Addiction

Here we sit, again. Me verses the avalanches of emotions that come rushing down. Me verses the military, me verses the hurt. And it's the reality of this life. I get to constantly dive in to the depths of the angst I spent a good portion of my younger days pretending to avoid. It's what keeps me around, isn't it baby? Isn't this the reason I dove in to begin with? I needed the cuts that this life dishes out so smoothly, so addictively, so constantly.

Like a drug I married myself to it. I've always hated to be afraid of something. Maybe that's the reasoning behind it. I feared loneliness. I feared solitude. I feared losing control. And I married all of that. Maybe it was my brain's way of unwrapping the coils of those chains from my neck. Maybe this whole thing happened just so I could prove to myself that I was over it, undefeated. Unconquerable.

But damnit it you win every freaking time. I'm a puddle of tears and I'm a weepy, sappy, annoying as all get out chick. I'm whisked away every five seconds by sorrow. I'm becoming increasingly "female", increasingly fragile. Maybe it's my old age that's taking away all of my harshness. Maybe time has swept in and taken away my balls. Or maybe wisdom revealed the uselessness of armor.

I feel a thousand times like I'm drowning. I feel a million times more like the only times I know that I'm breathing, I know that I'm living, are when you are a part of my daily picture. I know on that day I will begin holding my breath, begin pretending. I'm fine. Doing well. SO supportive. One day down.... The drought will begin.

I told you tonight that I would hate you every single day of this. You told me that I already do. True story. But hate is just the lie that love tells itself over and over again so it doesn't have to feel the hurt of it. Hate is just love misdirected, like anger. And the truth is I don't think my brain has the capability of hating you. The reality is that you are my oxygen, as sick as that sounds. The constant is that soul mates are real because you're mine. The truth is that I've died too many times to keep score anymore, and I'll continue to because that's what this Love means as far as I know it.

I'm over here bracing for the storm about to come crashing in. I know what I'm facing. I know what's coming. And I'm angry. But mostly just sad.

You've always made me conquer my weaknesses. You've always made me find the deeper thresholds within myself that I never knew or believed were possible. You've forced me to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And you've shown me that it won't take me down.

I've got to tell you Chief, we're going to be okay. I don't doubt it in the slightest. But I hate you for doing it. I really do.

Sidekicks and Heroes

Packing up what's been ours for over a decade. Dusting things off, ignoring the ugly parts, and wrapping them up to take to another building that will become a house, that will morph in to our home. The walls will transform from a shelter to a carrier of a million minutes of us. Its story will become another chapter of ours, and we will unify ourselves into a family, that lives in a home.

Somehow we'll untwist our minds from imagining this Cavalryman from being our home. Eventually we'll stop associating the walls we're in now, with our experiences.

The air will taste differently there. The scenery will be greener. The climate. humid. My heart... sad. It's inevitable. Because I've done this before, America. I've moved to a new place and had my husband leave. This isn't my first rodeo. Truth is I have no idea if it will be my last. 

Each experience scars me. Each moment leaves its distinct knife wound in my flesh. I carry them around, underneath my armor. I am battle weary, America. 

It's interesting how wrapping up this home, is in so many ways symbolic for wrapping up my home. Wrapping up the inner workings of my heart, packing them up, and shipping them off to a dark corner of my mind, until the days fade away. Until he and I can sit side by side, fingers entwined, and unwrap them together. 

Maybe that's the worst part of it, America. I know how I get when I'm alone. I know it because he's been gone so.many.times. I struggle with the heart aching, screaming match in my mind saying over and over again "I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!" and "It's not fair!" But the "fair's" in August and the goodbyes just keep on coming, whether or not they crush me to a thousand little pieces.

This is what life is like as a sidekick. We give and we give, and we love and we love, and we get tossed to the side when the country comes calling, but we better be sure as hell strong enough to keep the home fires burning, the heart-lovin' filled up, and the emotional stability of our children potent. We are required to be resilient, and in a thousand ways I am. In a thousand ways every single one of these knife wounds have forced that bendability in to me. I can bend, morph, flex, and twist a thousand different ways. Truth is, I'm always surprised by my ability to "keep on truckin'" in the face of insanity. 

I hate it. But I need it. Maybe that's the most sickening truth of it all. I need this, America. Just as much as he does. I need the hurt, I need the solitude, I need the goodbyes. Because they force me to appreciate the unity, the hello's, and the comfort. They force me to not take a single moment of fingers entwined on the sofa or in the car, for granted. They force me to see how much he fills my little pink heart with laughter and love and encouragement. I need the hurts so that I can recognize the joys.

