can get away with it.  I thought I was in the clear with my little red plastic watch and I was ready to wear it and enjoy it.

We'll diet and exercise for a perfect body . . . Well, you might but I most certainly will not. If it doesn't feel good, you aren't selling it to me.

We save our money and forgo things we like and are comfortable with for something that matters more.

We'll negotiate and plead and beg for what we want.

We'll work hard toward what we want.  Making plans and setting goals is my idea of fun.  It lands me elbows deep in a spreadsheet.

We'll even face repeated rejections if that means there's a possibility we'll get what we want.  (It's always going to be about a boy.)

We'll even eat our vegetables so we can have cheesecake for dessert.  Doesn't it bite when you get through all of your brussels sprouts only to find out someone else ate your cherry pie?

I've been wanting to write a great big novel for years.  Each November 1st I watch Twitter light up with writers participating in NaNoWriMo and I want to be them, but I haven't been them.  Something inside of me shattered under the pressure of what I thought I was supposed to be and do made it really difficult to write.  I couldn't see the end and if I did, it wasn't fun anymore.  I couldn't get myself to set the time aside.  Once upon a time, I had to force myself to stop writing so I could eat or sleep.

The other night I felt the spark of a story that was pulling me along.  It felt amazing to be so involved in what I was writing and it was terrifying at the same time.  I want to write but the weight of the story that was filtering through me was different. It was a compulsion that kept me from the drama of being Mom in the middle of kid fits and it calmed the rage that was building in making me want to disconnect.  (The rebellious side in me ignores life in literature because I grew out of the scary things I used to do.) As much fun as I have blogging, the writing is not as serious or driven by deep need as writing out fiction (my dialog skills suck, so you may never see it).  As much as my blog started from a very broken place, there has been healing and there are no longer itchy scabs begging to be peeled so the wound can flow freely again.  I don't know when that happened but it is a good feeling.

I often see my blog as more frivolous.  I write short (to me) posts that map out something I think or feel or just the way I see the world.  It's silly and each post can stand alone.  It's really just just something to write to get back into the habit of writing.  I want to get back to what writing used to be and blogging is my gateway drug.  But I've been neglecting my blog for bigger, and it's a kid free night and I'm not sure if I want to do anything other than go home and write, and that excites me.

My Dad has always had projects he was working on.  I remember being a little girl and laying in bed wide awake. I purposely didn't cover myself with my blankets because I wanted my Dad to come tuck me in.  He was busy writing and didn't know about this until we talked about it last week.  I need to be intentional about being a Mom and make sure my words don't replace my kids, because my kids aren't imaginary.

Serious writing means I'll have to remember to eat.  I'll have to set aside time to function as a human that does dishes and laundry, but I get to write.  I will have to mother with intention.  I will have to remember to not neglect my blog because it brings me serious joy and I'll need it when I get to the revisions and editing phases that are tedious and frustrating.

The Person I'm Becoming

I was never a full on good person.  I wasn't an ideal daughter because rebellion was my way of filling a void I couldn't wrap my head around.  I wasn't a good sister because I was so angry that our age gap meant they were more like extra moms that were bossier than our mom.  I got hitched and poured myself into being a good wife.  I wanted to be what I thought I was supposed to be.  As a new mom, that meant keeping a crying infant quiet during long nights alone and keeping the house clean when it was the last thing I wanted to do.  It was a lot, and I called my mom when my son was 4 months old and I cried in gratitude because she didn't kill me as an infant.  I let those ideals go when I realized I was  putting my son's life in danger because of what I thought I should do.I used to lie a lot.  Everything was about how I spun it and I felt if I threw enough sugar on it, I could make cotton candy.  I lied about big and little things.  It drove the ex crazy and stopping was because I had to decide that telling the truth means I'm not ashamed of the truth and if I need to hide it, maybe I need to adjust my actions to live fearlessly.

I get to be an auntie.  It may sound silly because none of my siblings are expecting as far as I know, but I get to be an auntie. I have many, many nieces and nephews. When my sisters were pregnant, if they were willing, I was able to rest my hand on round bellies and wait for a tap from the life within.  I was in hospital rooms full of gore and only saw the joy of a growing family as I cradled my nieces and nephews and sang the first of many lullabies to them.  I gave them hugs and loved them and they were my joy.  I saw all of the good in my siblings within the younger generation, but none of the things that sparked sibling rivalries.  I poured love and hope into these children and delighted in the visible curiosity in their smiles and the dawning realization of connections made with chubby hands and large heads.  I changed diapers and chased naked babies that would flip over and crawl away from me in mischief and my frustration.  I got peed on and pooped on (my niece nailed my face and hair) and I had first steps that collapsed into my open arms.  There's so much good in being the auntie that never gets too tired because she gives them back.

I saw one of my nephews today and we talked a bit about life and what he's up to.  I assured him it was curiosity and not judgment because no matter what he does, I will always love and be proud of him because he is my nephew and that is enough. I told him about my love life and what it looks like right now, and he told me how great it is to really see me happy.  He expressed his anger with my ex, who was his uncle for nearly his whole life.  It wasn't just the husband he was to me, but the uncle he was to my nephew and the person he was in general.  He didn't have to say it but I know it was the person I was as an auntie with him.  In my rush to stay on the high road, I told him he didn't need to defend me and dishonored his need to be heard and have his feelings validated.  Auntie failed.  I get to make up for it when I see him again, because I gave him a house key with a fridge to raid and a safe place to come whenever he needs to.  I can do that now that I'm the one in charge of my home.

I just sent off a care package to another nephew that just went away to college.  As I was shopping and picking out junk foods and snacks, it occurred to me that I had no idea what my nephew even likes.  It was another auntie fail.  There is nothing to do about that but notice and change it.

I get to be a daughter and spend the time needed by my parent when they are going through something terrifying.  I get to trust that my children are safe and cared for and they don't need me to be with them when I need to be the daughter my Dad deserves and the example of what I think that entails to my kids.  I don't need to wait until I have time or until I can make arrangements.  I can just be, because in letting go, there is trust and faith in the support that has been supporting me.  The older two were with their Dad.  The baby was with my mom and I could just be a daughter.

My big sister said, "Thanks for everything . . . and stepping up to the plate!!" I didn't know how to respond because I couldn't admit in that moment that I had held myself back for so long because I needed to be more of a wife than a daughter and I felt the shame and regret filling my lungs and blinked away the tears that didn't have permission to escape.  I was this daughter to my father in law.  I was this mother to my kids.  I was a wife in what I thought I was supposed to do and failing my individual needs at the same time. I had a long talk with my brother in law and the family consensus seems to be that we're all happy that I am happy, but it appears that I have a new willingness to do what I wouldn't have done before and I'm no longer using my role as a wife as an excuse to not be an aunt, or daughter or sister.

I won't say it's all about what I was or wasn't allowed to do.  I made a choice.  I wanted to make sure my ex was okay with staying home with kids because it was my job as a stay at home mom, but I treated him like he was babysitting his kids.  I let this excuse stop me from visiting one of my sisters when she was hospitalized.  I'm throwing away excuses and learning to Be.  Right now.  I'm not waiting to have what I think I need. I'm not creating a list of things I need to do in order to decide that I can do what is necessary. I can be what I choose in this moment.

The Loudest Silences

There is silence in the void of emotion that carries what was into what will be and in the space between the event and the reaction is where power crackles and coils and the smell of electricity burns memories into every future that you force through your past.

I can't. I won't. It has never been in me to be.

She sat in the driver's seat without a place to go because she was lost without his directions.  The playlist wasn't on repeat and the car fell silent but the oppressive weight on her ears that screamed into the quiet with the pressure of his expectations was pushing in ways she felt but couldn't understand. Then it dawned on her that there's an app for that and it's up to her to decide, and then to go.

I'm not enough, or maybe I'm too much.

I waited for tears to fall and wash away what was building so terribly inside of me . . . but they didn't come.  The ache and moan and hollowed brokenness are not enough to mourn.  I feel it but it's not as bad as fear told me it would be. Was it a real loss if you aren't lost?

That idea is too boring to me to flesh out for you. No one else will care.

