I am a sucker for happy thoughts. I love to turn on my "love songs" mix and rock out to memories in my mind of the world's greatest man. It's my happy place. When everything sucks and the world turns ugly, I close my eyes and play "our" song and I delete the reality of my surroundings and I fall in love again. 

He has this way that he whispers in my ear. It's so quiet like the sound of a breeze blowing through the grass. He blows through me. I can feel his chemistry merging into mine and I can feel when it passes through. 

Have you ever felt the sun? Have you ever felt the warmth of the sun on your skin? Have you ever bathed in its glory and rested under its gaze? Have you ever been in love?

I married the sun, on a humid, horrible day, I married the sun. And on that day he became my beginning and my end. He became the force from which I would move beyond myself. He became the lesson in loving someone other than myself. He became the equation necessary to create something bigger than myself. He became my name.

It's funny how stories go. I had a story before him. I had a story that was tragic and awful and melodramatic. I had a story that I rarely tell, and that I honestly don't think about very often. It has been written, it has been published, it has been exposed. After all of that, it was bound up nicely, put on a shelf, and no longer the central figure in my nightmares. It still exists, it was what it was, but it isn't the engine that propels me to be the person I am today.

I never knew what it meant to write the story of us. I don't really know how to do it. How does one find words to explain touch? How can I make you close your eyes and get lost in my happy place? How could I ever find the words that could well enough paint the picture of elation that I feel when he is sitting next to me? How can I describe to you his heart beat, or his laugh, or the feeling that swells in my body when he plays? I love watching him play. I love watching him grow and change. I love discovering how God has created in him the ability to be a man. 

Love does conquer all. But not in the way that so many people think. Love doesn't heal anything. Love doesn't take away agony, or pain. Truthfully, love is often the central figure in brokenness and heartache. It is often the key to tear-filled moments, and sleepless nights. Love is what hurts more than anything else in the world. But it doesn't stop there. Love kills you, over and over and over again. That's what love is... it's dying. It's dying to yourself, and being born to someone else. Love is giving up your ideas of the moment, and allowing someone else's Mona Lisa to take center stage. Love is watching their favorite movie, even if you don't want to. Love is watching them play video games, because they want to play, but they just want you near them too. Love is making them dinner, because it puts a smile on their face. Love is snuggles, when you're hot. Love is kisses when you're irritated. Love is rolling around in the grass, when you don't want to get dirty. Love is moving beyond what you think you want, and discovering what you can give. Love is dying to yourself. 

It took six years for me to realize that I was killing him. It took me six years to see how I oppressed him, even though it was unintentional. It took me six years to give up and stop trying to win all the time. It took me six years to learn that losing, is often times winning. It took me six years to let him be a man, to let him be my man. It took me six years of staying as rigid as possible, to learn that breaking ends up making everything so much better. 

Love is finally wanting to stay awake, because reality is so much better than your dreams. Love is having a new beginning, and a five lettered end. 

My son loves airplanes. When he sees one, he starts hollering and going on and on about how exciting it is. This evening, I am a bit tired and I have some stuff to get done, so I turned on a documentary about the Memphis Belle.

My son is currently sitting and watching, completely mesmerized.

As I sit here, I see so many images of his daddy before my eyes. The way he looks at the screen, his facial expression, looks exactly like the Lobster. Even the way he is sitting is virtually identical to his daddy.

Oh how I miss him...

chains, tanks, and Jesus

The quiet comes at a random moment and I find my head going immediately to you. My hand drops down from my chin to that gold chain dangling around my neck. I look down and that tiny white gold tank is staring right at me. Hidden behind it is the diamond cross necklace that you gave me on a valentine's day oh so many years ago. Two things that seem so counter intuitive: weapons and Jesus.