So it's coming at me, faster than a hurricane. No matter how many windows I have boarded up, or how much stuff I've got in my emergency kit, it's going to break me. It's going to force me to my knees, in a puddle of tears and rage. Then I'm going to pick myself up, like sidekicks often do, kick some ass, and then get back in the fight so that my hero can save the day. 

I will leave you with this lyric that speaks legions. "But after my dreaded beheading I tied that sucker back on with a string. And I guess I'm pretty different now, considering." -Ani DiFranco

Ehyeh

Ehyeh,

There are moments where You appear to be a thousand miles away. I get caught up in vanity and appearances and you seem distant and disconnected. It's hard to believe in a Father who rescues when I grew up in an environment of unending self sufficiency. No one would rescue me, I would have to do it myself.

We live in an atmosphere with salvation is an impossible concept. We live in a society that no longer rescues. So how do we transplant the idea of salvation and rescuing from this completely imaginary idea, to a real-life-true-story scenario.

I talked to You about the desire of my heart for the emotional experiences that I so often encountered in the Protestant church. I talked about how much I missed the mood lighting and the music that was purposefully chosen to create a romantic thought in my mind. I actually missed being manipulated. When I brought those feelings to You, You told me that you weren't make-up, you were razzle-dazzle, that you weren't a whore... dressed up and dolled up and shoved down my throat for my own amusement or distraction. You scolded me for desiring that. You then reminded me of your simplicity.

So I asked You to help me meet You. Not the falsified ideas that I believed to be You, but the real-carpenter-simple You. I asked You to help me fall in love with You.

It has been a gradual process. Erasing the dramatic experiences from my mind has been difficult. Finding elation in the quiet moments of sipping coffee together on the back porch has been new. Hearing You in the hymns, prayers, and sunlit church has been different.

After weeks of this new relationship, today You punched me in the face with You. Today you rocked me to my core with your Magnificent Glory, minus all of the falsified TV drama... Today it was all about us and it felt amazing. Everywhere my eyes looked, I saw Your Salvation. I saw Your Rescues. Today You rescued me. It was too magnificent to attempt to pacify it with "good luck" ideas. Today it brought me to tears. You brought me to tears. You did it with birds, and sunshine, and clouds, and golden mountains. Today You showed me a side of You I've never seen before. Today it was a love song, played out with music I've never heard, and with images I've never seen.

I'm sitting here trying to write it all down, because I don't want to ever forget it. I'm trying to figure out how to tell You what it meant to me, and I'm fresh out of ability. I don't have words, or a love song, or anything that I can offer. But I can whisper, from the depths of my soul, that I am desperate for you, my simple Beloved One. You are quite genuinely the most beautiful Beautiful I have ever seen. Being alone with You and lost with You is indefinable. I am in awe.

I just want to scream... You rescue! You rescue me when I call.

Today

Nuggets,

I hope you spend your entire lives looking for laughter, choosing to be happy, and celebrating joy. I hope that when grief arrives you recognize it as temporary, and bare the weight of it patiently. I hope that you know personally and passionately, the God who has carried us all through so many challenges that I can't name them all. I hope you know that Daddy and I, while vastly imperfect (something I anticipate you will cover greatly in your adult psychotherapy sessions), loved you with all that we had and absolutely gave you the best that we had to offer.

I hope you always have a sense of delight in adventure. I hope you spend time in nature (hiking, camping, etc). I hope you respect the earth and do your best to take care of it. I hope that you have insight to know what is good and what is not, and courage to act wisely in challenging situations. I hope you have self control.

Today, I hope you take time to notice the beautiful things around you, and the different forms that they come in. I love you!

Winding down

I showed up in this town with three babies. Three tiny human beings who were so frail and so... I don't even know. Their older sister was just over two. I honestly can't remember the road trip very much. I have a few random snippets of memories, but they aren't clear in my mind.

Seven years... Seven years brought a plethora of jokes about being Moses'd and never leaving. Seven years has brought four post commander, Brigade commander, Battalion commander changes... Countless company leaders have come and gone. Soldiers, volunteers, friends... Beautiful friends have moved on and away. I began to feel like a concrete pillar. I felt cemented here. I felt resigned.

And then the Army came and changed the game plan (as the Army so often does). What was the plan, is no longer the plan, and now there is a new one.

I've got to be honest with you, America, my heart broke in that levee briefing. It seems so strange to write that. It is bizarre to feel heartbroken about leaving this place that in so many ways, felt like where happiness went to die. It is irritating that when I began to feel of it as home, was when it was taken away.