My ass is on that line, but I'm squirming uncomfortably.  I won't stay where I intend to be.  I won't sit where the meaning is meaningful. It's too much to commit to my words having meaning you might want to understand, and yet the emotions brew dangerously close to the surface and the rage I quieted wants release in words that build up and crescendo into the deepest parts of your mind.  I don't need to change the world, but I need to make you feel and I need your reaction. One word at a time, a series of paragraphs.  I won't stop.

You don't have time to do what you think you want to do.

I paid the bill for your growth because I put my money where my faith is.  You get my time, and my efforts and my belief and I'm lacking in time because I refuse to look at the belief I have in you that I've displaced out of my reach for myself.  But today I'm being selfish and taking whole minutes for myself to do what I want to do because I'm learning what that looks like and things are shifting because I have enough to give enough to the things I believe in.

There's silence between us in the feelings we refuse to express.

We talk and dance around the obvious in favor of the inane because there are feelings and emotions that are brewing and burning with a desire to be expressed fully and fearfully and with wondrous transparency.  We look and verbally dance around what will not be said because being children together is easier than what you would expect from grown folks.

The duty of living falls silently and solidly on us.

When we were young we had dreams and made plans that were bigger than the plans.  Bills became burdens and our ideas were pushed by the ideals and we were forced to face the work that is required in doing what we aspire to be.  But we live together and know we share a burden that we didn't want.  There is silence in the work day because the cost of duty is our ability to complain.

We statue ourselves silently so our fears can speak for us.

When the first tower fell there was shock, but the dawning realization of intent fell with the second one.  In fall of 2001 I was on bedrest with my first pregnancy and had no other option than to obsessively watch.  With the rest of the world, I watched lives fall apart and the confidence of a nation buckled to the sweeping desire for rage and retribution. It's fingers slid insidiously into the psyche of a generation who hasn't experienced national peace since then.  My children haven't seen what complete peace without national conquest looks like. I vaguely remember it myself. I sat with my first child in my belly, wondering about the legacy I was nailing to his future.  It was a moment where true faith in the inherent good of human nature stood silently alongside my fear and held me accountable to my individual decision to not cash that check of terror that was handed to us.  I do not live in fear, nor has that ever been a viable option to me.

A Moment of Gratitude

Last night I was having a hormonal pity party and a friend's perfectly timed messages gave me space to indulge in the feelings and then forced perspective, because I can choose how I want to react to the life I get to live.  It inspired a moment where I wanted to enjoy another post on gratitude. This one won't just be about men though.  It'll mainly be about men.  Isn't it always about a boy?

Thank you for noticing me and telling me you did.  That unexpected compliment was perfectly timed, but then they all are.

Thank you for wanting revenge on my behalf and respecting the higher road I've been dancing on.

Thank you for trusting me with your darkness and fully embracing mine.

Thank you for teaching me new things and being patient with my ability to make a simple problem complex. It's a super power.

Thank you for never making me feel the burden of what I did to your life.  I imagined what it was to find out I was coming and my version looks nothing like what you have always made me feel.  You amaze me.

Thank you for all of the loving pet names you use in our conversations that remind me that I am special to you.

Thank you for the trips down memory lane that we can laugh at now that you are no longer a 15 year old virgin.  Sorry for the power I enjoyed holding over you and the fun I had at your expense.

Thank you for making me feel like one of the guys.  Pizza and beer with a stogie and Monday night football are still happy memories.

Thank you for that amazing summer.  I can't think of Manhattan Beach without remembering our friendship.  I wouldn't want to.

Thank you for accepting that I grew out of my Freakzilla phase, but I want you to know I hold onto what I learned because of our deep conversations and your perspective.

Thank you for teaching me that exercise should always look like play.

Thank you for acknowledging that I had the ability to hurt others and for showing me I didn't have to.

Thank you for trusting that I will fight for you for as long and as hard as it takes because that is who I am.

Thank you for being my wing-man, and understanding that not everyone deserves an introduction while laughing at my insane reasons for rejection.

Thank you for rooting for me.

Thank you for feeling like you need to feed me.  It's sweet.

Thank you for the hug that felt like I was cradled and safe and words weren't necessary.

Thank you for the amazing you handed me without my ever needing to ask.

Thank you for going with my zany thoughts and ideas and never feeling like they needed to be smaller for you.

Thank you for indulging in my food joy moments that made no sense to you until you tasted what I had in mind.

Thank you for your spontaneity and the excitement you gave me when I gave you a yes.

Thank you for gelato when you knew I needed it.

Thank you for making things easy when I could only see obstacles in front of me.

Thank you for listening to me rant, and not trying to offer anything more than an ear.

Thank you for believing in me and putting your money where your trust was.

Thank you for not pushing when you saw me withdraw.

Thank you for showing me how affected you are by me.

Thank you for telling me more than you were comfortable sharing.

Thank you for teaching me how to throw a punch and what part of my foot to use to nail that roundhouse kick.

Thank you for teaching me how to change a tire.  And thank you for paying for my roadside assistance so I didn't have to.

Thank you for picking me up and taking me out to lunch.

Thank you for unexpected flowers and cards.

Thank you for our girl dates and pedicures and letting me tell you the many things you saw before I could.

Thank you for being polite.  And thank you for not being polite.

Thank you for disappearing from the world, but taking me with you.

Thank you for telling me all the things you adore about me.

Thank you for showing me that only the really great ones should end up in the friendzone.

Thank you for telling me that a whore sleeps with everyone, but a bitch sleeps with everyone but you, and accepting that sometimes there is no sleeping with anyone.

Thank you for your many guidelines for dating and laughing as I told you about the rubric for dating I was already using.

Thank you for helping me pick out a skirt, even though you hated shopping for women's clothes as much as I did.

What Used to Fit

The plan was to wear a dress today.  I have a thing I get to do after work and I wanted to dress up a bit.  When I first bought the dress, I loved the way it skimmed my hips and held my curves in front and back.  It hugged me and I wasn't wearing that dress nearly as much as it wore me.  It has large flowers in black and red and white and the red matches my favorite lipstick perfectly.  It's not super short and ends just above the tattoo on my thigh. I felt so sexy and confident in it.  It was perfect for today. I laid it out last night with my favorite black pumps.  After my shower I tried it on. I'm too small for it.  The dress is the same but it doesn't fit anymore.  What felt sexy is now silly with material to pinch instead of my softer marshmallow fluff.  I miss my fluffy bits.  It felt like being a kid in my Mom's shoes, but when I looked in the mirror, I was missing her grace and beauty.  In a panic I reached for my stand by little black dress and it is a size larger than the one I planned to wear.

I'm not dieting.  There is no exercise happening for my body.  It's not intentional at all. It's a shift in how I eat. The idea of my not eating something that tastes good and feels good is insane to me.  My food choices are epicurean in taste as well as sensory satisfaction.  I love food.  I know, it seems like something most people can get behind, but I really sincerely love food.  I love tastes and textures.  I love food combinations and unexpected nuance.  Throw fresh mango in my California Roll.  Add bleu cheese and fresh rosemary to my sweet potato fries.  Under the right conditions, a bite of heaven can sound like it needs an adult rating from me. I've changed.  I'm still changing.

Some changes happen quickly.  It's amazing how a uterus shrinks as soon as it's emptied after pregnancy. In the hours after giving birth, I was able to push a fist through my stomach.  The right and left halves of abdominal muscles split during pregnancy, to give room for that baby bump.  It means there was a huge gap that I had fun poking into where I was squishy and soft and it was immediate.  My body shifted in concert, but not uniformly.

Some changes are more gradual.  I was a larger woman two years ago.  I was probably even growing.  My favorite midnight snack was a can of Campbell's Chunky soup with a fist full of shredded cheddar on top of another fist of French Fried Onions. I eat when I'm hungry now, and skip meals when I'm not. My eating habits have changed.  I don't like being so full I can't do more than sit and digest, and waiting five minutes for more room isn't a habit anymore. The proof is in the shrinking of my body.  It started with jeans that needed a belt to stay up.  I shrunk enough to need new jeans and it's happened again, but now I need to find a new little black dress and bikini and the idea stresses me out.  I hate shopping for clothes.  I know, I don't deserve the breasts I was born with. I've gained confidence where I was only insecure before.  That's a plus, but there is space I wasn't prepared for in the shifting of my body away from clothes that fit and felt terrific before.

