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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| Last night was a difficult one. On nights like last night, it is the little things that make all the difference. The simplest gestures can bring the most comfort, like my husband coming upstairs to find me and give me a hug, wordlessly wrapping me in his arms for a few moments. Or my daughter, just about to throw a fit about wanting to eat her dinner in front of the television, taking an extra moment to register the look on my face and deciding instead to calmly walk with me hand in hand into the dining room. The little things my little family does to make my world a little lighter...make all the difference in a day. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 885 August 10, 2016 Prompt: What Olympic Event would you like to have a Gold Medal in? I can answer this one without hesitation...Ski jump! I don't think there is anything more badass than rocketing oneself down a ramp at over 60 miles per hour for the sole purpose of launching into the air, traveling over 390 feet and landing, ON SKIES...with all your internal organs still in place. If I were to win a gold medal for such a thing, my supreme awesomeness would nevermore be in question!! "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1366 August 11, 2016 The door swung open but no one was visible.... and? The rain soaked stoop stood empty in the amber glow of the porch light. Alexia had hear the knocking, the rabid banging, only moments before. She had rushed from the kitchen, her hands still wet from the dishes and trailing suds across the wood floors and her heart pounding away in her chest, to throw the door open. Nothing. No one. She peered out into the night, looking for anything through the curtains of black rain. She stepped back, about to close the door, when she saw something. She stepped forward out onto the stoop, started down the brick stairs to the walkway. On the second step, lying half off the edge, was piece of waterlogged notebook paper. She gingerly picked it up, unfolded the wet edges and struggled to read the fading ink. The first line she was fairly certain read only, "Tick Tock" in a narrow, neat script. The second line was harder to decipher, the writing more obscured by rain damage. She brought the paper closer toward the light and tried again. "Your Alice ran out of time." Alexia felt shock radiate through her body as the words swam into clearer focus. She flipped the paper over but there was nothing more than the cryptic message bearing her late mother's first name. "Your Alice", she read aloud again, the words settling upon her like a sudden chill. Alexia found herself desperately wanting to be back inside her little house. She backed up the stoop, reluctant to turn her back on the night and fled inside, the paper clutched in one of her small hands. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 883 August 8th, 2016 Prompt: What do you think about this feeling of “I should have done better!” in any area? Can it be a positive or negative motivator in some way? This prompt feels dangerous to me today because despite all my knowledge and effort, the doubts have been hovering just outside my thoughts lately, insidious and seeping. I see him, stumbling across the road, swaying on his feet, the effort to keep himself upright painfully obvious. I see him in my dreams, and all day long as I try to get my work done. I see him and I think, could I have saved him? Can I still? I ask myself the questions and doubt bites raw, bleeding ribbons into my guts. I think back to the all the chances, to all the opportunities I watched him burn through. I think back to how so many tried to help him. There have been many kind people who have stepped up, who have extended their hearts over the years. I've seen the progress he's made under the right care, promises of a hopeless path digressed and a life renewed. I've been there when he's walked away, back into the darkness again. It is beyond tormenting. "Should I have done better?" I don't know. I did the best I could the first time I lost someone to the black pit of addiction. I had given so much away, I nearly offered up my own life in the process of trying to save his. I knew it was not something I could bear ever again. No human on Earth should have to suffer through the pain and agony of addiction and loss more than once. It rips out your soul at the roots and breaks your heart in a way that it can never fully heal again. Its a endless wound and scar tissue burns hot with every reminder, with every memory thrust upon you. You never forget and when you see it again, that toxin demon in another, your entire system engages everything it can to protect you from getting sucked down again. For each moment that you search familiar eyes and see the light fading behind the irises, the certainty rises inside you like some terrible tide. And so I ask myself, "should I have done better?" And there is both a terrible doubt and an absolute certainty at the same time and the dichotomy is pure agony. "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1363: August 8, 2016 Prompt: Each time the wind blew, she could hear the flowers talking to her. Tell me what the flowers said to her. The brittle branches above her head bob heavily with the fat, fragrant blooms. She reaches up and traps one in her palm, burying her nose in the tiny purple flowers, breathing deep their perfume. Its a familiar scent that evokes memories of her childhood. She remembers cutting and arranging the lilacs into thick bouquets with her grandmother. She remembers bouncing on her toes under the blooms, tapping the rain from the blossoms with a thin branch and squealing with the water hit her bare shoulders and back. Each year the lilacs bushes would bloom at the edge of her grandmother's property, healthy and full, the higher boughs reaching into the skies three of four feet higher than her head. They had all but died out now, thinned to where they had to be cleared out. She had loved those flowers and when she had driven past the wide wall of lilacs, she hadn't been able to resist going back. She had wanted to touch them, breath in their sweetness. She wanted to reconnect with a part of her past that was simple, fragrant and full of promise. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 879 August 4, 2016 Prompt: A girl sitting alone on a rock at the edge of the woods jumps when she hears...... You take it from here. The wail came to her through the tangle of dark trees. Her ears registered the sound and her heart named it in the dark. The girl slipped off the rock at the edge of the woods. She back away, not daring to turn her back on the sound. The wailing rose up, a terrifying crescendo of agony, and it turned to gut into an icy pit. It seemed to thicken around her, become more than a sound. She felt it press against her, so cold and empty. It felt like talons had pierced her chest, sinking into the soft and vulnerable tissues of her lungs. She began to run backwards, racing away while keeping her eyes pinned to the black line edge of the forest expecting at any moment to see the hag emerge, gray and mottled, red eyes searching and screaming maw agape. "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1359: August 4th, 2016 The prompt for today is: If you were to live under the ocean, what would you look like? What would you eat? Who or what would you interact with? Paint a picture of your life under the ocean. The behemoth broke the surface of the bay, rolling forward with the surf, an impossible blue in a dark gray sea. She expelled as she surfaced, sending spray in a foaming tower into the atmosphere above her. The miles had been endless as she crossed oceans to reach these temperate waters rich with food for the baby she carried. There had been moments in the journey that had been difficult. A close call with a tanker had left a raw and raging wound in her side. She had bled into the depths, an open invitation to predators that had stalked her. Their prey drive thwarted only by the sheer size of her. There was some comfort to being the largest living creature on the planet. She suddenly felt the vibrations in the sea around her. She recognized the signature of an approaching school of fish. She was starving. She turned toward the food, feeling the baby stirring inside her cavernous body. She called on her remaining reserves and prepared to dive. She was soundless as she slipped into the shadows, a massive wonder of evolution. |
| I feel very much like I have been slogging through today. My desk has been a jumble of the kind of work you need to catch up on periodically like piles of junk mail, industry publications to sort, followup letters to go out. They are necessary tasks that give you no level of satisfaction when completed other than a space of clear real estate which will be inevitably filled by other things in piles before the day is out. I'm struggling to keep a bad mood from growing worse and failing miserably. I want to go home and crawl in bed. I want to wake up some other random week. I'm trying to focus on the bright spots lately. My daughter lost her first tooth this weekend...a tiny one in the front of her mouth. We never found the tooth but her wide, proud smile was a beautiful thing to see. She had been waiting patiently as friend after friend regaled her with stories of losing their teeth and visits from the tooth fairy. It was one of those sweet first moments that mark the passage of time in family's journey together. Thinking of it now makes me feel marginally better but I know it won't stave off the black mood hovering just under the surface for very long. Maybe it has sometime to do with turning 42 this week...maybe its just an accumulation of the stress and frustration that's been building for week...maybe its just the general discontent that seems to resonate from everything these days. I'm so sick of the same talking heads, the same obnoxious bullies spewing their political garbage and turning the world into a place where I feel divided and isolated instead of welcomed and included. Maybe...I don't know. I just know I feel like a human slug, a moderately unhappy one at that! After several prompts have slipped by unaddressed over the last few weeks, I have to get back on track with at least that part of my life so here goes... "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1356: August 1, 2016 Prompt: "My first poem was a bolt from the blue... it broke a spell of disillusion and suicidal despondence... it filled me with soul satisfying joy." - William Carlos Williams. Have you ever written something or encountered a piece of writing that filled your soul with joy. If you haven't had that type of experience when writing did you have it at any other time. Tell us about it. I wish I could say that something I had written had filled my soul with joy. I think I am too much of a self-critic to let that happen. I've written things that have brought me peace and closure which I am thankful enough for. I think joy is an emotion reserved for very powerful experiences. It just seems much less accessible than happiness, less stable. Joy seems to be a more compelling, encompassing feeling that overwhelms you temporarily. Joy seems to me like it may be too intense to be experienced in any sustained state. You experience joy at those tremendous moments of life. For me, my most joyful moment was seeing my daughter for the first time. I had been an emergency c-section and the sudden onset of fear and trauma had been almost too much to bear. Then, that moment when they brought her to me, showed me her perfect little face, and I knew my daughter was healthy and well...that's when joy hit me. It drove everything else out and I was floating - blissfully. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 876 August 1, 2016 Prompt: Right now I am looking up at the ceiling; when outside, I look up at the sky, the clouds, and the tops of trees. Do you ever look up, and what does looking up mean to you? I try to remember to look up now and again. I had a good friend once who tried very hard to impress upon me the wonder of clouds. He spent a lot of time looking up there, into the blue. He could always find the most amazing things. He told me it wasn't about what you could find, it was able taking the time to look. In my busy life, I do try to take that time. Not just at the clouds, but into the vast network of limbs of the oak in my yard or out into the wide expense of long island sound. I look. I remember. Sometimes I am even rewarded by a glimpse of a massive owl, a fleeting hummingbird, the rolling back of something big breaking the water. It is good to look up, to look out. It gives us a few minutes to breath and connect with ourselves and the world around us. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 1343 July 19, 2016 Pick something that happened on this day and talk about it in your blog. I've included a link to give you some ideas. http://www.onthisday.com/events/july/19 1848 The first women's rights convention, called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia C. Mott, was held in Seneca Falls, New York. On this day in history, the first women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. I find this day and event significant as this country is witnessing the first ever female democratic nominee for the Office of the Presidency. As I write this I am astounded at how long it has taken us to get here. The fight for equality has raged on now for over 168 years. Whether or not Hillary is elected, women everywhere should recognize that she represents some measure of victory in the ongoing battle for equal rights. It has taken an excruciating long time for society to accept the concept of a woman as Commander in Chief when you consider that the credential committee of the World's Anti-Slavery Convention held in 1840 in London once ruled that women were "constitutionally unfit for public and business meetings".* *Reference: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage1848/a/seneca_falls.htm "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 863 July 19, 2016 Let's try an example in perspectives. I've provided two and you take it from there with which ever one works for you. 1. A young woman not ready to die 2. An old man who is ready to die The rain came down in heavy, swollen droplets. The weight of the water pressed the tall tomato plants in their wire cages down toward the ground. She found herself thinking about those tomato plants. They had grown remarkably lush, spreading well outside the confines of their towers. Their branches had extended out over the patio, heavy with the swell of ripened red fruit. She wondered if they would be permanently damaged by the storm or if they would rebound with the sun. They has seemed so strong before and now they appeared to be losing the battle with nature, in much the same way she felt she was. There had been lots of tumultuous weather in her life, storm fronts she had withstood and rebounded from time and time again. She had started to feel stubbornly indestructible. Until yesterday. Until the call from the doctor had interrupted her marathon cleaning session and reordered her whole world. Tomorrow she would sit across from him, he would disclose the results and they would talk about time. She would learn how much she had left and she would be certain it would never seem like enough. She wasn't ready to die. She wasn't ready to bend her limbs to the earth and surrender all her beautiful ripeness to the dirt. |
| My daughter has been in summer camp now for nearly two weeks. She has grown into it, day by day. I get few details about her day when I ask her. She's often worn out at pickup, preferring to climb into the air-conditioned car and sit quietly listening to the radio. When she decides she wants to talk it is usually much later, right before bedtime or when I'm trying to get her into the shower. She suddenly has lots of stories to tell me, like about her going underwater during swim lessons, getting pinched by a baby crab or a new friend she made that day. She chatters on, animated, her green eyes wide and her tan arms and legs in constant motion. My daughter at six is a whirlwind. I can barely keep up with the new lingo, expressions and interests she seems compelled to pick up on a daily basis. I find myself just looking at her, watching her playing with the neighbors or riding her razor around the yard, marveling at her beautiful, strong little body and her boundless energy. I wonder, had I been so full of promise and wonder at her age? So full of sass and spice? My favorite thing about this stage of her journey is the laughter. She has developed several distinct laughs and I hear them at regular intervals. There is the shy giggle, her old standby. She's got a mischievous snicker, reserved for times when she pushing the buttons and almost certainly bound for trouble. There is that slightly less than sincere chuckle for the times she knows the polite thing to do is laugh but she's not really feeling it. My favorite is the completely natural and hearty guffaw that rolls from her in unbridled waves, unhindered by self-consciousness. It is a sound rich with joy. It comes from the center of her budding sense of humor, from the untapped reservoir of fun and childhood mirth inside her. I love to hear her laugh like that. It is heartwarming and infectious. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 858 July 14, 2016 Prompt: Collect moments, not things. Do you agree? It is easy to lose the value in material things, to become trapped by the representation of success. Moments are fleeting cross-sections of time and space that can bring far more lasting joy than more tangible things can. I try to remember that its not the vacation photos that matter but the moments captured in those frames, the experiences and the feelings shared and exchanged. I know people who are consumed by the things they have or can obtain but their lives have a vapid quality, something seems lacking despite their obvious success. I think that is sad. "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1338 July 14, 2014 Do you see podcasting as a means of getting your writing out there? Pros and cons? I am new to all things "podcasting". It seems very "brave new world" to me and I think overall its great exposure for writers who understand how to use it. I am not one of those writers yet though. I have to garner my audiences in the "old ways" and that seems like enough of a challenge for me most days. |
| Today my heart feels so heavy...actually I think the best way to describe it is that my heart feels so weary. There are things in this life that are so demoralizing that they leech the hope right out of your bones. I have a unique and unfortunate perspective on dealing addiction, on dealing with an addict who is also a family member or loved one. The helplessness and sense of desperation of someone attempting to understand and process that type of situation, resonate with me deeply. I literally feel their pain, all the way to my soul. I've been there. Its hell on Earth and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy let alone someone I love. I know my words of advice may sound calice. I know I don't sound like someone who has compassion - but I do, in spades. It is just that I have been there, and barely made it out with my life. Trying to save someone who refuses to help themselves is like standing in quicksand in steel toed boots, or trying to put out a burning inferno with a silo cup of water. You can put in all the effort, all the love, all the fight you have at your disposal...and it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean we ever stop loving the addicts in our lives, or hurting for them, but we have to be strong in our hearts and in our conviction that we can not control their lives, that we are not responsible for their lives - only our own. An addict will wound you because they know your love for them will allow you to rip those wounds open time and time again, without ever healing...and one day you wake up and realize you've nearly bled out from trying, from caring, from loving. This is a difficult path and there are very cruel lessons to be learned. My heart is heavy because I know the burden, I know that self-doubt and that fear and that heartache. I know how it is to feel your spirit breaking off at the edges. I can only pray for you to have strength to do the things that need to be done, the things that seem heartless when you want to love so badly. I'm a bit distracted today but I've got to give my daily prompts a go... "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 855 -- July 11, 2016 It is said that everything outside our warm, safe circle is our blind spot. Do you sometimes think that you are blind to what’s in front of your eyes or that your subconscious has blocked something from your immediate knowledge of it? Once upon a time, I think I did have a blind spot but fortunately my own personal trials have granted me a well-earned "eyes wide open" view. I'm a skeptic at heart now. I tend to always assume the worst and hatch a Plan B before I even know if I'll need a Plan A. My default setting is just two ticks shy of always have a contingency plan or escape hatch. "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1335: July 11, 2016 Prompt: Which season inspires you the most? Why does this season inspire you? There is something about new fallen snow that inspires me. Waking to it first thing in the morning is like getting a do-over. The world looks for pristine and bright. It can be very beautiful. There is a stillness to new snow that always brings me peace. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1332 July 8, 2016 I was reading Creating Characters by the editors at Writer's Digest and came across this: There is a character hierarchy where not all characters are created equal. They indicate place holders,walk ons, minor characters and your lead characters create the story. I'm curious how do you measure the importance of each character before the story develops or does it just fall into place? I think character development typically begins well before I write the first word of any fictional piece. I tend to see the characters or character first, then the plot naturally seems to build around them. There always is a tangible connection between any of my main characters and some element or elements of myself. I feel I write stronger that way, craft more relatable characters whether they end up being protagonists or antagonists. Having characters be engaging to my readers is so important because I typically produce shorter fiction. I have a finite number of words with which to capture, engage and entertain. Limited word counts mean I have to develop those characters quickly and tell their complete story - carrying all the threads through to the end. It is challenging, but perhaps less so than writing novel length fiction where you have room to stretch your legs a bit more but have a lot more work to get done with those "legs". "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 852 July 8, 2016 Let's try writing in a very confined space: A bathtub story. Your character/ or you are going to stay in this single, relatively confined space for your entry. Do you think you could write a good story with such restrictions placed on you? Terri could feel the cold porcelain through the thin silk of the oxford shirt. The voices in the next room suddenly jumped several octaves and she heard a stream of explosive cursing. Terri instinctively slipped down lower in the empty claw foot tub, wrapping her arms protectively around her sides, trying to make herself smaller, less conspicuous than she felt. The bathroom was small, but classy. Terri had once thought it was elegant. The claw foot tub was immaculate and white, standing free in the center of the space. The walls were lemon yellow and the decor was retro chic. It was bright and airy, only now it felt like a prison. The ceiling fan slowing rotating above her head drove a consistant, steady stream of near frigid air straight down onto her head and shoulders, slipped right through the thin layer of cotton and chilling her to the bone. She listened to the argument raging away in the next room and contemplated, not for the first time, the series of bad decisions that had landed her in this uncomfortable situation. Terri tried to focus on what her plan B was going to actually be if hiding in her lover's bathroom did not work out. She thought about what she might do if Lorne's husband suddenly threw open the door and found his ex-wife hiding, half naked in the bathroom of his brand new home. Things could get far more uncomfortable for Terri certainly than they were right now. As if the point needed to be driven home, the shiny chrome faucet began to drip. Icy cold water began running in rivulets over her bare feet and ankles. "Seriously?" The volume of the voices had dropped again. Terri gripped the edges of the tub and drew body upward, straining to listen. She could swear she heard soft weeping. A bolt of panic surged through her, bouncing off the gleaming porcelain tomb around her. "Was Nadine in there confessing to him?" For a few fiercely painful moments she imagined her sitting on the end of the bed, her pretty blonde face soaked with guilty tears, one trembling hand pointing to the closed bathroom door... "Stop that!" Terri commanded herself. Nadine would never expose her. She knew that as well as she knew anything in her life. Suddenly, there was a single, terrified scream. Masculine. Not Nadine. There came the sound of breaking glass and an ominous, heavy thud somewhere in the house. Terri's ears registered the sounds and there horrifying implications just as the bathroom door flew open so violently, the hinges tore out with a splintering crash. TO BE CONTINUED...MAYBE...MAYBE NOT... |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 851 July 7, 2016 Prompt: "We may run, walk, stumble, drive or fly but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way." Gloria Gaither What is your take on this? Sometimes this life's journey feels like one long, perpetually running stumble. The past year has been filled with proverbial potholes of finding judgment instead of understanding and disdain instead of loyalty. There have been moments when I have had to remind myself that each experience, be it disappointing or uplifting, is part of a bigger journey to understanding this world and one's place in it. I have come to a better clarity than I had before, even if that clarity brings a sadness and sense of loss in its wake. I feel I have a better understanding of what I mean to people in my family, my friendships, my workplace...and for me that has helped shape who I am today. That has true value, even if it feels hard earned at times. Life is messy but it is also beautiful and fleeting, not unlike a rainbow. I've realized that there is more joy in life than most of us expect and that its usually the quiet moments that affect the biggest changes or make the deepest impressions on our hearts. "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1331 July 7, 2016 What are your favorite way to use veggies? Lately I'm liking my veggies chopped raw with olive hummus - crunching away at my day job desk. This summer I'm also grown very fond of watching my garden grow. The spring beans are climbing for the heaven and my zucchini is busting out of the raised beds! My daughter loves eating the red cherry tomatoes and bell peppers right off the plants. |
