She sat on the back deck with her coffee, hands wrapped around the over-sized mug, legs curled under her watching and listening as the world woke up to a new day. She always felt a little sorry for her friends who weren't morning people. The ones who went to bed when it was dark and didn't wake again until it was full light. They missed so much. The way morning came gradually.
There was a slight curl of fog across the valley floor. She watched as it swirled slowly among the trees. The thin wisps not long for the world once the sun came up, but for now holding on to the banks of the stream, curling around the trunks of the trees, one last caress before the heat of the day burned it away. In the fall the morning fog was a reminder that winter was coming, during the spring the thin fog was a promise that summer was on its way. And there were days during the heart of winter where the fog came and did not leave.
This morning though the sun was already starting to burn away the cold of the evening. The rose and gold light starting to play across her valley. Waking the birds who sang good morning to the sun, just as the frogs the night before had sung it to sleep. She closed her eyes and listened as they called to each other. She wondered what they were saying. And wondered what they thought of her and her friends when they would gather on her back deck telling each other stories and laughing in to the night. Or crying. Did they cock their heads and listen? Closing their eyes and imagining that the noises they made were a language like the trills and songs they used?
Some mornings she would be lucky and see a small herd of deer coming to the stream for a drink. Or hawks circling and hunting for their breakfast. One day she spotted a bald eagle resting in a tree. She wished she had her camera but didn't dare risk going inside to get it, not wanting to miss a moment of the rare treat. Watching as it spread its massive wings and took flight, circling her valley twice before flying away.
Her valley. They had always called it her valley. When they first bought the small plot of land everyone said was a waste of money and would drive up to just sit in their dirt talking about the day they would build a house on this land. A house with a view of her valley. Then when the land on either side of their small plot came available they bought it as well. The land was cheap back then. Who would want to build a house that was so hard to get to? Why would anyone want to leave the city to live so far out? Perched above land that could never be developed, no chance at modern convenience. A quick trip to the store would take an hour. Too much rain and the road would wash out, any snow at all and it was impassable. But they kept buying the land as it came free. Eventually owning more acres than they would ever need and the only thing that they didn't own was her valley. The hillside was all theirs.
Of course as time passed and more people discovered the beauty of the land around them they had gotten many very generous offers to sell. Family and friends couldn't understand why they didn't take the money. They didn't understand how a plot of dirt meant so much to them. Until they built the house and people came to visit. Seeing the beauty of the valley. Listening to the sounds of nature instead of the sounds of the city. Some for the first time. Then they understood. Or at least they thought they did.
Watching now as the last bit of fog slipped away and her valley was bathed in full sun she took the last drink of her coffee. Standing and stretching, soaking in the last minutes of morning coming to her valley. Closing her eyes and listening to the birds. Turing her face up to the sun. Morning came slowly but it always came.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Saturday, March 2, 2013
If you're happy and you know it write a blog....
Okay, so we covered the background stuff, now let's get to the good stuff!
I left off with saying that when I was unhappy people still viewed me as happy. This actually sort of blew my mind when I first encountered it. Good old Facebook was the doorway to that revelation. As I reconnected with people who knew me in middle school and high school and we started chatting and sharing memories of each other one of the things that kept coming up was that I was "sweet" and "funny" and always laughing. That's not how I remember myself, but it makes sense. I have an easy smile and I laugh a lot. I can remember sitting with friends telling jokes and trying to crack each other up. So it makes sense that for them that's what they remember. The funny happy kid. Now, many of them will also tell you that I wasn't someone to be messed with. I had a bad temper that could flare but it was always at other people, not them. The me they interacted with was happy. Even if I was more reserved back then than I am now. For me the quiet part was the self protection, the angry part. They just saw it as I was a little quieter than I am now.
When I was miserable in Colorado Springs the woman who was my boss would tell you that I was one of the happiest people she knew. I did my job and figured out quickly that I had more hours in my work day than I did work to fill it so I kept taking on more and more to ease her burden. I picked up an entire department and ran it as well. I changed the way we in the office interacted with the boxers. Lightened up that relationship so they knew we were on their side. I understood a little something about kids who were guarded and cautious, you see, so I knew that for the most part if you didn't treat them like they were boxers, but like they were teenagers excited to be travelling to new places and meeting new people they would respond not like boxers but like kids. And if you ask C about his memories in Colorado Springs I would bet "my mother was miserable" wouldn't be on the list. He might tell you about school, camping with a friend, learning the trumpet or even dancing like a wild man to the Beastie Boys with his mother who was laughing like a loon.
