Remembering to forget

Coming home today, my mind was bogged down with all the stressful details of life like how I need to clean the house tomorrow and I don't really want to but if I don't I'll regret it and get overwhelmed by it later and the mortgage needs to be paid and the sitter, and what am I going to do about dinner?

This kind of thinking usually leads to more anxiety and this case was no different from the usual. I was stressed and irritated before I even pulled into the driveway where I was met by my two whining, pleading girls who wanted nothing more than to go swimming at the pool.

Swimming was the last thing I wanted to do. I was tired and hungry and just wanted to crash in front of a mindless TV show for the next few hours. But they wouldn't give in easily. Those cute little girls dressed themselves in their swimming suits then proceeded to dress their little brothers in their suits as well, gathered up the beach towels and even sprayed sun screen on the baby. So after all this, when they emerged from down stairs and held out my swimming suit and hit me with their big, beautiful, sad puppy eyes I was done for. We went swimming.

Ashton wanted to show me how she learned to turn summer saults under water. Brooke can swim in the deep end all by herself. I taught them both how to back float and the boys had a great time just splashing and playing in their float tubes. As I watched those beautiful kids having so much fun and so eager to show me all their new found talents, all my stressing seemed ridiculous. I remembered again how to forget and let go. Stop watching the clock and just enjoy the moment. I remembered what was truly important.

The kids and I  all got lost in our play so deeply that when nine o' clock rolled around and the pool was closing down for the night it felt as if we'd been there only minutes.

We pulled ourselves out of the pool, and wrapped up in our towels, walked home feeling water logged and tired but our souls were energized. My mind was no longer bogged down with stress or fear, but felt cleansed and whole again. The children were calm now that they had wrestled away their restlessness. All of us were laughing, and happy. All of us felt joy, real true joy that comes from being with and playing with the people you know you want to be with and play with forever. We are a family.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT BUT MY CAMERA MAY NOT BE!

Alright folks, enough of the heavy for a minute. 

I like to call this collection of pictures:

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

BUT MY CAMERA MAY NOT BE!!

(Danged kids found the camera again)

But who could be mad at a face like that?

I guess Ariel developed a taste for milk chocolate
(That was a questionable comment
I apologize in advance for any offense)

I think there is a future in
 photography for these girls anyway

I mean, look at that pose!

Dr. Barbie added just for the sake of the promotion
for well rounded, liberated girls.

The infamous monkey face
that until now, has never been seen outside
the girls' bedroom.

The feathers and sequins add a nice touch
don't they?

Everyone thinks my girls
are such mild and well mannered children

Well this is just a little peak into
the life of the real Roane sisters.

But hey, well mannered women rarely make history!

In the eye of the storm.

I don't know exactly how to approach the topic of my current life changes, I don't know where to begin. So much has happened to our family these last few months. So much has been uprooted and transplanted and even in part destroyed by this raging storm that has subsided a little now, but is still too fresh to fully understand let alone write about. I feel as though I am standing amidst the wreckage that once was home.  That I am taking a mental survey of the damage and the destruction and trying to make sense of how to move forward, how to rebuild and what it is I am rebuilding. However, I do feel the need to address this topic and to open the dialogue for my wonderfully faithful reader-friends. So I'll just start with the basics of updates.

The storm in my metaphor refers to the all-too legal, all too cold and calculated process of divorce. And as with most storms its not just the wind of the legal process that makes a storm a storm, that's really just the kicker. Its the loss of a way of life, of a companion you thought you knew, of the person you thought you were that really pours down on you like flooding rains. Yes, after months of agonizingly hard work, compromise, and soul searching on both parts, my husband and I decided to file the divorce papers and go our separate ways.

That decision took place a couple months ago. The weeks that followed were the 'period of adjustment' as they call it in the divorcing parents course, but what I prefer to call 'hell week' because it more appropriately defines the emotions involved. It was during this time that we all had to settle into our new routines, and our new homes. It was during this time that questions were answered tears shed, reassurances issued out daily, like vitamins. It was during this time that grandparents and aunts and uncles were called in as reinforcements. The kids and I adopted a dog just to add a spark of happiness back into our lives. And I sigh a big sigh of relief that he's turned out to be a good thing. The time we've had the past few weeks is the time we needed to accept what must be. To accept that some storms, like some mistakes are devastating to the very core of a structure.

The divorce is what was needed. The pain is just an aftermath. The fear of the unknown; inevitable. And here is where I stand, uprooted.

I don't usually read magazine articles, but lately I've been doing a lot of things I don't usually do so I figured, why the hell not? What I discovered is an article that touched a deep cord within me. It was written by the fabulously poetic writer, Margaret Roach and it was all about finding peace in your life. In one part of it she said, "uprooting and even breaking apart are sometimes not so bad after all, and just what's called for."