I'm in a pair of slacks in a boring color because I wasn't thinking of how sexy feels when I bought the suit a couple of months ago.  It fits but it doesn't make me feel like a lioness on the prowl for a bite and conquest.  It feels like what I felt when I bought it but even my personality has shifted enough that it's not working for me anymore. There is space in shifting who I am and where I belong and while the old was familiar and comfortable, it doesn't fit and makes me look ridiculous.  I can try to put on the past but it falls around me in excess and I'm looking for a way to make things fit when they can't.  It's time to give away the old and look for the new.

Risk Taking

The safe road is the one I've already been on.  It's the road with the memory of before that informs me of my limits.  It tells me where I need to stop so I don't feel pain. It's the road that can't see the future because what is in front of me is from the past.  What if the road itself is a construct that doesn't have to exist? What if a risk could involve flight? What if we never have to land because what is above is stronger than gravity?

Risk itself seems scary.  True fear is the underlying inability to trust what is out of my control. Control is an illusion and I have based so much on a false reality.  I can't control anything.  I can try to align things in a way that they might fall in expected patterns, but really I have no choice in what happens, only how I respond or react to it.  I get to give my fear away to the risks I am willing to take.  I get to see what happens and I get to start controlling how I choose to respond.  I get to live in this moment, at this time, right now.  I won't fear the past because it's already happened and I won't give up my future to what I may never see.

Love

The poets get it wrong.  Love is not painful.  Knowing what love is and then knowing what it feels like when it goes away is where we find the pain that so many write about.  We go from the excitement of finding someone that seems so amazing that there has to be a catch.  We look forward to a smile and try to memorize a voice and when it combines into the sound of their laughter there isn't a sound in the world that can hold more magic.  We long for the scent of their body calling us closer.  We crave the warmth of a hug and tender kisses that melt us into a puddle of carefree abandon in arms strong enough to support us. We like knowing that what we are waiting for is sitting in ourselves for someone else and they are just as excited to see us.

I look for the loose strings that could unravel a blanket and I pull and yank.  When it's still beautiful, I begin to trust that this blanket could keep me warm and comfort insecurities.  I start taking it everywhere, and start wrapping it into shapes that make the blanket into a vessel and I pour all of my hopes, fears, and insecurities into it.  I expect it to still be beautiful even though I've twisted it into something it was never meant to be, and I've given it a heavier burden than it was ever meant to carry.  At some point, the blanket is still a blanket and it will need to be shaken out to rid itself of the positions I've forced it into, dropping the weight of my belongings, and freeing itself of the crumbs I've left from that gluten free cracker binge during the latest novel I read while ignoring the fact that the blanket needed to be more than my blanket and had a beauty of its own to display.  There's a disconnect and a shift and the flat blanket and my strewn belongings leave me lost and in pain and suddenly cold, and I am left picking up my things that may have gotten broken when they landed on the floor.  Maybe I should have put my own things away instead of throwing them on the bed.

Anger

I picked the kids up early on Sunday evening, and they were distraught because as Kid3 put it, "Daddy tried to lie about where you were.  He said you were on a date at the beach." All 3 were angry.  Kid3 was able to express that he felt like his trust was violated.  I reminded the kids that the beach is my special place and while I've taken them to the beach, I haven't taken any dates to the beach. I prefer to go alone.  The last time I was at the beach with my son I saw that photographer that wants what I'm not offering and I waved but didn't stop because my son doesn't need to worry about anyone that I wouldn't want to make into a step dad.  I reminded them that I had a class over the weekend and I told them I wouldn't be available in the week leading up to it.  My kids need to know what is coming. They were prepared.  After that was settled, I told them if they were upset with their parents, it's their responsibility to tell us what we did wrong so we can fix it.  They did good in telling me, but they can talk to their Dad too.

Last night my son asked for an app on the old iPhone I gave him when I upgraded my phone.  It allows you to prank dial people and it was free, and I didn't mind.  Actually, I was in the middle of a very fun venture toward risk in my own love life.  I wasn't concerned.  It's summer and phone shenanigans were my thing at his age too. My son was with his grandmother, my younger siblings and his cousins.  A while later I got an angry call from his Dad because my son's game looked like a car accident with my ex's name and number as the responsible party.  There were calls to his special friend as well and they thought it was my idea to be a 12 year old. To my ex, it looked like I had someone in my family (my mom's number) harassing him and his special friend.  There was ugliness for me to face but I'm a grown up.

It was a moment when I felt pride in my son.  I know, it looks like I was happy that my son would try to annoy his father.  It's not that at all.    Prank calling his Dad was my son's risk in telling him he was angry.  He didn't use words expressing his feelings.  They don't have the rapport we do.  But he expressed his anger and frustration, rather than holding it in.  We'll have to have a talk about his need to defend me.  After all, I'm a grown up when I'm not crushing hard on a hottie.

Writing

This weekend I decided I would take greater risks in my writing.  I'm playing with ideas and outlining that great big terrifying novel I've always wanted to write.  Scrivener will finally get the attention I promised when I paid for it.  My laptop will finally be used for more than a blog post and random searches to satisfy my curiosity.  Or my more sappy lovesick stalking sessions. I will rip open healed wounds and pour myself into my writing in a way that I've always feared because it's time.  I'm ready.  The fear of not being creative enough, or not having time, or coming up with stupid ideas that no one will care about are now unwelcome guests that I never planned to invite to my party.  I've sent them home and changed the locks.

Life

So much of what I do or have done is dictated by the results I've already seen.  True risk involves taking chances based on the dreams you have.  Big or small, a dream is a dream and either it will happen or it won't.  I will not wait until I have what I think I need.  I will not wait until I can do what I think I need to do.  I'm here.  I can be what I want to be, right here and now.

Relationships

I had a conversation with my Mom last night that started after a hug that surprised her.  It was a hug where I held her tight and wrapped my love into her being.  It was after I looked her in the eyes and really told her how much I appreciated her.  There was a moment this weekend when I thought back to the time when she had me.  There was a moment when I saw the situation she faced and considered what I might have felt in her shoes.  I never once felt like she treated me the way I would have felt.  She only gave me love, no matter how many times I pushed or walked all over her.  I told her about the daughter I saw in her when she cared for my grandmother until her last day.  I told her how proud I was of her example. I later saw my step-dad and we talked from our car windows, but it was a moment of telling him that I appreciate the man he is to me and my children.  I told him I loved him.  Both times I was wounded by the surprise I received because I could see how much of my authenticity I was holding away from two people that mean so much to me.  I'm amazed at the beauty I can see in the people around me and I don't want to go back to who I was before I really saw all I did in my parents and myself this past weekend.

The Unknown in Others

So much fear comes from what we don't know or understand.  It looks like what we use to separate us from other people.  Race, sexual orientation, ability, belief . . . They are excuses to strange ourselves as we ostracise others.  Embrace what you don't know.  I don't mean blatant cultural appropriation but a full and meaningful embrace of what is unknown to the point where fear becomes appreciation of the neighbor you at one time didn't understand.  Embrace different.  Take a risk and be rewarded by it.

Perspective Shift

It's the second day I've stepped into my morning shower with a song in my heart and a dance in my steps.  Seriously singing and dancing in the shower like I did in high school.  I never said I'm into personal safety, but I am joyful. I'm not a victim to the life I get to live.

I get to be an autism mom.

I get to be a responsible daughter.

I get to be a reliable sister.

I got to be a stay at home mom and I get to start a career at 38.

I got to be a wife, and now I get to fall in love again.

This weekend I was singing.  It wasn't the typical singing a song while working because I want to forget that I hate what I have to do.  It wasn't singing in church.  I was singing a song to someone.  It was a serenade as an expression of the love I wanted to shower them with.  It was beautiful and I wasn't worried about what my voice sounded like.  It was a hug that came from the deepest parts of my heart.

I get to balance my very own checkbook.

I get to rebuild my life so it is an expression of my choices.

I get to BE and I don't have to wait until I have or do.

I get to make up my own rules and I don't have to feel shame if I decide to break them.

I'm not responsible for the feelings of others.

I'm not tied to the feelings that come with experiences.

I can choose my reactions and the meanings I tie to my life.