How can this be? I was miserable. How come people thought I was so happy? That's because my baseline is happy. I've figured this out over the years as well. And I had it reinforced this week while attending my latest Institute for Brain Potential seminar. This one was on Developing Positive Emotional Habits or The Joyful Brain; the Neurobiology of Happiness. I've been interested in this area, Positive Psychology, since the mid-90s. It resonated with me. That we can make choices that will lead us to happier lives. We can change the world around us just by changing the way we view it. But how does this then translate to people thinking I was happy when I wasn't?
There was a study done in 2008 by Sonja Lyubomirsky that helped show what makes up happiness. This was an expansion of other research that had been done, as most is, but the final picture she came up with was that our happiness is determined 50% by your set point, 40% by intentional activities and 10% by circumstance. Set point is the genetic factor. By studying brain function in children as young as a few days old they can see activity in the area of the brain we associate with happiness. Happy babies have more activity in that area, fretful babies have less. By studying these children through childhood they saw that this set point happiness was pretty consistent. They also looked at sets of identical twins who were separated at birth and discovered that even though they had been raised apart, their relative happiness was the same. We have a genetic happiness level that is set. Makes sense to me. My mother and father were both very happy people. Smiling, helpful, laughing. So it makes sense that I have that, just like I have my father's brown eyes and the same face shape as my mother. Why not their happiness set point as well?
So to me what this means is that it's easier for me to be happy than it is for someone whose set point is lower. But it doesn't mean that someone with a lower set point can't be happy. Because 40% is determined by your intentional activity. Your choices. When I was making the choice not to be happy, I wasn't. But since my natural set point is happy, my "normal" state is smiling, laughing and telling jokes. I have to make the choice to be miserable. And I have at times.
The other part that shocked me was the 10% is circumstances. Now if you were to have asked me at the time why I was unhappy I would have listed all of my circumstances. I was unhappy because of x, y and z. And to a point yes, that was true. When I was going through the worst of it with my sister it would have been impossible to be happy right at that moment. But years later? When the actual situation had passed? I was unhappy because I was choosing to be. Choosing to be guarded and angry about something I couldn't change. Once I stopped making that choice my overall happiness increased. Remember when we are talking about happiness here we aren't talking cartwheels and confetti, just general contentment and pleasure in life. Life happens and sometimes it's shitty. But you always have the choice to deal with it in a more positive manner. And that's where choosing happiness comes in to play for me.
Before I start this next section, which really is the meat of what I think Juice wanted me to talk about I want to make very clear that I do believe that there are people out there that are greatly benefited by pharmacological help. I have dear friends who have chemistry imbalances that are greatly helped by these drugs and I don't want anyone to think I am saying they shouldn't be taking them or that they are choosing depression. There is Depression and then there is depression. One needs the drugs, one needs an attitude adjustment. Only you and your doctor know which area you fall in to.
Okay, now on to the choices we all make.
I've talked before about how I don't do guilt and what this means to me. And I think it falls very nicely in choosing to be happy. Guilt is an actionable emotion. If you are feeling guilty you need to change your behavior. Regret is what you are left with when the choice has been made and you can't change it. I have regrets. I'm 44 so I have accumulated a lot of them in my life. But I don't dwell. Because dwelling is a waste of time. That's not to say I don't have a "Rainy Days and Mondays" playlist of sad songs for those days when you just feel down and want to wallow a bit. Everyone has those times. Sad movie days. Sad song days. But they should be brief stops on your emotional trail. I used to have a fortune cookie slip on my computer at work that said, "He who has not tasted the bitter does not understand the sweet" and I do believe that. If you don't know what bad is you cannot grasp what good is. A friend of mine says that the good thing about being sick is that you then understand how wonderful normal is.
But are you wallowing? Are you sitting around feeling guilty about something you are doing but not changing your behavior? Are you feeling miserable day in and day out but not doing anything about it? Are you choosing to be unhappy? Take a look right now through your Facebook feed and you can tell who is choosing to be unhappy. You already know right? You know the friends you have that can find the gray cloud in every silver lining. Or the ones that can look at a rainbow over a waterfall and react with...meh... This is a choice. And we are faced with them every day. What is your choice?