Four weeks ago I wouldn't have agreed with that statement, I would have thrown the magazine and muttered aloud that this writer obviously doesn't know how painful 'uprooting' and 'breaking' is but as with most of life's lessons, this little verse came at just the right time in my life to re-establish the hope of a better life, to bring me a little peace, and to remind me that happiness is a god-given right to us all. This little quote gives me the strength I need to move on, to change and to re-build myself one brick at a time.

Life, Love and other risks we take.

I've been thinking a lot lately about risks. I've never been much of a risk taker in most aspects. I tried repelling once but found myself frozen at the top of the cliff and unable to just let go, trusting the cable would really hold and not allow my body to plummet to the rocky ground below. I've never enjoyed the weightlessness and uncertainty of water sports and forget sky diving! Its never going to happen for me. But the fact is life is nothing but a series of risks of one kind of another. As much as I want to believe I'm running from uncertainties, I'm not. No one is.

Someone once said that the only guarantee you get in life is that there are no guarantees. How true that rings for me, especially at this point of my life. If you had asked me fifteen years ago where I'd be now, I would have told you that I'd be an independent and successful business woman living in Manhattan. Five years down the road I found myself wanting nothing more than to be a mother and wife. If anyone would have told me then that I would find myself unfulfilled and moving on from my marriage in eight short years, I would have told them they were nuts. We were the exception, we would make it work. Maybe there are no guarantees, but this was that one thing that broke all the rules. This was a guarantee.

I was wrong. Just like everything else in life, this marriage too had no guarantee stamp.

No one can really anticipate all that could go wrong with a relationship when they are first entering into it. Allowing ourselves to love is a risk we take. Perhaps its the biggest risk we take in life because its a risk we take blindly. Its difficult to pinpoint exactly when and how the whole thing fell apart. A marriage is like a rock, strong and binding. What no one tells you is that all the stresses of life are constantly chiseling away at your rock. Little by little, it pecks off pieces so small you don't even notice its happening at first, then before you know it you find that your rock has a huge gap right down the middle of it. This is the crucial point of that relationship when you must decide to either build a bridge or let the whole thing crumble.

Regrets? Of course I have regrets. Many of them. More than I want to think about or post on this blog. But I don't regret taking the risk. I don't regret allowing love in. I don't regret it because I learned so many valuable lessons from it that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. But what I do regret is standing on that cliff twelve years ago and not just taking that risk, that leap of faith, letting go and letting myself jump into that unknown. Because if I knew then what I know now I would have realized that no life is worth living if its a life with no risks.

Eat, Pray, Love: The every day Woman's version.

 I'm back, sort of. At least I'm writing again and that feels good, it feels soul cleansing.

 The past few weeks have brought a lot of changes for me personally, all of which I cannot yet bring myself to express openly. I will say that I am on a journey of self discovery. My journey seems to parallel  the one taken in Eat,Pray, Love, though not nearly as exotic. I wish I could run away to Italy as that woman did. I wish I could eat foreign foods and stay in quaint villages and pray in Indian temples while I figure out who I am or what I want from my life. But as it is, my life does not afford those kinds of luxuries. As most normal people, I must stay and face my realities. I must go on from day to day, working and caring for my children and find the time some where in between to do a little soul searching. I do occasionally make spaghetti with meat balls, I suppose that could count as exotic foreign foods. And I have my blog This blog is my soul searching, my meditation. Thank you for allowing me this little luxury.

I would call this thing I am going through a midlife crisis, but I'm only thirty two so I guess that doesn't exactly fit. All I know is that my life has become extremely unfulfilling. Marriage and family is all I ever thought I would want, and don't get me wrong, those things have brought me a lot of happiness over the last few years. But I guess I want something more for myself, something more on a personal level. I want to be a better version of myself and in turn be able to be a better version of mother and perhaps again some day a wife. For now I need the time alone to get myself right again.

Nate and I are taking a break. Hurt has marred our relationship, and the pain has forged a canyon between us that neither of us is ready to bridge. I'm not sure that we will ever again find our way back to each other, only time can tell. I am thankful that we have been able to remain friends and parents for our children. Without that, this separation would be even more devastating for us as well as for the family.

So I'm back. And I am eating and praying and loving and I'm hoping that all of it will bring me back to some peace, some understanding of myself.

Honesty is the best policy, if only I could be honest with myself.

Can I be honest? Really honest? Can I write on this blog that has been thus far dedicated to my random thoughts and experiences with life, a more solemn and serious topic? And can I do it without harsh judgement from those who read it? I'm not sure I can, but I think I'd like to try it out and let the chips fall where they may.