These walls watched my children learn to walk, read, write... These walls surrounded me while my husband deployed (a few times), my children grieved, and my heart ached. These walls have listened to seven years of laughter and love. These walls surrounded us as we mourned our beloved Jake, and the three babies that my body couldn't hold on to. This house stopped being a "house" and became my home.

And now I have to leave it. And it hurts like hell. It reduces me to tears and it makes my heart ache, to know that these days, these moments, are ticking away. They are on a countdown to done, and a new story will begin. I will turn in the keys and drive away and this house will hold someone else's memories.

I don't want to go.

I wonder if this is how Moses and the Israelites felt. Their wandering in the desert was over, and now the new chapter was about to begin. Did they grieve leaving the familiar? Did it hurt to move on? I think they were afraid. I'm guessing that because in the beginning of Moses' replacement, God keeps telling him to "be strong and courageous". Why would God tell him that if he did not feel weak and fearful? Maybe... grief?

I am excited for our next chapter. I am looking forward to the new memories and the new experiences that will come with it. I am hopeful for the next page.

But I am still aching. This place is worth that. These memories deserve it. The friends I leave behind... my great, great friend I leave behind, is worth it.

Hope

Nuggets,

I get accused of a lot of things. Some people think I'm mean. Others think I'm controlling. People tell me I'm too passive, or too much of a people pleaser. I also hear that I'm inconsiderate, and I don't care about the feelings of people other than myself. I'm too sarcastic, or too serious. I'm too sad or too cheerful. I'm too this or too that or too blue or too orange... yada yada yada yada. Why am I telling you this, my dear nuggets? Because even though I'm a "grown up" I'm still being criticized. I'm still being "picked on."

I know it hurts when people point out what they would like you to do differently. I've spent a lifetime having that pointed out to me. The truth is, it doesn't stop because you "grow up". It doesn't change because you become a parent. Human nature, it seems, is to be fixated on how to improve our opinions of ourselves, often times at the expense of others'. How does that manifest itself in real life? By telling everyone else what they're doing wrong, and very rarely saying what they're doing right.

I hope, with all my might, that you will not be like that. I hope you will choose to take off the ugly glasses with which so many people view themselves, or the world, or others. My hope is that you will instead looking around at those around you and choose to see what they're doing right. Of course this is not something that will be accomplished always. And absolutely we need to be able to communicate our wants, expectations and needs. But I hope you will not be the type of people who do so with a need to destroy. I hope you will learn to communicate in an edifying manner. I hope you will understand that no matter how hard you try, someone will always be dissatisfied, and that the fact of this will not destroy your sense of worth. I hope you will be stronger than me, and that you will learn from my mistakes.

I love you!

Fun

Nuggets,

Have fun. I think that's a sentence that is often times lost on the perfectionists of the world. We are constantly striving towards some greater element of success in ourselves. We work like crazy to achieve some unknown internal mental success bar that, truth be told, is not really achievable. We bombard our brains with requirements and we dig in and work ourselves to the bone, and at the end of the day, where do we stand. Have we actually enjoyed anything?

I struggle with having fun. I wonder if you will grow up understanding that to be true in me. I spend so much time laughing and making jokes, that I sometimes think it's impossible for people to see that. I struggle with being present in the moment. I give so much of myself to honor my commitments. Honor, integrity, loyalty... these are big deals to me. But fun...? It's not so much on my radar. I am trying to change that.

You see, Nuggets, I want to learn to be more like you. I want to wake up and find wonder is silly things. I want to awaken my imagination and sense of awe. I want to be present in each moment that we are together.

So have fun. I'm trying to. :)

Ring on it

In less than a month, my last name turns 10. Ten years ago I walked in to a church and put a ring on this dude's finger, half panicking throughout the entire ordeal, riddled with sweat, and nearly vomiting. The inner monologue is all comedy now, but then... I felt like a caged bird. Strange thing to say about the greatest single situation I've ever committed myself to.

Try as I may to hide it, I guess somehow the story got leaked that I adore him or something. I linked up with the single most capable person of handling my personality and my sense of humor and I get to shag him too (Don't be jealous America. You will find your own piece of hottness too!). Yowza!

I wish I could write effectively what a day in our lives is like. I wish I could express how much of our days we spend laughing together. I wish I could communicate how his face still makes my stomach do sommersaults, and his hands interlocking with mine, make me the bravest person on the planet. I wish I could effectively say how his laugh instantly melts my irritated heart and warms it up. I wish I could define it so that other people could understand it, so that I could somehow bottle it up to make it last for forever and ever and hand it down to our children.