I wish I could say I hate you. I wish I could sit here with tear stained cheeks and say what an asshole you are for doing this to me. But the truth of the situation is, that is impossible for me to do. How can I hate what I love more than life itself? How can I hate the person who fills my days with laughter, whether in person or in memory? How can I shun the person who tells me cheesy come on lines, and still makes me feel like the most freaking beautiful girl in the room every time you are with me? How can I take the volcano of emotions that are bubbling under the surface of my humanity and turn them into rage, when all they want to do is shoot across the world and shower you with the ash of our exploding love?

When I close my eyes tight enough, I can remember the ghost of your silhouette sitting next to me on the couch. My legs draped across yours, and my head on your chest. Your left arm wrapped around me and your kisses on my forehead... I can remember the feeling of your hands on my skin, or your fingers laced in mine.

I miss kissing you. I miss interrupting your talking tirades with kisses and then dropping to the floor in laughter because you always say something along the lines of "Okay! I get it! I'll be quiet!"

I miss the booty dance. I miss the fact that it's my secret thing that you do. I miss the expression that washes over your face when you are pondering just how loved you are. I love how your mouth curls into this way that I don't know how to describe.

I love your ten year long quest to find the one place where I am ticklish, and the fact that you still haven't found it!

I love how you protect me. I love that I can hide behind you and that you are enough of a man to stand tall, and defend this chicken. I love that you don't give a crap about who is coming at you in regards to me. I love that you are the only man I have ever really seen, and the fact that you are mine baffles me.

Did I ever tell you that I feel closer to you when I am at mass? I feel like the time and distance between us fades away, because it is you and me and Christ, and everything else fades away. It's my favorite place to be.

It's funny what a little necklace will do to your girl.

There is something about a gritty connection, something about your face looking at me from the other side.
I never had too much to promise you baby, but I know I promised you a crazy ride

When the sun sets and it's just you and me with the white noise blaring and all of my fragility
Do you ever get tired of building brick walls high enough to maintain my sanity and stability?

The creativity of kids

My children are playing with one of my bras. I realize that writing this is somewhat tasteless, and for my male readers, I apologize if this causes you any feelings of discomfort. It is not my intention. The purpose behind the statement is the way that they are playing with it.

Charchee is currently wearing it around her neck like a necklace. Lollipop was wearing it around her head like a headband for a while. Brun was using it like a leash to drag her other sibling around. All three of my daughters are creating different, unique, and hilarious ways to play with a bra. 

When did simplicity disappear? Is it lost behind all of the technology, colorful toys, and exciting new endeavors to purchase? When did we forget that kids are just kids and playing with random objects is a blast? 

As I write this, one of my kids has decided to use the bra like a tail. She is pretending to be a horse and my bra is her tail. 

My children literally crack me up! They are seriously, seriously hilarious!

Grief

I have spent the past several months living under the weight of what if. What if the lobster dies? What if he gets hurt? What if he loses his job? What if the kids spend this year in the hospital like the last time? What if he comes home, and his brain, his heart, his love, his lobsterness stays back in that hell hole? What if...

It's a dirty sentence. It is a short two word sentence, but yet it's filthy and ugly and grotesque. It causes us to fill our minds with horrible thoughts and makes us dwell on everything but truth: our worrying doesn't change anything!

When I nutshell down all of my worrying, there is an answer. For the first time in my life, I am walking away from something that I have held dear my whole life. Everything that I used to cling to, lean on, rely on, is all of a sudden being transformed into something else. It. is. terrifying. It is mind numbing. It is causing everything in my small existence to be questioned and changed. I am afraid of conversion.

I can't really tell you why though. Logically, philosophically it makes sense. If you are questioning what truth is, and Truth reveals itself to you, how can you ignore it? Emotionally it's a completely different story. Emotionally I feel like something is dying. I feel like everything that I used to know is being buried. I feel like I'm mourning. This huge piece of myself is going away. I know it has to happen. I know it's supposed to happen, but yet it hurts. It hurts to let go of everything that has been familiar and to walk into something foreign.

It is incredibly scary that this journey into the unknown, is done with the lobster far away. It creates an environment where I feel like I have to do the leading of our children, I have to do the encouraging and question answering, I have to figure it all out without his help, without his wisdom. I hate when his leadership isn't here to guide me.