I haven't written in a while and not because I have nothing of importance happening in my life to write about, its quite the contrary actually. I have nothing but importance and important things hanging by a very thin line right now and I didn't think it was something I could talk about. (And I know its not something I have the ability to make light of or joke about). I've had strong emotions, hurt, and chaos that have and still are cluttering my mind. I am at that defining point of my life where every day I question who I am and who I am becoming, and the answers never come.

 One thing I know for sure, I am a writer. I may not be a pulitzer prize winning author, or an educated writer, or even a very good writer, but I am a writer because I NEED to be. I need to express myself on paper. I need to share my deepest emotions with anyone who cares to read it and I do it without shame or reserve.

I know I love my children and I hope I can do what is right for them. I worry every day that I am going to do something that will scar their perfect little souls beyond repair, but I never give up trying. And I hope they can see that I love them and want the best for them, but that I am not a perfect person and hope they can forgive me for these shortcomings.

I know that I love my husband. I know that for reasons beyond my grasp, he loves me too. But I feel inadequate to be what all these people who love me and need me to be. I am a broken soul. I am a porcelain figure in a glass menagerie, on the edge of my own destruction. I am a grown woman with child-like hurt and have nothing but hurt to offer to anyone around me.

God help me. Help me before it is all too late for me and for those I love.

Strange people I meet while working: The happily cursed

Tuesday was a day like any other, I arrived at work semi-late and already exhausted from the morning chaos that inevitably happens when you have to get four kids ready and out the door by 7:30. I went about my usual routine of stocking the shelves in the drawing room and sorting the mail. The first couple of hours  brought no surprises or change. Patients came in with the usual attitude of reluctant obedience, they rolled up their sleeves and allowed me to perform my duty, then hastened off to better places without passing on much more than a polite salutation. It was somewhere in the middle of this monotony that I had the pleasure of meeting the young girl I now refer to affectionately as the happily cursed.

She was a girl of homely appearance, short and round in the body, dull, lifeless locks of dishwater-colored hair hung in an unflattering bob around her swollen face. Her eyes were rather small and her nose quite  wide and her complexion was covered in scars, and fiery rashes. As I called her name and waited for her to settle herself into the drawing chair, I secretly hoped that whatever she had was not contagious.

 She warned me straight off that her arms were covered in scar tissue and that I should probably skip straight to a hand vein if I wanted to be successful at finding a blood source. After getting a quick look at the thick red scarring on her arms, I began to prepare the equipment needed to draw a hand vein.

"Did you have a skin graft?" I asked, in morbid curiosity.

"No." She answered cheerfully, "I have a blood disease that causes these rashes and boils and leaves my skin scarred like this."

I instantly felt ashamed at my bluntness and offered a compassionate apology for her condition.

"Oh, don't be sorry, I'm not. I am happy with my trials. I am glad I have this disease." She announced with conviction.

I was taken aback by her choice of words. I have in the past, had many people in my drawing chair with terrible diseases and even terminal illnesses which still maintain a positive attitude, but never have I heard anyone say they were 'happy' with their condition and certainly I had never had a patient profess to be 'glad' of their trial.

"Well, Its good that you have a positive attitude about what you must endure." I said, hoping she would elaborate and impart to me some great wisdom she has gained from her experience.

"Oh, I endure it happily. Sure I have these terrible sores on my body, but my condition also comes with a stronger spirit and closeness to god. They call my kind of illness  'Job's disease' for short. The name describes the boils and rashes but also the strong conviction of faith that my kind all seem to possess."

I was impressed. This simple girl was an answer to my prayer. She had imparted to me in those few minutes a piece of great wisdom that a lifetime of sunday school hadn't been able to do. She stayed and talked to me for a few minutes after I had drawn her few vials of blood. She told me about her sisters who also had the disease and her older sister who had escaped the gene somehow. I marveled at her very apparent acceptance and lack of jealousy or self-pity. She was a bright soul.

When she left, I couldn't help but feel a sense of enlightenment. I contemplated her words and recalled in my mind the story of Job, who the lord loved and yet allowed satan to try with every imaginable affliction. I thought of my own trials and for a moment wished that I had a stronger spirit, a stronger resolve in god and faith, even if it meant enduring a terrible physical ailment. But then the words of that sweet girl echoed again in my head, 'I am happy with my trials' and I realized that I don't have physical trials. I am not handicapped or covered in boils. These are not the trials God has given me. My trials are different, more subtle perhaps, but why should I not be happy and strong in faith just as she is.

We all have trials. I have flaws in character and mood that are debilitating just as a physical handicap might be, others struggle with weight or even just a crooked nose. But there is one thing we are all given in equal amounts, and that is our choices. We can choose to wallow in our misery, and let our trials handicap our lives or we can embrace who we are and allow our hearts to be penetrated with the light of god. We can choose to be happy even in the face of our darkest adversity, because some part of us knows that this trial is for our spiritual growth.