Lolli reminds me often Love is the only thing that never goes away. It never dies. The act of loving is unending, infinite, the greatest of miracles. He is my big shining ball of miracle.

So we're about to turn 10, Chief... Double digits... How you doin? ;)

Christian Troubles

I think as the sea of busy-ness consumes me, and I feel like I'm watching my life happen through photographs and videos and other people's experiences, it is important to figure how to stand still. It's not something that I've ever been good at. I don't thrive in stillness or silence. I think it's because stillness compels action. And who wants to actually have to stare down their own demons? Who wants to actually examine their selfishness, greed, pride? Who wants to acknowledge the evil that they so eloquently hide?

I think it's the biggest problem with Christianity. We convince ourselves that we're nice, and that we're loving, and that we're "good" people. We tell ourselves all of these self inflating things, and we absorb these notions about ourselves that make us feel better. But when we put ourselves up against the image of Christ, when we sit still enough to absorb it, and allow our reflections to settle in, then we are forced to accept things we don't want to: either Christ is a lie, or we are probably not following Him like we think we are.

It's why Heavenly distance is so comforting. It's why "christian" stagnation seems to be so prevalent. We can be and do and say and have whatever we want and we don't really need to be any different from anyone else and we get to go to heaven too! It's a win-win. Except it's completely unbiblical. It's immensely anti Christian history. It is basically the opposite of what our role models have laid out for us.

So I sit here and I think to myself that I am the guiltiest of all in regards to this "problem" of Christianity. I think that my life really doesn't look all that different from anyone else's. I wonder if I will ever figure out how to get on the right road to salvation. I wonder if a time will come when I will know that I have figured out how to get it right.

To You

Two glasses of wine, candlelight, a bench, you, and our backyard... this is what comforts my spirit. This is where the words I've had bottled up and under lock and key can find their way to the surface and out of my mouth.

Your fingers found my back in the darkness. They run like electricity through me. It is like I am frozen and you are warmth. Your touch softens me. Your words revive me. Sometimes I am so tired of talking. Sometimes there is nothing left to say. So we sit on a bench, and your hands find my flesh, and I find comfort there.

This is what I need... You.

Letter To The Police

Police Officer,

I honked at you as you pulled out in front of me on my way to church. I had to brake very hard to avoid T-boning you. The honk was to tell you to hurry up, I might hit you.

In a normal day, I would have muttered some derogatory phrase. Something like look at this idiot! Or HELLOOOOO!!!!! But not today. I can't give myself any credit for that. It did not come from myself. Instead of cursing you, my soul uttered a blessing. God be with her and keep her safe. Thank you for preventing an accident. Give her energy, clarity, and focus today. Sustain her, help her to be alert.

I can't imagine what it's like for you to be a police officer. I can't even begin to share the immense level of respect I have for you. We live in a society that is so quick to berate, complain, and bash you and the profession that you hold. I give you the highest esteem. You make me and my children safer. You settle horrible situations, and you walk in to people's lives in the worst of moments. You have to make very quick decisions that affect people for the rest of their lives. I can't imagine the stress that must place on your heart and mind.

I couldn't remember if I closed the garage door, so I had to turn around and come back home. As I pulled back up to my housing area, you were slowed down and speaking to a person walking down the street. Perhaps this is why you were distracted and pulled out in front of me. Maybe you were in the middle of searching for a lost teen, or a disgruntled soldier. Maybe you were looking for a stolen item. Maybe you were just making sure that person was safe, and okay, and not in need of help. Maybe you were exhausted from a horrible night and you're just trying to get through the final hour of your shift  before you can go home and fall in to bed. Maybe you're drained from people cursing you, yelling at you, hating you...

I want you to know that I am praying for you, and all of the other individuals who share your profession. I want to declare that I teach my children that you are heroes, and you should be valued as such. My children shout out "THANK YOU!" at the top of their lungs when you drive by in your cars. I wave, but most of the time you don't see (my guess is you've become so accustomed to being flipped off that you've learned to stop looking). I. am. thankful. for. you.

There have been moments when you've held my own life in your hands. You were course, rough, and not exactly the most friendly. But God gave you the ability to see what the needs were, and handle the situation. I am in awe. You saw me in my ugliest moment, knee deep in the middle of what was the worst period of my life, the darkest journey my soul has walked through to date. I was desperate, destroyed, lost. And you were about to arrest me. Crazy, isn't it? That I still admired you, as you read me my rights? I did and I do. Because it's your job to defend the law, to protect the people, to participate in justice.