I will do my best to honor the example given by the trainer we had in my weekend perspective overhaul.  When you put a rat in a maze, it will learn the quickest route to the reward left at the end of the maze.  Eventually, routine will replace the trial and error of scent that leads the rat to the reward.  If you move the reward, the rat will go on autopilot based on past experience, but the moment it realizes the reward was moved, the rat will sniff out it's new locations.  Humans have a hard time with that idea.  Especially with love.  We will continue to look in the same spot once our love has moved and we'll whine and complain, rather than looking elsewhere.  We'll wait endlessly for its return, complaining about what is missing and should be in the exact spot we left it. Right now I'm finding that love right here, within me.

I get to take myself out and show myself the best of everything I could ever dream to experience.  I get to live by choice. I can be and watch the doing unfold into the here and be surrounded in my bliss.  And I get to show my boys how to do it too.

Don't envy me.  You can have it too.

Transformational Training

The end of this week has been spent in a personal development course.  I had a friend really push me toward the course because it was amazing to her and she saw the potential for it to be amazing to me.  I didn't want to go, but more than that, I didn't want to disappoint this friend.  I started without real expectations and came in with a boatload of skepticism.  The course is called, "Basic" and it's held by Mastery in Transformational Training. An initial online search and sycophantic encouragement from a room full of people at this friend's birthday party had me convinced it was a cult.  I joked about heading off to be brain washed to friends because I was curious, but not convinced it was a wholesome experience.  There were too many red flags for me.  There were definite moments where this was reinforced.  Everything is done with the intention of taking all of your beliefs and restructuring them based on new perspectives.  It's not far from where I had gotten in writing by myself.  I am not the child I was when pain first left it's mark in disappointment.  As an adult, I can honor that pain, but I no longer reside in it.  It is not my reality.

The class has games and directed meditations that will deepen your perspective of the life you lead and your motivations.  There are moments when your classmates will work together to cull the person you want to be out of the heaviness of who you've become.

There was a moment of being called out and it hit me so profoundly.  Part of what I was told was that I am arrogant.  There are other words, but this was the most meaningful, because immediately I found this to be true.  It was a moment that brought shame, but as the thought settled into the fine lines of my identity, I considered where it came from.  I have spent so long feeling like nothing that the idea of being more than I was became a drug and a balm and a protection to me.  I couldn't decide if this arrogance was a bad aspect of my identity.  I still can't.  At the same time, one of the things I deeply want that I don't feel I have is confidence.  My arrogance is a mask and a protection.

The class also showed me that I don't take risks because of the control I need and the underlying fear that stops my development.  I want to take risks. I want to live in bravery despite my fear.  I want to do more and be better. I need to take the unknown road and commit to a bigger gamble.

There are other areas that have shifted and expanded for me . . . areas I didn't know existed.  Through writing, I was fairly certain I had worked through my Mommy and Daddy issues, but there was a deeper layer I had never explored because I didn't realize it existed.  It is a layer that at times makes me give space without realizing the pain it likely causes the people I love. How do we deny ourselves to others? How do we ignore them, and in so doing, what kind of example am I being to my sons? I learned from an Uncle that we are either the parent or the child in our relationships and we can choose what to be.  I've since learned that as an adult, I can be an adult with my parents and it may actually learn their respect. I realized that it breaks my heart that I don't often see my parents profoundly joyful, and it's hard to see them age into the natural order of life when they have always been so strong, secure and independent.

I have sibling issues.  Birth order issues.  I did not know this. I saw it in a game we played and it is an example for the life I lead.  I didn't want to learn the rules of the game.  I wanted to sit on the sidelines and pick a side that had more to do with the shade of lipstick I love.  I wanted to listen and laugh at the snarky opinions I held that labeled the others in my group.  I do this in life and with my family.  Being the baby for as long as I was, my opinions weren't valued.  To this day, I wear a skepticism that negates any possible praise.  My older siblings have moments where there is awe and acceptance for some of the major ideals that I share and this awe feels like condescension that I could come up with valid ideas that are too strong for a baby sister.  I see myself as the baby and have yet to see myself as an adult.  It was something that played out just on Father's Day.  I had an opinion that I negated without trying to be heard and at the end of the day, it was something we did and we all enjoyed.

Mostly the class so far has given me this perspective of authenticity in relationships that is in many ways still a haze of nebulous beauty.  I don't want to feel like my motives are ulterior and I want to give a fully disclosed transparency to others.  I want them to know why I feel they are amazing and why I want their time.  I want to understand what makes me see others as any less than beautiful and what could I do to make the interaction one where I don't feel victimized by a power struggle but empowered by mutual respect and love.

I'm not a crying type but I left last night's training after a day of tears that surprised me.  It wasn't all sorrow.  There was dancing and deep connection and hugs that brought so much joy and sorrow that there were tears and smiles and encouragement.  There was a shift and there was growth.

I headed to the beach because that is where I reboot and decided I would feed a hungry person.  I ran into Patrick with the blue eyes and he remembered me from the last meal I gave him.  We sat for a bit and I listened openly to him tell me about being younger in Arcadia and he now lives near my Mom.  I was in a state of giving because of all I had received.  Today is the last day and then we graduate.  They suggest we surround ourselves with family and friends but I'm choosing not too.  Everything is so fresh and raw and I'm hollowed out in places that I want to heal before I reach out with healing scabs.  I need to process it still.

It's not a cult, but they will scrub your brain.  In a good way.

It's Enough

Half shrouded in shadow and mist this shy moon shimmers on the rippling waves it pulls in gravitational servitude. My fractured memories are stripped and reshaped with a loving balm of forgiveness. Raw emotions and eyes roughened with tears are the only mark left on this moment and somehow it's enough. I am enough.

Life Matters

I see the pain masked as anger online and there is overwhelming sadness.  It's the rage that comes out and the blind prejudice that allows people I love and admire to forget that someone's child was involved in their stereotypes.  We're losing parents, children, siblings, relatives and friends.  There's no justification, but there is plenty of pain. I won't tell you how to grieve because there is honor in recognizing our collective loss.  Hate doesn't serve as much as hinder your ability to create the change you want to see. I had a consultation with an attorney once and I was asked if the situation I was seeing him about was racially motivated.  It wasn't.  It was just a case of someone needing to see that they did something wrong. There's blissful ignorance in being raised where and when I was.  I couldn't see race unless it was right in front of me.  I heard about the KKK being in Glendale and San Diego, but I didn't see it growing up.  There was racial tension  but it wasn't black and white in my youth. I once visited a courthouse in Texas where two water fountains still stood.  The label for who could use it was long gone, but the condition of the fountains made it plain to see which was once only for colored.  My Dad could tell you about the fear he grew up in and specific people lost to racial hate as he was growing up.  We were all kids perpetuating someone else's hate.  Well, we were all kids.  I straddle too many identities to claim ownership of a racial bias and be proud of it.  I try to be open to diversity because it's who I am.

For a while after the latest major shooting when the police were a constant presence in my son's school, I would intentionally take my son to the officers and make sure he saw me say, "thank you for your service."  Anyone in uniform close enough to appreciate gets a moment of my time, and firefighters get my gratitude for the firehouse that saved Kid3 from a near drowning and I do this no matter who is with me or watching. My boys have seen me buy the coffee the officers behind me ordered in the Starbuck's drive-thru.  I hope to teach my kids that it's best to follow the rules and guidelines that keep them away from the focus of police, but that in an emergency, they are the ones we turn to.  In peace, they are the ones that used to hand out baseball cards and stickers.  They ran the drug intervention program that encouraged us to D.A.R.E. to say No to Drugs.

Yes, there are stereotypes and it would appear that these people have become targets.  A critical eye would show you that there have been other people abused but rather than looking black, they look like people with mental illness and drug dependencies.  You can't see it because we've been gaslighted by the media.  They cover what they want us to see because sensationalized news brings in viewers that will spike marketing revenue.  It's all senseless tragedy, but there is value in the way we are shown what they want us to see and they know how to monetize it. That's why most reporters would make great fantasy material if you need more than a one-handed read for satisfaction.

