The answer to the question is not always what you want to hear. And sometimes you wonder whether you were better off not knowing at all. Good bye my brother. You will continue to be in my prayers every night for the rest of this life and beyond.
Chris came home around 1am Thursday morning, adding an extra two days to his normal visit. Z woke up to the sound of our voices and instantly insisted on greeting him. We listened for about ten minutes as he tried to negotiate with the dog. "All done?" he would say, jumping up and down in his crib. "Puh-y, wan get down?" Finally, he heard our laughter, realized we could hear him and his pleadings turned into crib shakes and screams.
We went down to the farm for a bonfire. It was an amazing day. Z followed Chris around all day like his shadow, except when he was announcing "Bye-bye!" and wandering off to climb up the grain elevator or play in the patch of nettles and poison ivy. Friends and family joined us. The paintball never quite got off the ground because everyone was too busy sitting around talking and catching up. But the 4 wheeler rides were a big hit with the kids. Especially splashing through the creek and hitting bumps that sent them airborne for a nanosecond, rear ends off the bike, arms cluched in a choke hold around Rob, the driver.
(the moon through the clouds at the farm)
| Hi Melissa, |
I’ve said it before, but I really have been so very blessed. So many mothers have to work 40+ hrs a week. So many daughters don’t get to spend so much time with their family when their father is recovering from cancer. I have been so very lucky to have these extra moments and I owe this all to my husband. I knew when I started out on this adventure that it probably wouldn’t last. Such blessings don’t come without a price. I have been, for some time now, waiting for the other shoe to drop and a few weeks ago it did.
Without getting into the nitty-gritty, today I made the decision that my husband has probably been waiting six months for me to make. I told him to find us someplace nice to live in California. I hope and pray and take a leap of faith that we’re making the right decision…that things will be fine here at home while we go off and live our lives. I pray that things will be as they are now or better when we return in five years.
I’m over the tears now of looking at homes half the size of mine with gravel or concrete for back yards. I’ve even resigned myself to the fact that we may have to look at town homes or condos. That wouldn’t be so bad, a play park for the kid next to the swimming pool. I could live with that.
I have had one hell of a time creating beautiful memories these last six months. Drinking coffee with my friend Hiromi in San Francisco. Sipping on champagne and eating crepes for breakfast at my father-in-law’s in the Selkirks. Hiking with my mother up to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain. Watching my father give my son his first tractor ride. Picking gladiolas with my family in the hot summer sun. Watching the children and the garden grow. I can’t wait to see what dreams will become memories. But for the love of God please let me have a back yard with grass!
(Zander's 1st tractor ride with Grandpa)
(relaxing on the porch swing after a day of canning)
(the home I'm reluctant to leave behind)
(the backyard extends past the swings to the garden shed)
(the living room)
(the nursery - 1 of 4 bedrooms)
(the kitchen)
(more of the kitchen)
I will attend more weddings in the next three months than I have in my life. Let me tell you, this is causing me no small amount of anxiety! Mostly because I will likely see people I haven’t seen in a decade or more. You don’t understand, these are people who have been very important influences in my life! These are people with whom secrets were shared, souls were poured out, and eternal bonds of companionship were formed! There’s Miss Dances on Tables (she and I go waaaaaaay back), there’s Mrs. My Life is Perfect (who has her own line of exercise videos, three children – all natural births – and a PhD thank you very much), we can’t forget Mr. I’ll Always Love You (yeah, it was a bad break up, he cried and I yelled at him for crying), and last but not least Mr. You Lied (and I still haven’t forgotten how he was arrested for soliciting an undercover officer).
Firstly, if I could even find a table I felt was sturdy enough to support my, ahem, womanly curves, I’m pretty sure taking off my bra under my T-shirt and flinging it onto the moose head would be something akin to a bad horror movie. I can see it all too clearly…and in slow motion…myself after tee many martoonies flailing about with Miss Dances on Tables. We’re having a good time, my eye makeup is smudged from the tears of laughter from those “remember when” stories and I’m squinting at my husband in what is supposed to be a sexy bedroom eyes gaze, but it really just looks like I can’t read the happy hour menu. She talks me into going for broke, and in a moment of disastrous decision making, I take off my bra, which would be the kind of white support monstrosity you would expect VW to engineer instead of the barely there VS number one would expect to see. I fling it in a pathetic display of girlish playfulness toward the wall. It goes hurtling end over end toward the moose, people duck out of the way; they scream in terror as one cup completely suffocates the moose head, blinding him from the sight of me still seizuring away to the music, winking at my husband (who is hiding under a table), and completely oblivious to the horror that has ensued.
Mrs. My Life is Perfect then saunters up to me in her 5” stilettos with a patronizing smirk on her face, “Darling, it’s been so good to see you!” she tells me as she hands me her business card, “Call me in the morning, I have a business proposal for you.” I would smile, thinking how cool it was to see her again, and only after I began nursing the hangover the next day would I realize she was calling me fat.