It worked out that the truth was exposed (before I was cuffed). You had the ability to see through my lies, my protection, my attempt to hold it all together, and you saved me. You saved me when I was incapable of saving myself. You protected me when I was resistant to the safety that you offered. You were my heroes, even when I was so terrified of the result of that heroism. And you, saved my life. You helped to give me back what I adored with every fiber of my being. And I bet you never knew it. You were there and gone in one night and you never knew that you changed my world for the better.

I'm sure I've over sharing a bit. I tend to ramble about things that really matter to me. I often times repeat myself over and over again, because the clarity of thought is difficult to separate from the intensity of the sincere emotions. Please know this: I value your contribution to my safety. I will continue to buy you a meal, when I can. I will continue to wave when you drive by. I will do my best to show you my gratitude, make you have a smile, and brighten your day. I will continue to pray that the Holy Spirit will protect your heart and mind from bitterness and resentment, that you will remain soft despite all of the horrible components to humanity that you see every day. I will continue to pray for your families to have peace and comfort despite you always having to work on Christmas/New Years/Thanksgiving/weekends/every-other-holiday. I will continue to pray for your safety because this is Jesus, as I know Him to be. And this is Love the only way I know how to show it.

I hope your day today is filled with an abundance of blessings. I hope you are flooded with beauty and majesty and glory today. I hope you know you are valued.

Sincerely,
The Honking Mom

Broken Birth

Nuggets,

This time, every year, is emotionally exhausting. It's complicated and powerful, and devastating, and magnificent all rolled in to one bundle of...stuff. Nine years ago (in just a couple more days), Lolli came in to the world. That pregnancy was wrought with extreme joy, extreme grief, and immense love. I learned what love felt like as you grew in me. I learned what sacrifice looked like. I learned. Growing you was like growing something I couldn't conceptualize. Growing you while Daddy fought a war, and his friend died, and we were surrounded by loss, injury, and death... was immense. But we got through it. You and me. We came out of it stronger, incredibly bonded. To look at you is to see the most astounding of individuals. I can't even write about you effectively because my words become fuddled and retarded. So I do my best to say how fiercely I love you, how proud I am of you, and how grateful I am for every day that I get to share with you. Don't ever lose sight of the magnificent calling that has been placed on you. You were chosen to be the big sister to three siblings, all born at the same time. You were selected for this great calling, because only you could handle it so beautifully. You are a beacon of strength. You take my breath away.

It was one year and a little less than six months later, when my whole sense of my "life picture" was shattered. My confidence in my body, my confidence in what I understood about my own capabilities were destroyed. I walked in to a hospital, believing I was experiencing the death of the child I knew myself to be pregnant with, and walked out with the knowledge that we had an insurmountable amount of babies growing in me. I was sent home to rest, and take it easy. A week later the unimaginable pain led to bleeding, which led to a doctor's visit, which led to strict bed rest until I could see the perinatologist. There is a lot about that entire endeavor that my mind has chosen to forget, but certain snippits, certain images and sounds stand out in my memory like explosions. The moment when the ultrasound tech went to "get the doctor" during the ultrasound. When the chatty, friendly, welcoming tone disappeared and silence entered the room. When the questions stopped being answered...

Into the office we went, and he laid it all out. You need to put your affairs in order. Do you have a will? Who will care for your child? Am I dying? You could. You very well could die. Are you serious? You could lift a gallon of water and your placenta could completely rip off... two minutes until you bleed out... the weight of sitting up could cause it to rip off... 

I remember sitting there and thinking about Lolli... my beautiful, magnificent daughter that I had just spent two years being completely and whole heartedly bonded to. I remember thinking What the hell is going on???? I remember all of the feelings of nervous excitement about these beautiful babies about to come in to our worlds, washing away and being replaced with fear. I remember joy being replaced with dread. I remember freedom being shackled away, and being confined to a couch, or a bed. I remember all of the thoughts of having the next several months to prepare Lolli for this next chapter of our lives, being ripped away, and replaced with having to let other people care for you while I watched. I remember hating my body, hating my uterus, hating myself. I remember feeling like I couldn't win, no matter what I did. I loved the babies growing in me, and the baby growing outside of me. I loved Daddy, and I loved God, and I wanted all of this to not be happening. But it was.

At the time, I had to push everything aside. I had to ignore it and suppress it. I was told not to allow myself to be "overly emotional" because stress could cause contractions and contractions could rip off the placenta. So I did. I tried to be grateful (and I was grateful to all of the magnificent people that helped us!!!!), and cheerful. I tried to prepare Chief for the possibility of a life without me. I wrote letters to Lolli and Chief just "in case". I had a file on the computer full of all of the music, scriptures, and things I wanted them to know if I died. Daddy refused to look at it.