My children were surprised that they are black too.  One summer of sunbathing and Kid3 was shocked that Kid2 looked black.  His Dad pointed to me and it suddenly clicked but my kids were all awestruck by the idea that they are black because I am. Their Dad is Irish and Dutch and his family name is the name of the River that Shakespeare was born on.  My family is also mixed.  My mother is from the countryside in Thailand.  My Dad has a heritage that dilutes his African blood into Mexico and Ireland with Choctaw Indian tribes and Sephardic Jewish traditions and was born in Houston.  His skin looks black but when my Grandmother passed, she looked caucasian from spending so much time out of the sun.  As a surrogate I gave birth to Muslim arab girls with fair skin and dark hair, a British American blue eyed and blonde haired boy and a sandy haired, fair skinned Jew.  I am mother and daughter and friend to so many nations that I can't see this problem as entirely racial.

It's about power and fear and the fact that policemen were made of murderers. The power we bestow is not a pressure that everyone is meant to be burdened by.  Ben Parker once told his nephew that "with great power comes great responsibility." I believe that. (It may or may not be a Spider Man reference.)It's not in the guns we give but the expectations we have. We expect our officers to put their lives in danger and to rescue us in times when our worlds are collapsing.  They are expected to be hero and therapist and defender.  They see the vilest capabilities of humanity and are expected to remain level headed because we expect more from them than we would from ourselves.  I can't justify the terrible loss that our nation suffers with every unfortunate and senseless loss of life, but I will not vilify every single human being that chooses duty beyond my capabilities and comprehension.  It's not every officer.  It's not race as much as power and the ability to dominate another human being while facing real and irrational fears.

I live in the United States.  We're not used to people being beheaded or street bombs killing large groups.  While we have soldiers serving outside of our country, we are shielded from the realities of war and the scars that live underneath the surface for our soldiers.  Every single one matters because this is not our normal.  This is not acceptable.

Black lives matter.  So do female lives, and gay lives.  So do the lives of the mentally disabled and the lives of the people that end up on a dangerous street without street knowledge.  Your neighbor's lives matter. The kids that could use intervention instead of your fear . . . their lives also matter.  Police and military lives matter.  Homeless lives matter.  Life matters.

It's not enough to march and yell and intimidate others to get our point across.  Change starts in the individual and the learning by example we give our children.  Learn to love what you don't understand and the fear and hate will have nowhere to go.

Gaslighting

I'm not a therapist qualified to explain gaslighting other than the dialogues that I've reexamined in my own life in the past year and a half.  A great starting place is here. A better than I care to write explanation comes from here where I borrowed:

The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1944 film, ‘Gaslight,’ where a young woman named Paula falls madly in love with her suitor, Gregory. After an intense romance that led to marriage, Gregory begins to display pathological narcissistic behavior, leading to Paula’s insanity. In one scene, Gregory tampers with the gas light in the attic, causing the house lights to dim. When Paula mentions hearing footsteps in the attic and the lights dimming, Gregory tells her it’s completely her imagination, making Paula question her judgment. Gaslighting is now the widely used term for when a narcissist truly messes with your head.

My friends didn't approve.  They wanted someone handsome and smart and someone that treated me well and I couldn't see that he wasn't all of this.  I had love in my eyes and I couldn't see.  I had to protect him from their jokes and their mean because I wanted him to be okay and they wouldn't have let me keep him.

There was a time when my opinions were met with defiance.  I saw it was yes and he insisted it was no.  I said it was this way and he thought my eyes were tired, I couldn't see in the lighting we had.  It was no and it was always no, but I saw yes and said it was no to stop fighting. I hate fighting and I'd rather be wrong.

Seasons shifted and friends melted away.  He didn't like who I was with her and she was crass and loud and didn't like how he treated me, but this was normal, right?  Choosing the one that kisses you and letting go of your friends that know you and see the energy shift in you that came from him is what you do when your love is all consuming. This is what it looks like when you feel love . . . Right?

I wanted a night out with friends and we were meeting at a bar, but he insisted he should drive me and wait outside the bar with our kids in the family van until I was done.  I was being selfish and he was trying to protect me from myself.  It wasn't control because he was so upset about having to do it. Even if I didn't want him to.  That's normal, right? It's what a caring husband is supposed to do, isn't it?

Friends told me he was flirting but he was always a flirt.  He got it from his grandfather and I should accept that because that's who he was.  He once got in a fist fight with a complete stranger outside of our apartment building because he got a smile that seemed to say I was doing what he was.  I was covered in puke and running after baby needs and at a loss because I had no idea how to be a mom, but he thought I had energy or desire for anyone other than him because I was so tired, too tired to look at him.  Or anyone.

I started to shift around him afraid of his anger or worse, his sadness. My actions made him happy or sad. I made him do things and say things so I behaved in his way as best I could, chafing at what was right because I felt it was wrong. I stopped questioning if it was right because it didn't matter anymore.

I had errands to run . . . Target and groceries and he was home with kids, but an hour was enough and at that point he would text me for my location and when would I be home because he needed a break to run and go play and be with friends and I needed to be home with the kids because my time to run errands was a freedom he couldn't afford.

I would lose myself in a book or two or three in a day.  I would escape in another world so I wouldn't have to see what was in mine.  I would write until he would look for my words and use them against me.  He took the part of me that felt safety and freedom in crafting worlds of fiction and he made me feel that being a bookish broad took my marriage from me.

Last week was:

"For the record, I really  fucking hate you."

" . . . pussy that reflects badly on you is the open gape between your crusty thighs. I hope you catch something from all the whoring around you do and die so I can be rid of your skanky ass once and for all! Try not to knee yourself in the saggy tits!"

Joke's on him, I have no sex.

"Not the good Christian abandoned wife you pretended to be . . . Glad people finally get to see your true colors."

Yes.  I'm finally writing!

It's been a year of this including text messages from his "special friend." They both think I'm physically unattractive and a bad mother. It's been a dialogue I have no control over and a trust that is so broken that my need to control is fueled by this underlying fear and I'm faced with my inability to take risks.

My internal dialogue is I'm a single mom to autistic kids and that is a bag of rotten tomatoes no one will seriously want to invest in.  If he does, I worry he wants to victimize my kids.  So there is space and distance. And fear and I'm not looking for serious relationship material.  I can't have that right now.  It's not allowed and I won't allow it.

But there has been space.  There has been enough distance to see that my life and who I am has nothing to do with what he told me.  The shades of his lies still color my view and I will always wonder if I'm seen the way he saw me.  I will be insecure until I remember I don't have to be. It creeps out in new conversations and I look like there is a compliment I'm trying to find, but it's really a moment of forgetting who I am.

Single Mom to Boys

Waking up to a full house with small fry snuggles and the pop of a toy gun means I stumble out of bed with sore muscles from too much walking to amuse ourselves and prepare to short order cook through breakfast.  Country fried potatoes, with ham, with no ham, and less ham, Mom.  One wants eggs, the other says no, the third thinks I'm crazy for asking what I should remember.  French toast and syrup but why are there eggs? No, not that, anything but French toast with eggs in it. My child is antsy and skates through the house.  My care is still in bed and I mumble about pads.  He throws an empty beer can down the steps into the back yard and I tell him to go put it where it belongs.  I didn't mention he should take off the skates because I thought self-preservation would tell him for me.  He descends and toward the bottom he falls and he's landed on his stomach, crying but not moving as I'm covered in soapy suds.  Water is turned off and my hands are wiped on my sleep shirt as I run to his side unconcerned about how exposed I might be or the neighbor that said he wants to see what I'm showing.  I help him up and get the skates off but force him to walk up the steps as much as he can.  I need to see if he is physically able or if a broken bone won't allow such movement because it's a knee that was injured and scraped and brings tears.

In the kitchen he's passed my test and I reach down and lift him and cradle him to my chest.  The mom that claims no upper body strength . . . The woman that is too old to carry her 9 year old.  I carry him to the couch and set the pillows up to elevate the source of his pain, and head to the kitchen for a bag of frozen corn because sensory integration dysfunction is what we've called the destruction of all of the gel ice packs I no longer buy.  "Mom, I'm thirsty and hungry."  He didn't want my short ordered breakfast but he wants food and he wants me to get it because Mom's attention makes the pain go away.   He settles on leftover tri-tip for breakfast and I hope this morning isn't counted in the Mom of the year award nominations.  

I'm running around to pick up dishes and laundry and scrub around the toilet where aim was more like point and shoot and adjust pillows and refill drinks and sit long enough to be noticed and asked for a snack and then get rewarded in hugs and exposed cheeks that I cover in kisses.