Mr. I’ll Always Love You would join me out on the deck while I cooled off. He’d strike up a conversation that would end with “It was really good seeing you again.” Translation: I don’t know what I ever saw in you. Meanwhile I’m having another display of horrible decision making abilities and contemplating actually thanking Mr. You Lied to Me because, after all, I did start dating my incredible husband immediately after we broke up…but I can’t seem to find him to tell him because he’s sitting at the bar, avoiding the awkward introduction, and quietly thanking his lucky stars for that one crazy night in Tijuana!
Okay, okay, fine. I’m being overly dramatic. Honestly, I’m not that girl anymore (or rarely), so why would I expect them to be the same? I haven’t even over indulged in about a decade (well, in public anyway) so there’s zero chance of any of that coming to pass…But seriously, would it be too inappropriate to hire a stunt double with a PhD in Western Literature and is an aerobics instructor on the side to masquerade as me for the next three months? She can even drive the RX7!
(then)
(now)
Thirty, huh? I contemplate my impending decrepit state fast approaching in the next few minutes. I think back on other milestone birthdays. 10, I had an ice cream cake with a little mint green clad clown on the top. I can remember being little and making the 20 mile drive with my mother to the bakery in Maquoketa where I would stare at a wall of delightful confections and pick out one that wasn’t too expensive or too plain. I loved birthday cakes that came from the bakery. Those were extra special because not every birthday cake did. Not when money needed to be spent on more important things.
13, I had fallen asleep on the floor of my sister’s pink bedroom and sometime in the night had been relocated to my own bed. I was so sure when I woke in the morning I would look like a teenager. My thin, stringy, fly away hair would have turned into a beautiful mane of silken tresses. My scrawny, colt-like limbs would be transformed overnight into the beginnings of womanly curves. When I awoke the next morning I sprang from bed and dashed to the mirror to take my first excited glance. To my disappointment nothing much had changed about my appearance except for a few pillow wrinkles and some bed head.
By the time I turned 16, I knew not to expect dramatic changes overnight. But still, I held on to the hope that age 16 would turn my unremarkable face into that of a great beauty. This had been a magic number as long as I could remember. At 16 I was allowed to have a boyfriend, I was allowed to date and not just go out in gaggles of awkward teenage peers. I was allowed to drive. I was allowed to experience freedoms I had not previously known. Much to my chagrin; that same unremarkable face I’d had at 14 remained until I was about 18 years of age. And that exciting love life I’d been promised…well, I quickly learned that there wasn’t much difference between being alone with an awkward teenage boy or being out in a gaggle of awkward teenage girls and boys. That in fact, sometimes the gaggle was much preferred.
Then there was 18. Jaded by non-instantaneous arrival of breasts for my 13th birthday, and the stunningly average face that still stared back from my reflection I didn’t really have high hopes for 18. I do remember awaking with a quiet sense of satisfaction. I was an adult. My best friend and I celebrated by getting tattoos. I don’t remember if we’d spent long hours planning it or if it had been a whim. But I do remember her shaking and holding my hand, knuckles white, as the needle skidded over her hip bone and at that moment deciding I was not nearly as brave as she. I got mine on my ankle instead.
21? I don’t remember much about my 21st birthday. I have a few fuzzy memories of outlandish dancing, groping my best friend on a dare, and my sister, the supposed DD, driving down the wrong side of the street and having to jump the median. I don’t remember particularly looking forward to 21 though. Perhaps I did when I was 19, but by the time I turned 21, I didn’t really find going out drinking all that fun anymore.
25 was hard. That was half way to 50. I remember telling my sister (and believing it) that there was nothing to look forward to after 25 until you turned 60. My insurance rates went down at 25. And I remember looking at pictures of me when I was 21 and thinking (and believing) that youth was wasted on the young. I’d never approved of my body, or thought of myself as particularly attractive. I was a fool. I only lacked self confidence.
Now, in just a few minutes I will be 30. One foot in the grave, really. Oh, I don’t mind much. I don’t honestly think my breasts will shrivel up and fall off at the stroke of midnight or that my face will crack into a million wrinkles (even though my younger friends assure me of this certainty). My best friend from back home asked me if I thought I would cry. I don’t think I will. It would be different if I weren’t so happy with where I am right now. Luckily, I am blessed. I have a wonderful husband, an amazing son, and more family than I know what to do with. I have accomplished a lot in terms of career, family, and religion. I’m quite satisfied with my life. So tomorrow, when I wake up…I don’t think I’ll look for signs of decrepitude. Instead, I think I’ll be productive, and take my son for a walk to the park, and go visit my family, and thank God for thirty years of blessings.