Please understand, my beautiful ones, that I loved all of you. There was never a concept of not loving all of you. I adored each of you for your individualities and I was so honored that I could be the vessel from which you all came in to the world. I was willing to die for your lives. But I was so scared that I would. I was so scared of not being able to keep you alive, and myself alive, and all of us together. I was so helpless and trapped by my stupid, fragile body. I was so scared of all of the scenarios that they laid before us. So when they wheeled me in to the operating room, I could barely breathe. I couldn't stop shaking and sobbing and aching. All of the feelings that I had bottled up, and put on a shelf, under a box, wrapped in barbed wire came flooding out. There I sat, in the arms of that nurse (whose name I don't even remember) while they gave me five million spinal taps so that I could be awake while you were born), for two hours, crying uncontrollably. And even that wasn't meant to be. I was not numb, and I had to be put to sleep. I didn't even get to hear your beautiful entrances in to the world. Even that was wrought with immense physical pain.

It was all so traumatic. It was entirely devastating. And I hate that. I hate that Lolli's birth was beautiful, and immensely powerful, and you triplets' was so defeating for me. I hate that your birth was agonizing and filled with grief and loss. I hate that immediately after your birth, you were intubated, and IV'd, and stuck with a thousand different things on your body, because my stupid body couldn't hold you any more. I hate that you were born in to a room where you didn't get to hear my voice telling you how I love you, and how I prayed for you, and how much your Daddy and I love you. I hate that I didn't get to touch you when you came out of me. I hate that you were born, I was asleep, and you were immediately whisked away.

So, every year, I bawl my eyes out. Every year I walk down memory lane, and reflect back on that most difficult of times for me. But you know what else I reflect on? All of the miracles and beautiful gifts. My God, there were so many of them. The hospital policy was that C section mothers were not allowed to go into the NICU until they could go in a wheelchair (24 hours after surgery). My doctor made it so that I was wheeled to you right after I left post op. They wheeled my entire hospital bed in to your room and I got to touch every single one of you. Someone took pictures of my fingers holing your tiny, tiny, hands. I remember them being yelled at to stop using the flash. I remember the red lights and them explaining that they only use red lighting because that's what the babies see in my belly. I remember the horror of what looked like three coffins, and you babies in them. I remember crying and saying that I had killed you. I remember the nurse telling me that I didn't and that you were all so strong and doing so well. I remember feeling the most helpless I had ever felt. I remember the nurses trying so hard to be comforting. But it was a waiting game, and we had to see what your bodies would be able to handle. All of it was out of our hands. It was up to God and you, and we just had to see...

I didn't know that night that I wouldn't be allowed to touch you three again for days (and for Brun it was three weeks). I didn't know then that I would spend the next five years in and out of hospitals with each of you for various sicknesses and ailments. I didn't know... But in that moment, I felt so many conflicting feelings that I couldn't communicate, but most of all I felt broken. I felt like I had killed you all.

Your birth broke me. Thank God it did. That's the thing I can see the most clearly as the time has passed. The wounds are still ever so fierce, but the beauty of it has emerged. You three changed the hell out of me. And you three, were the only force strong enough, to have done it. I was so freaking self involved, controlling, egotistical. I knew it all, could handle it all, and could solve any problem. And here you came! Something I couldn't control, or solve. I finally learned the lesson of complete and utter Heavenly reliance. I finally saw a God who was ten thousand times bigger than I could ever understand. I finally broke so badly that I had to be rebuilt. You three saved me. And you four keep saving me, over and over again. Every time I think I've got something figured out, you throw a wrench in the picture and I learn something new. Every time I think I understand self awareness or psycho babble bullshit concepts, you show me that all of that "I just want to be happy" stuff is shit and it doesn't work. You teach me, over and over and over again, that happiness is loving you and your Daddy with all of the messy heart wrenching stuff it entails. You save me from the stupidity of the world and launch me in to the constant daily reminder that I am nothing without Ehyeh. You move me to be better, to learn more, to keep. on. growing. You teach me to say "I'm sorry". You show me what humility looks like. You never allow me to think that I am better than I am. Not because you bash me, quite the contrary, but because you ask me things like Why is water clear? Why are sweet taste buds on the back of our tongues and not the front? Have you ever wondered if porcupines just want to be hugged? I'm glad I'm not a porcupine, because I like hugs. 

You four are more wonderful than the sweetest words. You four are more magnificent than any thing I could ever describe. You are my pieces of Heaven. You are my delights. To say I love you is an understatement. I love you is too simple of a concept. It's too over abused in our society. I would offer you my pulse. I would give you my breath. I will continue to go to the One who can keep you safe all the days of my life.