I am coming to understand that these what if thoughts and visions, are real. They represent something massively significant: the loss of a relationship that I've had for twenty five years. I loved that relationship. I cherished it. I shared it. I encouraged others in theirs. I taught. I learned. I gave...

When pouring this stuff out to the lobster, he told me that he would pray for me. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for his companionship. I am grateful for the vulnerability that I can always share with him. I am grateful for the safety that he brings me. It always amazes me how he challenges me, but yet encourages me exactly when I need it. I love how he always reminds me that we are unified and that I don't need to feel alone. It's like when I'm in a hole, instead of yelling at me about what I'm doing wrong or the stupid thing I did to get in it, he climbs in and just holds me in the darkness.

I really love his version of love. I love that his love for me is present while I am grieving...

Some SoCal-ness

It has been a while since I've written you all. This has been for several reasons, the main one of which was that I was out of town in what can only be considered internet slow mode and I could barely sign into facebook, let alone upload a blog. I am now safely back in my internet zone, and have so much to catch up on.

Last weekend my sister got married. It was sort of surreal to see someone, who in my mind is still twelve, get married. I was blessed to have been her maid of honor, and to be able to experience that with her. Nevermind that I didn't get to do almost anything that a maid of honor gets to do, and the "photographer" didn't take a single picture of me with my sister alone, but whatever. I will be Yelping that one asap.

Southern California is my version of hell. To put it quite honestly, I loathe that place. Flying into it is like flying into depression itself. There is nothing but concrete for the last twenty minutes of the flight. When I hear people say that it's beautiful, I'm honestly sitting there saying to myself, 'Where!?' Every single surface has been maimed, tainted, and destroyed by humanity and their ever continuing quest to conquer, destroy, and change. I hate what Californians have done to that place. It is so bad that you can almost hear the earth begging, pleading for someone to allow it to breathe under the weight of all that stone... Why would anyone want to live there!?

When I think of beauty, I think of the rolling hills of eastern Kansas. I think of the grass that stretches for miles and miles. I think of how it ices over in the winter and it looks like fields of crystals sparkling in the sunlight. That is beautiful to me. Not concrete and fences, and buildings...

Quite honestly, I don't belong in SoCal. I spent the majority of last week with nothing to say. I always teach my children that if they don't have anything nice to say, then they should say nothing at all. So I didn't. I was present, but silent. I just have nothing to contribute to that realm of whateverism where everything is superficial, inconsistent, fake, and entirely self focused. No one really helps anyone else, and everyone is hell bent on pushing, enforcing, and staying neatly confined in their version of life and events. Quite honestly, everything is all about self in SoCal.

And my family? They're exactly like the environment they live in. I don't relate to them at all. I don't know them. I have no connection other than the blood that flows in our veins. I am nothing like them. Sure, we have mediocre similarities that tend to occur when you grow up in the same environment, but beyond that... I see no similarities. What I value, they don't. What I believe in doing, they don't. What I stand for, they oppose. Complete opposites. It's so bad that I can't even communicate when they're around. What's the point? Why would I want to waste my breath, thoughts, and emotion on people who aren't interested in really changing anything, but are just resigned to mediocrity and self indulgement? It's like being an addict. My life sucks so I'll hook onto the latest thing that give me some momentary feeling of satisfaction and contentment, until that high fades and I have to find something else.

It's a bit sad when you step back and look at it as a whole.

Do you know that only one person in my family asked about my husband the entire eight days I was there? Only one. My dad. That's it.

Walls are so meaningless and pointless. I hated them when I had them for so many years as a child. I constantly felt stifled and abandoned. Truth is, I don't know how to shine, or be myself, around my family. Why would I? I have consistently been unaccepted. I have always been different.

If I'm honest, SoCal always leaves me saying to myself, "Is anyone really happy there?" I have yet to meet one person who really is...