Oh how I pray that I might transform my attitude as this sweet, happily cursed girl has done. That I might soon be able to brightly declare, if only to myself, that I too am happy with my curse. Even if it is as simple as fulfilling my obligation to work on an ordinary Tuesday.

How to tell your husband about your speeding ticket. (and stay out of hot water)

Alright, I admit that I quite purposefully put off telling my husband, Nate, about the speeding ticket. Its not that I was so much afraid of his wrath, (I can handle his little growl), so much as I just didn't want to deal with his gloating. You see, Nate is hopelessly proud of the fact that in his thirty-two years of life (16 years of driving) he has yet to get a traffic ticket and he'll use any opportunity he can to compare my driving record to his spotless one. For example, if I am riding with him and tell him to slow down or remind him that there is a stop sign ahead, he will very piously remind me that he does not need driving lessons from the woman who has managed to total five cars in a matter of ten years.

So I stashed my ticket in the bottom of my purse along with all the other forgotten hand-outs and half-pieces of gum and waited for just the right opportunity to whip it out. What would you know, the right opportunity presented itself the very next night when Nate, upset over some other trivial matter, overreacted, yelled at me, and an hour later felt like a total douche bag. Perfect speeding ticket confession moment!

 I think the logic behind this is fairly obvious. The husband has already had a major tantrum, and adequate time to calm down. His demeanor is now repentant. He apologizes profusely for his behavior. I, in turn do not accept his apology too quickly, but let the guilt brew for a bit. (I may have let him order dinner in so he feels a little retribution in letting me off the cooking hook). I avoid eye contact and  do not allow physical contact at this early stage. Everything has to be perfectly timed or the entire scheme will blow up in my face. Just when it seems my poor husband is on the verge of lashing himself with a whip, I grab my ticket, shove it at him and tearfully say,

 "I guess since I'm already a huge screw up in your book, now is as good a time as any to tell you I got a ticket today!"

There it is. The look of great restraint. The forced smile, put on to ensure me that his repentance is real. He cannot yell, he cannot even look upset, or I'll know that his temper is still not in check. It takes every muscle in his body to control what I know he wants to say at that moment. Mine, is a look of cautious defiance. An expression I've mastered over the eight years we've been married. Its the look that says, 'come on sweetie, I dare you to get angry right now'. It worked. I never once had to endure even the slightest of teases about my ticket. It may sound mean, but its just survival. Plus, he got the perfect opportunity to redeem himself. Good boy Nate.

Feel free, wives, to use this scheme at any time with your husbands. But be careful, remember that timing is everything. Its as delicate a script as a Neil Simon piece, move to the confession too quickly and you're sunk, move too slowly, and you're in for another lecture. Play at your own risk.

Kitty gone bad!

When you have kids winter is mostly made up of runny noses and stomach flu's, with a few sprinkles of healthy days in between. In fact I think I should be able to have a "coming to work pending" pass between the months of November and February. It would save me a lot of call in's. This last week brought us a nice easterly wind of Matthew and strep throat. The week before last, Harrison woke up in the night screaming in ear ache agony. And I'm sure you'll be glad I spared you from the details of our week before Christmas vomit fest.

Now, as if dealing with sick children all winter long wasn't enough, my stupid cat, Mr. Kitty, always chooses these sick days to have a little kitty mishap. Including, but not limited to, puking a hairball up on one of the kids' beds, wiping his furry little kitty butt on the downstairs carpet, smearing kitty poopie on the side of his litter box, or just simply taking a crap in the middle of the girls' bedroom. Why Kitty? Why?!!!

After cleaning Matthew's puke out of the van on Wednesday, the last thing I wanted to do was come inside to find kitty poop on my family room floor. I admit, I freaked out a little bit. Said some things to Kitty that I later regret saying. And, yes, I did lash out a little too.

I found Kitty laying ever-so-chalantly on the floor beside the dining room table. Kitty was immediately taken into my custody and thrown, not set, thrown outside into the cold January weather where he would stay until Nate came home later that afternoon. I was so angry with him that I was able to simply ignore his persistent meowing outside the back door. Then later, his meowing outside the front door. When he jumped up on the window sill so he could look me in the eye with protest, I shut the curtains. That cat had pushed my last nerve.

When Nate came home from work that day, he was equally angry at the stupid cat. So angry in fact, that he insisted we take him to the shelter that day. I don't have the heart to turn my pet into the shelter, so I suggest we take him for a ride to a nice little farm where he can live out the rest of his miserable days among the company of horses and sheep.

We did it. We finally just set our minds to it and rid ourselves of the cat. And we both are sick with guilt ever since. We found a nice place for him, but he's not used to living outside. I've been feeling so guilty in fact that I went to look for him last night, but with no success. I may try again today. Unless I can find another way to divert myself from my guilt.