So yes, these days are hard and tearful for me. But hard doesn't only mean ugly and tears don't only mean hurts. You are my miracles. You are the outcome of my most difficult journey. And raising you has been the greatest pleasure of my life. I can't wait to see what will happen in your astoundingly beautiful lives over this next year. I can't wait to walk alongside of you, and hear your thoughts and questions. I can't wait to continue to grow as you grow.

I love you my nuggets. More than I could ever say. I will continue to attempt to show you this fact, with all that I am, every day that I have breath in my lungs.

The D Word

Nuggets,

Divorce is one of the ugliest words in the world. It is hideous, gruesome, devastating. It has a thousand different horrible life lessons about hurt and abandonment and you're-not-good-enough (or I'm-not-good-enough) realities. It's a word that destroys everything in its path. It leaves no joy, no excitement, no happiness. Sure, some people pretend like life is all beautiful in the midst of its journey, but pretending is a powerful tool. It helps us to cope. It's called denial, and it ain't just a river in Egypt.

The conversation turned to this awful word yesterday, when you popped up from your book. You were talking about Julie and Nancy, best friends who were being separated because Julie's parents were divorced and now Julie was moving away. (side note: I love how you dive in to books and speak of the characters like they are real people. I love how passionate you become about their feelings, issues, hurts, and joys. I love your imagination.) You asked me if Daddy and I would ever get divorced, and then you talked about how much that would hurt.

I think it's naive for grown ups to promise their children that they will never get divorced. I can't magically view the future, or speak to the actions of another person (though I have the utmost belief that it won't happen), when I am only responsible for my own. I can't promise that something hideous and ugly will never occur in the course of our lives. But I can say what has already happened, what we've already walked through, and survived. I can say that I believe in the power of healing and hope and restoration. I can say that Daddy and I have walked through the shadow of the valley of death, the most hideous of marital hurts, fought it, and lived through it. I can say that we love each other more now, than we did then. Crazy thought, isn't it?

I can say that Love is hard. Not because of the other person, but because of myself. It is hard to give of myself, expecting nothing in return, and bearing no resentments. It is hard to put the wants and needs of another person ahead of my own. It is hard to trust that they are doing the same for me. It is hard to expose the weaknesses in myself, talk about them, and to burn out the dross of my soul. It is tough to see how selfish and evil I really am, while I do my absolute best to love your Daddy. Love is a mirror. It's the clearest way to see who I really am, and not who I pretend to be. Love forced me to experience my sinful-self-denial and do something about it. Otherwise I don't really love.

I can say that I bear the scars of a set of divorced parents. Daddy does too. I can say that as young as I was, I was harmed. I can say that the lesson of the option to abandon Love has permanently changed the way I view it. I can say that as hard as I work to trust in and believe, am vulnerable and fragile with your Daddy, a deep dark part of my heart fears that he will one day decide that I'm not worth it anymore and abandon me. I know that Daddy experiences this same fear. We carry this weight, often times unaware, and we work to superglue-cement our feet in place, to be resolute in not having the option of abandonment. We work hard to show ourselves, and each other, that come what may, we are here for good.

I hope you never learn that Love can be abandoned, or that it comes with strings attached. I hope you grow up and understand that Love is about what you can give, and not what you get. I hope you always have the safety and comfort that your Daddy and I are as stubborn as hell, and we're not going to quit on each other. I hope that you will never forget to pray for us to always feel this way. I hope you will grow up to have this exact same reality in your own marriages: feet cemented, super glued, duct taped, wrapped up in seran wrap, welded together, and attached for good.

Good Mornings

Nuggets,

I love you. I have no idea how this day is going to play itself out. I have no idea if we will be moving soon or living here forever. I have no idea if school will be easy peazy lemon squeezy or if it will be like scaling a rock face with nothing but our bare hands. I can't say if we're going to experience the most unimaginable heartache or the most astounding joy. I can't declare that no one will fight today, or that everyone will be only kind, caring, and considerate. I can't. I, unfortunately, do not have the gift of seeing the future. I'm thankful for that.

I hope that you will learn to enjoy the unknowns. I have moments myself, where I hate it. I have periods where the dark realms of an unlighted path have shaken me to my core. When Bruni's kidneys stopped working, when Grigio's lungs stopped breathing, when Charchee's fever wouldn't come down, when Lolli's bone marrow freaked out, when Daddy deployed... I felt like my entire being was broken into a thousand pieces. I felt like my sense of composure wilted away. I remember screaming in to the phone (at Grandma) that God couldn't do this to me. I remember being curled up in the fetal position feeling utterly devastated. I also remember seeing your tiny, broken, fragile bodies overcoming. I remember standing there as Daddy walked off the airplane and he was home. I remember the moments when those devastations ended. I remember when healing began.