| In this past week I've feel as if I've been battling a post-vacation hangover trying to reinsert myself into the chaos and demands of a stress-inducing job. I find myself checking email during dinner, waking up in the middle of night running worst case scenarios and generally worrying about the bottom line in a particularly slow cycle of sales. There doesn't seem to be much time or opportunity to write anything, let along work on my submissions. I keep telling myself I just need to get out in front of my work and I can score some breathing room to work on some things but so far that seems like little more than a lofty aspiration. One thing that hasn't escaped my attention is how drastically my daughter has changed in this past year. I was so blessed to have had a full, uninterrupted week to spend with her on vacation. I found myself just watching her at times, transfixed by how much she's matured this summer. First off, she's shed every once of baby fat, revealing that she will most likely and thankfully take after her father. I can see the familiar lines of his lithe build in her physique and also touch of athleticism I wished I had possessed at her age. The Florida sun turned her skin its loveliest shade of caramel which has brought out the jade colored flecks in her eyes. She seems for the first time, to be wholly unlike either one of us, but rather uniquely herself. She is developing her own sense of humor and her own sense of style. She had a variety of laughs at her disposal...a quiet giggle, a playful snicker and a full-on belly laugh that makes my heart joyful when I hear it. She often walks aside of us now but just as often slips her hands into one of ours and readily returns our hugs and kisses. She is still sweet, occasionally saucy and simply amazing to behold. And now for the prompts...prompts keep me focused, they keep me "in the ink" so to speak... "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 1324, June 30, 2016 PROMPT: throughout history, stories have influenced a change in society (for example Jules verne's " from the Earth to the Moon,inspiring the moon landing, or 20000 leagues under the sea inspired the creation of electric submarines, or George Orwell's "1984" inspiring the NSA spy scandals, Using a specific literary work, explain how a novel might influence change in society. I think either read this prompt a little differently, or have a slightly jaded take on it because the novel that came immediately to mind was Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaids Tale". I read the book over a decade ago but the story stayed with me. For those who are unfamiliar, the novel of speculative fiction, tells the story of a future where women had been striped up their most basic rights. Following a terrorist attack and subsequent takeover, society has been rigidly restructured into a caste system whereby women are divided and devalued based on their fertility. It is a vivid depiction of the worse scenario for women in a society ruled by controlled by men and their archaic and brutal philosophical ideals. The reason this particular novel comes to mind is that we live in a time when the debate of abortion repeatedly surfaces in nearly every political race or round table discussion. The women's right to chose is repeated challenged, with constantly changing laws shifting the power balance in one direction or the other. It seems unstable and precarious sometimes...this sense of control over our lives and our bodies. We all know about places in the world where women do not enjoy the same freedoms, the same rights. We all know of places where women are not free, are not safe. We all know of places where women are enslaved by political and religious idealogy. There are places where the parallels between the fictitious Gilead and modern day society can be clearly drawn and that should be frightening to every global citizen. It certainly frightens me. The right over my own body is God-given and sacred and the thought that any government could lay claim to that right, could move to supercede my own authority over self, is simply not acceptable to me. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 844 June 30, 2016 Prompt: What is the most independent thing you have ever done? I feel that I have been pretty independent my whole life. I've made some mistakes but I've always tried to push myself too. I elected to go to college out of state and after that first summer break, I made the permanent move out. My parents were already in the middle of divorce and after several brief months bouncing between "his" and "her" houses, it was very clear to me that I was better off on my own. I think though perhaps the most independent thing I have ever done was to buy my ex-husband out of of the house in the divorce. It was my first home and it was terrifying. It was a project to renovate, both emotionally and physically. The house had seen its far share of discontent and there were lots of bad memories there. I was determine to look past that and start over. With very limited knowledge, I patched all the fist-sized holes and battered doors. I threw away all the garage-sale furniture that was a scarred as I felt and replaced it with the bright and the new. I repainted, repaired and replaced with abandon. Eventually, I felt like I had reclaimed the space as one I felt safe and secure in. It wouldn't truly become a home for me again until I remarried and gave birth to my daughter. Today it is the first place I really feel happy and complete. My husband and our daughter have really been what have made this house a home. I'm grateful though, that I took that leap for myself. It was such an instrumental part of becoming the person, the mother and the wife I am today. |
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