I want to go to Mom's house for food and love and it's a day where I need my Mommy.  The kids are entertained by technology and have no interest in going.  "We'll only be there a little while." And I get a sulk and sadness and dejection.  I remember it's his holiday too and he's old enough to be home alone.  I leave him for a short run and we head to grandma's house long enough to show off my latest tattoo and tell the family I finally shot back at the ex who hates me and wishes me dead.  I'm growing in ways they can applaud and I'm given hugs and healing.

We're home and they're hungry because they couldn't possibly eat from the table loaded with fresh fruits, vegetables, barbecue ribs, chicken and thai foods at Grandma's house.  That would be too easy.  I'm home and step into the slow progression of my knife chopping through pounds of spuds for homemade mashed potatoes and the dredging of cubed steaks in flour and buttermilk and flour again, careful that they don't see it's gluten free for me, or they might not eat it.  I use too much sausage in my country gravy and know at least half of it will end up in the trash because Kid1 doesn't like gravy. Kid3 wants to watch the neighbors with their fireworks while I'm frying up dinner and I say no.  He screams and cries and slams doors and hides underneath bunk beds.  And I say no.  He rallies and reasons and screams in fits and I start singing just as loudly Cosette, then Eponine's lines in a Heart Full of Love, because performance holds the rage that is simmering because I've had enough.  The song ends and I offer another no, but he thinks his rage might win me over because he can't see past the calm I force.  He says no, and I remind him of the videos on Instagram that prove he doesn't know how close is too close to fire and that he didn't see the wisdom in taking off his skates before descending a flight of stairs.  He goes off to cry and I know I've hurt his feelings.  I care.

I give it time for him to cry and for myself to calm the rage before I find and apologize to him.  He rages through his hurt and blame, and I accept that he needs to explain his feelings.  Kid2 comes in to tell me how much he hates summer school and that I am a horrible parent for making him go to boring summer school because he hates learning and exercise and I ask him to leave the room so that I can cry.  I know this trick is dirty, but I needed the moment to not be yelled at.  I fake a cry that is a slow whimper of defeat while I watch animal videos on Facebook and try not to laugh and Kid3 climbs out from under the bed to wrap his little arms around me.  I open my arms and shield my tear free face from him and hold and kiss him and he apologizes for the anger he gave me.

Morning comes and Kid2 reminds me he doesn't want to go to summer school. He stomps and slams doors and yells that he doesn't want to go and I know I can't have a day where I have to go to the school and calm him down, so he is allowed to go to Grandma's house and Kid1 flips me off because he wants me to be a firm parent with Kid2.  A couple of hours later he's asking for minutes to be added to his phone and I give them to him because I had already offered the day before.

It's Wednesday.  I'm grateful for work and grateful that it's Dad's turn.  I'm aware of the guilt I have.  The guilt that they have to house hop when they don't like it.  Guilt that they have two houses of not enough because two houses are struggling on a single income and they are stuck in the middle.  I know the rage I quiet when facing the ocean and watching a sunset and feel I am their ocean and the abyss needs to house their rage in a safe place.

They Come First

The beauty is in its simplicity. I try to be the mom my boys deserve. That means I do what I would have wanted my mom to do. I try to instill in them what I have had to learn for myself.

I get one shot.

Either they will love me and no other woman can be me, or they'll hate me and want better, but I can always make a choice that will tilt the odds and the gamble is for fewer therapy hours because of my choices.

They come first.

Amusement Parks

Every summer when I was a kid was spent at amusement parks.  We went to Six Flags Magic Mountain the most and Knott's Berry Farm came in second.  There's sweet nostalgia in the biting smell of chlorinated water, the burn of heated oil frying funnel cakes, and the clank and roar of a roller coaster loaded with excitement. We would go in groups and make sure we were able to ride together, asking strangers to ride ahead of us. We were in large groups, playing hothands or slide in line as we would laugh and gossip and talk about cute boys.  Sometimes we would split off to ride different rides, and meet up for lunch at a designated spot and time.  It was an endless day of rides, plotting our day in a progression across the park, acre by acre, ride by ride, greasy treat followed by too much sugar.  And water rides.  The water rides were a morning, noon and night treat because in the morning and at night the lines were short, and at midday, we talked and got sunburns and didn't mind waiting two hours for a ride that lasted less than five minutes.

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." - Carl Jung

I was given about $40 and I had to really consider if food was more important than an airbrushed shirt.  All day in line with a cute boy and hand holding was different from back in the real world where we had friends that watched closer and had opinions.  I still remember a ride on Free Fall at Magic Mountain with a cute boy holding my hand and giving it a squeeze right when we dropped and for the first time really yelling on a ride because I generally smile and enjoy the drops and turns. He was flipping his baseball cap on and off his head with the visor and his hair was slicked back like a helmet. His name was Manny.  He changed the experience that day. 

"She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world."—Kate Chopin, "The Awakening"

Yesterday I took kid3 to Knott's Berry Farm.  His older brothers were at Anime Expo with their Dad so we had a mother and son date weekend. Age has done some wicked things to my body and things feel different.  They look different.  There was a determination to make the day one where my son could just be a kid.  It happened on our way into the park when I was telling him that my last trip was before I had kids when I went with my Dad.  Knott's honors our Veterans with free admission around Veteran's Day.  My son wanted to go then so it wouldn't cost me.  It was then that I realized he was so concerned about having enough that I wasn't allowing him to be a child.  He was worried about money. Before we set foot inside the park, I looked him in the eye and said the only thing he needed to worry about is how much fun he could have, and keeping me from puking.  He kept having moments of making a request, and then covering it up by saying he was just kidding.  I spent the day telling him that his thoughts, opinions and desires are important, and he doesn't have to be kidding, but any requests that had to be denied came with a reason that even he could validate.  If at anytime he had to go to the bathroom, was hungry or thirsty or wanted to see or do something, it was up to him.  There were limits, such as climbing on railings, but I wanted to stress how important his childlike innocence is to me.  Figuring out being a single mom is stressful and I didn't see until that moment how much it was weighing on him as well.

"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become." - Carl Jung

My stomach was different when I was younger.  It was stronger.  I was able to ride anything and shake it off to ride the next big coaster by the time we got through the long line. I loved the loops and riding backward. Now I don't.  Now the loops and spirals make me want to vomit.  Don't get me wrong, I've never been able to stomach a Merry-Go-Round.  I get dizzy.  But rides that twist and spin tend to make me want to vomit now so I avoid most rides that are not wooden coasters.

"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people." -Carl  Jung

There were many rides where I stood in line with my son and waited with him, only to step through and wait for him to ride alone.  Or I asked if others would ride with him.  It wouldn't have been fun for either of us if I got sick and we had to sit the whole day.  I know my limits. Mind you, only a few weeks ago, I got car sick in someone else's car.  (It might have just been a bad date and a reaction to him.) Wooden roller coasters are made for steep climbs and tremendous drops.  I love the weave back and forth. While Ghostrider made me burp like it was a Beerfest, I didn't want to hurl.  I was smiling throughout the ride.

At one point there was a family behind us complaining about the long wait. My child started to grumble.  I pulled my son into a hug and told him the long wait wouldn't get any shorter if we started complaining and it just means more time to hang out and give him my full attention. Then we started tickling each other. 

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." - Carl Jung

My son loves terrifying rides.  He feels fear and excitement and will talk about being afraid, but he's also very determined to ride in spite of his fear.  This is bravery and I am so proud of him.  At one point his determination made a grown woman suck it up and go on a ride she almost backed out of. 

Throughout the day, I was declining rides because of a fear of being sick.  It's a solid concern considering how consistently I get sick, but still, I kept chickening out.  The times I did get on rides, I laughed and screamed in joyful exhilaration while my son rode next to me with terror etched in his 9 year old features.  At the end of the ride, he was happy and excited and wanted to ride again while I was happy during the ride, and sick afterward.  I'm not sure what it means yet, but it means something, right?