What I can tell you, what I can promise you, is that I will love you every single moment of this day. I can declare that this entire day will have that singular fact flowing throughout all of it. I can assure you that my love will not faulter, or change, or diminish based on whether or not you are a school superstar, or you are feeling sad and frustrated. I can announce with full certainty that I will still love you, even if you make the worst choices ever.

Though the path of this day is unknown to us, I look forward to walking through it with you. I look forward to this renewed opportunity to show you grace, a passion to learn, and the ability to overcome. I look forward to helping you to understand that frustrations are good, and not to be avoided. I will enjoy showing you how to love others in a greater capacity than you did yesterday. I can't wait to see you discover new things today.

But always, no matter what, I love you. Come rain or come shine.

Circus Dogs

America,

I would like to introduce you to the veterinarian nuisance. His name is Gus. He's become the black sheep of our animal family. He's the naughtiest, most troublesome, neurotic, overbearingly ridiculous four legged creature I have ever loved.

Today we took Gus in for his annual exam/shots/doctoring. We didn't even make it out of the van, before the images of Marley and Me started flooding through my brain. The dog was about to pass out from pulling so frickin hard against the leash that I think he nearly suffocated himself. The hyperventilating was real, and it wasn't all mine.

Now I pride myself on my abilities to train, equip, and handle dogs. Gus is good on a leash. I walk him all the time with no troubles. The problem with Gus is he's smart. Too smart. He forgets nothing.

He used to be great at the vet! He was calm, cool, collected. He'd mosey on in with me, and hang out quietly in the waiting room. Sure he would struggle when he wanted to greet someone or play, but what dogs don't do that? It all changed when we let them take away his cojones. From that moment, he has viewed veterinarians as the foundations of hell, and he hates them. No, he abhors them. I promise you, America, he remembers what they did to him!

You know those times when you've been to the vet and sat there listening to a dog scream bloody murder and thought to yourself Geez, I wish those people would get control of that dang dog!? You know you've had that experience. Don't lie to yourself or to me, America. It's not nice. I will confess that I used to do that all the time. I'd sit there with Jake and think Thank God I know how to control my dogs... That's pride. Jesus hates pride. Hence why he gave me a circus dog, with freak intellectual abilities. Now I am the person, sitting in the vet, being judged. We literally had someone say today What the HECK is the matter with that dog???? Oh my gosh!!!!!! Someone else said What happened to him that makes him act like this?! I said What happened? He got neutered. And he remembers it. He hates these people.

We were ushered in to a room relatively quickly. I think they understand that my dog is about to have a complete nervous breakdown (as opposed to a partial nervous breakdown. Stop laughing America. Breakdowns are no joke. Shame on you) and they try to help. In the room, the tech says Um... he is labelled a "caution" dog. So we need to put a muzzle on him. I lowered my head in shame, turned to Gus and said Do you see what you've done??? You've brought shame to the family! Indecente!

Gus does not like for vet's to touch his genitals or his booty. He has decided that his sex organs are off limits to medical personnel. Maybe he's listened in too much on my talks with the kids about perverts, and he's absorbed the information. Maybe in his genius brain, I am pinning him down to let some sicko molest him. I have no idea.

Now Gus is not all flaws. This dog has been taught to put a tennis ball in your hand and place items in your lap. He can open doors and knows unique words that are not common to dogs. He passionately loves music, but is selective about the type that he likes. He seriously has a music taste. You know how I know this? Because he dances. That's right America. Gus dances. Did I teach him that? Nope. He just did it. And he'll only dance to a certain type of music. He is insanely in tune with my emotional state. If I am ever so slightly agitated or frustrated or sad, he'll start doing random hilarious things to make me laugh. One time I was feeling frustrated and he took his toy in his mouth and started trying to do a side flip, sort of like how dolphins jump up and over to their side. He continued the action until I laughed. He is the smartest dog I've ever known. Every command he's ever been taught has usually taken 1-3 times of showing it to him and then he's got it down solid. He learned sit in two tries, when he was 7 weeks old. No. joke.

But you know how annoying it is when you're at the vet listening to some dog sing the "song" of his people? You know when you think your eardrums have burst from that irritating dog that just won't shut up and you think you're going to lose your mind? That's probably Gus, America. It's probably him mourning the loss of his testicles, and singing to the world about the misery of it. I apologize.