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." -Carl  Jung

Dating Advice

I don't have real dating advice.  I'm not sure how seriously I'm taking it.  It's company that feels better than being alone and that hasn't happened yet.  Actually, I spent the weekend taking Kid3 on dates, and even with his tantrums and meltdowns, he's a better date than most of what I found online.  And I paid! I'm still wading through the messiness and I'm just sharing gold nuggets from some of the men in my life that are not interested in me because they know me too well, or their orientation means we share an interest in the same men. I'm out of practice and very impulsive in some ways. The men in my life are straight shooters and when I'm comfortable, you'll get that from me too.  They love me.  They know me.  They don't want me. What am I looking for? So far he's monogamous, physically attractive, well groomed, intelligent, cultured, patient with children (he may be a gay man), and only has eyes for me.

You need someone on your level.

Yes! I'm well read, relatively sharp (how much sleep are we talking?) and I can take care of myself and my boys.  I'm generally happy and I don't need attention as much as I want it.  I'm looking for a match that I won't have to make up for.  Well, looking is a strong word that I keep using for the meandering I actually do.

Some things should only be admired from a distance.

But sometimes they are so pretty and shiny.  I want to touch and obsess and learn every detail.  Then I remind myself I'm not a puppy and I can put the toy down.  But I don't want to. Call it sweet.  It may be a touch stalkerish.

Don't date at work.

You can't shit where you eat.  (Crude, yes, but the exact way it was said to me.) I tend to look for someone doing just as well as I am, or better, and it's hard to shut my eyes when the men parade so innocently past me when they don't know I was looking through my lust colored lenses.

Set your rules and don't break them.

I had stiff rules when I was online dating.  No delivery drivers but that is more about me than anyone else. I have issues.  They end up here where I can be followed and shared and bookmarked. No one younger than me, but that one is flexible in relation to how much drool we're dealing with.  He has to be smart enough that I'm constantly in awe of his huge ideas and observations.  He has to look better than I do.  I'm looking for beautiful but I'm shallow.  I own it.

Don't lead anyone on.

I have this tendency to start flirting when I get comfortable.  That doesn't mean I'm into anyone outside of the reactions I get.  A simple lunch can mean much more to the man in front of me than it will ever mean to me.  I won't do it on purpose.  I go from purely polite and slightly indifferent to lioness on the prowl, looking for a chew toy. It's not good, but it's rarely intentional.

You're such a dude.  Not everyone you conquer needs to be femme.

Gender normative isn't a dirty word in the dating world.  I'm supposed to soften my ability to be dominant in my home and with my sexuality.  I had never seen the men I date as femme, but coming from a gay man, I have to believe there is truth in the way I portray them when I go into juicy detail.

Don't you know spooning leads to forking?

Flirting is never innocent.  Don't do it unless you mean it and are willing to follow through.  Craptastic because that is my way of being.

Walk away and let him come to you. Keep giving signals that you're interested but don't pursue.

This is too twisted.  I don't get it.  I haven't played this game in decades. I was interested and all over it, or not interested and polite with an edge.  I often ended a mean streak with, "I'm just messing with you."  I never said I was nice and the men I dated were never high on emotional intelligence or otherwise.

Baby steps, Ma.

When I am into someone I can get a bit carried away.  I'm not planning a wedding and moving in and puppies together. It's more like I'm free, let's go out. Some boys need to take it slower than that.

Forget to text him on some days. Send generic messages that don't show an interest in his life or that you're expecting conversation.

Have a great weekend! Enjoy your day! Happy 4th of July!

I'm here.  Think of me so we can keep playing this game that really secretly annoys me.

Poop already, because there are other people waiting for the pot.

(I think I was trying to go for being the Shit, but ended up as a toilet. Don't flush!)

You want owners, not the help. If he ain't the highest up on the totem you're not interested. This is no longer high school.

This should matter more because I'm frequently told to think ahead, but I'm not there yet.

A woman with ink is hardcore to a guy without ink. Honey, your level of pain is more than his.  He knows you're a freak and knowing that makes him wonder if he's sexually adequate.

I've given birth.  Many times. All of my ink is meaningful design that hurt less than a crowning child and the contractions that helped me kick 7 babies out.  It was easier than the angry uterus that had no problem with beating up an infant on the way out of my womb.

Where to go: church groups, book readings, events at parks, lounges, community service, the humane society needs volunteers.  Library, museum, coffee houses, cafe's.

For fun: the grocery store produce section.

"Hey, how ripe is that peach? I bet it's juicy."

"Are these melons ripe?"

"How do you pick your papayas?"

Do we really need to go there with bananas?  I think you get it.

Who I am . . .

I am a woman. I've been hurt and used and find a strength within me that I never imagined I could wield.  I've been touched without permission.  My body became what it has without permission and I had to learn to love it and found wonder in everything it's capable of.

I am mixed.

My mother is from Thailand and I have her exotic asian features.  I grew up with Thai food, but it's not what you would find in American Thai restaurants.  It's squatting on the kitchen floor eating fried fish and rice mixed and fed with fingers.  It's spicy and layered with flavor that most people can't handle because it comes with smells you can't stand.  My Dad is from Texas.  He grew up with cowboy boots and chili. My roots run deep in Louisiana politics, education that was fought for and slavery that came on a ship from Africa without willingness.  My Dad marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and I own a heritage I will never need to experience because the way was paved in blood that runs through my veins.  We don't watch our heart beat but we know it does and it always has.

I am a daughter.

I have a Mom and Dad and Step-Dad.  They love and support me and guide me, even when I want to falter through life.

I have in-law parents that assure me I still belong to them.  But they have a son and the daughter I am believes they need to stop fighting for a marriage I no longer want and be the parents he needs because I get the impression I'm doing really well and he might not be.

I was a granddaughter, but I'm not anymore.

When you lose your parents you become an orphan, but losing my grandparents made me lose time.  I was lost in a void of grief for a while and I still get lost in memories of baking and snuggles and being loved beyond meaningless words.

I am a sister. 

I am a baby sister and an older sister.  I am a step-sister and sister in-law.  I am a sister by birth and a sister through adoption.  I have foster siblings that will always be close to my heart. I am talked to and talked at and loved bravely and defiantly.

I am a mom and giver of life.

I was an egg donor in 1999. I gave birth to my sons in 2001, 2003, and 2006.  I've given babies to other families as a gestational surrogate in 2008, 2010, and 2012. One egg donation cycle. Six pregnancies.  Seven IVF cycles.  Seven babies.  Five boys, two girls. Five families.  One uterus. One body.

I am a welfare mom. 

This is what it looks like. My ex was my full source of support and when he took that away and took me off of his medical insurance, I became a welfare mom. I'm not proud of it.  It's uncomfortable.  But it was necessary.  Even without child support, I have been able to take care of my kids but it comes from my family and social structures of support.  Thank you for your tax dollars.  I'm working now, but not yet as independent as I plan to be.

I am a friend. 

I'm not a good friend.  I don't track people down and insist on time together, but when we are together, I will give you all of my time and focus.   I will give you my honesty and clarity and hugs that are meant to hold you up and together.

I am literate. 

I read to escape and write to be present.  I write much more than I read lately.  I'm here.

I am brave. 

I will do what needs to be done, regardless of my fear or doubt.

I am married but I am not a wife.

I'm in marriage purgatory and it looks like separation but feels like I'm breaking out on my own and yet being pulled back by tar and grease and disgust.  It suffocates me in anger. I'm still his verbal punching bag but this morning I punched back.  I told him what was on my mind and felt empowered in so doing. I was also laughing on my way to work because of it.  The belly laughs were a workout.

I am cisgendered.  

I like boys.  I went through a curious phase in my early 20's, but I don't like kissing girls.  I'm learning that being female means I can do all of the things I needed my ex to do because what I do doesn't have breasts.  I do.  I wear dresses and jeans.  I take care of my family.  I can be a damsel in distress, but women are strong, and taught to strange ourselves into a state of being othered by society's warped standards.  We are taught to be victims because we are told we are the weaker sex, but historically, there are examples of women being the foundation of the home and the workplace and any other place we decide we want to be.  Being female shouldn't be an insult but it often is.

I am Christian.

I grew up in a Foursquare Church and that is where my pentecostal roots are buried.  I was baptized. I pray and go to church and sing worship songs.  I find that my beliefs haven't softened, but they've shifted.  I find ways to do what I see is right, and sometimes I do what is right for me. I don't see value in tearing down someone else for the sake of my religion. I love gay people.  I won't look down on them.  I love muslims.  I love atheists and Jews. I don't often proselytize.  If I can't sway you to want what I have when you see me, I won't try to embarrass others with my way of living by drawing attention to it.  I have specific wishes once I die that my funeral is not made into an alter call.  I used to be that person that was selling my joy to anyone interested.  Right now I'm enjoying the Grace that covers me where I fall short.  I may be jumping short in areas too.

I am a fighter. 

I know when to put up a fight and when to step back.  The goal of most fighters is to avoid an unnecessary fight.  It's not that I need to let others bully me, but I'm aware of my capabilities and I use my anger with intention and will try to avoid burning bridges when I'm in control.  I'm not always in control.

I am an autism mom. 

My ideals are constantly fractured and expanded by my amazing children and the spectrum they dance on.  It wasn't something I ever expected, but the greatest gifts in life rarely are.  They have grown and and learned and given me equal measure in growth and learning.  I'm a better person for what they've given me, and honored at the trust I see in their eyes.

I am a singer.  

I don't get paid to sing, but I sing at every opportunity and it pays me in happy emotions.

I am a blogger. 

I take willing readers on a ride through my heart and lend my glasses so you can see me intimately.  Into me see. I give but never ask to receive.  I can't decide if it's selfish or selfless.

I am a changeling. 

While I don't come from fairies, I was formed in a place far from where I was meant to be and I am ready to reign as Queen on my throne.  I just need a bit of growing and I'm still in transition.

Wild Hairs

When I was little, my hair was more like my Mom's.  Her Thai hair was mainly thick and straight and had a bounce if you did the right things at the right time.  She used to Dutch Braid it every day until she started cutting it really short and perming it.  My hair was thinner than hers but straight and a bit stringy and also good at showing everyone what a bad hair day looked like.  I would spend summers in the sun and the black would lighten a few shades to red and brown.  The heat of the day would gather in my hair, holding it like a fiery curtain of dark brown embers.  I took it for granted and as I got older, the kinky curls in my Dad's genes began to take over. Now it's generally curly.  I have to style it when it's wet or accept that I will have a massive cloud of big hair.  When I was younger I was teased by being called Chewbacca and later Lion Lady, but I liked that name. I'm learning to love my curls, and imagine being painted like a Botticelli angel. One day I'll be someone's muse. When I was little,  I was fascinated with the biblical story of Samson and Delilah.  It's amazing what you hear about the bible when you don't actually read it.  (I've since read it and can go into the bible lesson, but I doubt that's what you're here for.) I heard the story of a man who let a pretty girl cut his hair and take his strength.  Part of me wanted to be Delilah.  Seriously.

Delilah was so beautiful, sensual, amazing that this man would spend the night with her, tell her what would make him weak, see it happen the very next morning, then go right back to her for more.  "Gee babe, what would make you weak and average?  How can I make you less than you are?   . . . Is that all? Good night, love." Morning comes, and the exact thing he told her would make him weak has happened and she blames it on the Philistines.  And he believes her!

1. Tie him up with seven new bowstrings that haven't been dried.
2. Tie him up with brand new ropes that have never been used.
3. Weave the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on her loom.

So maybe he just wanted her to tie him up in some kind of fantasy role play, but he believes her when she blames it on Philistines and then eventually tells her the truth. Well, the third thing with his hair . . . I love having my hair touched and brushed.  I get that.  He then tells the truth that she needs to cut his hair and she shaves his head.  Surprise! She does what she's been doing, because she's going to try to make him weak like she had already tried three times before.  She has him captured, and he's blinded and she gets away with her shenanigans.  I won't say she's the original gold digger because she did it for money and it was like a job.  That's not what I wanted, but she had major allure, and I wanted that.

My hair is currently covering my upper back but it's not long enough to cover my boobs. I'm growing it out again.  I have part of it dyed purple but that happened in 2014 before it really became a thing.  I saw a woman in Target with a swath of blue hair and it wasn't in my face.  It was more like something that caught my attention as we were passing each other and I turned to get a better look.   I wanted that, but in green because it's my favorite color.  The hairdresser that did it convinced me green wouldn't be as amazing as purple.  Really, I thought about chlorinated blondes and that didn't sound terrific either, so it's been purple, but only the bottom layer at the nape of my neck and it's usually not noticed.

I've gone short.  Not pixie cut short, but I've bobbed it off.  My hair is full and curls and it tends to make me feel like a fluffy poodle in shorter lengths.  That feeling isn't a good one, yet I've done it over and over.  When I think about it, I avoid that in between phase where it's too short to put in a ponytail, but too long to be comfortable with it falling in my face and making me feel hot.

There's something so liberating about a haircut.  My world can be spinning out of control and a few moments in a hair salon can feel like control and that is a heady feeling.  I've had moments where I've considered having it all shaved off.  Actually, in the 7th grade I had an unsupervised evening where I started shaving my legs, and arms, and ended up shaving part of my head.  I wore scarves for a while.  It was bad.  I've learned my lesson and stick to bikini lines, armpits and legs.  I'm not the only one that sees the liberation in lobbing off hair.  Britney Spears did it.  If you don't remember, there's a story about it here. I hated her early music because I couldn't relate to it.  Give her too much to handle.  Let her fall apart a bit and take it back through sexual empowerment and I get and love her.

I don't have gray hair on my head.  I'm constantly looking for them though.  I'm old enough.  I'm willing and ready for it. I have had one or two but my ex pulled them out.  I didn't want him to.  I loved those strands.  They were faded into spun gold and they were mine and beautiful.  I plan to go gray and let it happen naturally.  I think the look of gray hair is dignified, but it's also really sexy to me.  I was 18 the first time I saw a doctor with salt and pepper hair and shocking blue eyes.  I remember thinking for the first time that a man could be beautiful.  I've known some fiercely beautiful women that let their hair naturally fade into hues of spun gold and shimmering silver and I want that.

I used to love boys with long hair.  I love running my fingers through silky strands because the pads of my fingers are really sensitive and I enjoy that sort of thing.  I've met enough men with those silky locks to now understand it's work to get it perfect and they rarely will allow me to touch it.  It then occurred to me, it's not the hair but the man it belongs to.  Finding beauty when it's right in front of me is a gift.

I like bald heads.  I'm learning that most men don't like going bald and found this article if you're curious about a perspective that isn't mine. I'm more likely going to be able to touch them.  I was talking to a man with a beautiful bald head yesterday.  Part of his hair still grows and he keeps it pretty closely cut. There was something about the change from new growth to smooth skin that I really wanted to touch.  Well, in fairness, all of him is attractive, but I had a moment of being stuck in sensory wonder and it felt really good.  Don't worry, I used self control.

Online dating is unique in the way where men expect to know and share more than you would ever disclose in person.  Again, hiding behind a keyboard affords bravery and shields you from social responsibility and common sense manners.  I met men that wanted to know what my private parts look like in terms of the hair down there.  That wasn't so disturbing. I know the ideals that porn suggests and I've seen it.  What I never expected were all of the men that shave their private regions.  I've always preferred the natural hairy look of a male body and that was just disturbing.  But then, it might just be me.

Practice Like You Mean It

In 1993 I was in large military Drill Team.  I was actually the last or second to the last alternate and barely made it.  Practice was for a few hours after school and we wore uniforms for competition and spirit week.  It's all fun and games until you grow into old lady knees that suffered too many practices with forgotten knee pads. During practice, we were often exhausted and I was always so irritated by the coach, captain and co-captains that would stress that we had to practice like it was performance.  We had to practice like we meant it.  Going through the motions in rehearsal means you will go through the motions during performance.  Muscle memory takes over. Everything becomes automatic. You want your automatic to be amazing.

That lesson came back with laughter tonight.  I drive around with my windows up, music loud and singing.  I will also say "hi" to cute men, or "thank you" to one that is cute and exercising.  It's a public service, really. I say it loudly with windows up and it makes me laugh because they can't hear my catcalls.  Today I was doing the same as usual with the music slightly lowered because it was around dusk when the sky was blushing in farewell to a fading sun  and I wanted to feel the breeze of the evening air. There was a man running in the direction I was driving and I yelled my "thank you" like I meant it. He flinched with a faltering few steps and I realized how far my voice carries when windows aren't in my way.  I forgot the windows were down, and drove off in laughter.