We all know people who have less than us who are extremely happy and people who have more who are miserable. So we know it's not things that are making people happy. We've all met or know of people facing incredible health struggles that are lovely and happy people as well as people who stub their toe and it's FML. So it's not health that makes them happy. What is it? It's the choice to be happy. You all knew that was the answer but you are waiting for something else. Something more complicated than that. But it's not. It's just that simple. Sometimes life doesn't go the way you want it to and it makes you miserable. That's the 10%. It happens to all of us. But the really good news, the great news is that it's just 10% of the equation. We have 50% to fall back on that is just who we are (and if your 50% is pure misery there are choices out there you can make to compensate for that, you just have to work harder and probably get help from a professional who can guide you along) and then the really excellent part is we have 40% that is all on us.
Your choice. And just knowing you have the choice should make you happy. Now you are saying, you keep saying it's my choice but what does that mean? It means EVERYTHING!
It means looking at life differently sometimes. Like my time in Colorado. I looked at it all wrong. I focused on the negative things, I didn't ask for help when I needed it, I didn't make the right choices. But looking back I see all of the positives about our time there. Including the fact that I was miserable. Why is that a positive? Because I don't let it get like that anymore. If I feel like Brent and I aren't connecting the way we should I tell him and we work on fixing it. If I feel like I have no control over something I ask myself the questions, why? how? What can I do to fix this? Life happens. But it doesn't just have to happen to you while you take it passively. You get to decide how you deal with it all. You get to make the choice. Is it easy? Not all the time. And especially if you have been making the FML choice for years. Breaking out of that cycle is going to take you time. But you can do it. And as you do it you will notice that the meh rainbow is all of a sudden the Oh my goodness did you see that rainbow?
And it means taking stock of your life. What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy? And it means changing the things that aren't working. Either through the way you look at them and experience them or by leaving situations that aren't good for you. And by knowing during those times when the 10% is hitting and you cannot change them that they are temporary. They will pass. Know that it might suck right this very second but it will pass. And sometimes this is hard. Extremely hard. Especially if you are the only one who isn't happy. It might be a job, or a school, or a relationship that is working for everyone else but you know it's not working for you. You have to decide why and then fix it. Going along with the flow isn't your only option. You have control.
So as I was thinking about these things and how I would write this blog I had a few moments of clarity for myself. One happened during the seminar. Dr. Brian was giving his lecture and he was talking about happy people and the fact that happy people do things that make them happy which makes them happier. It's this never ending cycle of happy times. When you are already happy seeking out things that make you happy is natural to you. For instance, I chose this seminar knowing that I am already a happy person and I wanted to see if there would be any pointers there for maintaining my happiness. Was there anything new for me to learn? And there were some things, and a lot of other things I already knew, but hearing you are right makes you happy doesn't it? Or is that just me?
But then he talked about something that was very small but it struck a chord. One thing you see happy people doing that you don't see with unhappy people is scrapbooking. Happy people like to take pictures of things and then share them with other people. Look! See this thing that made me happy! It should make you happy too! And I thought...it's true. As you all know I've done the picture a day challenge three different times. And I stopped this year thinking that I was tapped out. But as January and February went by I realized I missed it. I missed not only taking the picture but also sharing it with you all. The interaction from the picture of the day. It was a way for me to share my life with friends who weren't here. And it made me happy. So I started it again. And as I decided to start it again and shared with people I would be starting I heard from friends who were excited by the news. They had missed the interaction as well. My small happy token was theirs as well.
The other thing that the picture of the day does for me is makes me slow down and really think about life. Today my prompt is "something I made" hmmm...what should I do for that? It makes me think about my day and what my options are. It's a small moment of meditation on my life. And only by paying attention to life can we make the choices we should be making. It's a small thing that picture, but it's become bigger than just a quick toss off shot and post. Because of the way I chose to look at it. You see what I'm getting at here?
And here was my other big revelation that will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who knows me. I've been in an almost constant state of trying to "find what will make me happy" for my adult life. I've tried a variety of careers and hobbies. I go from thing to thing looking for that elusive moment where I will think THIS IS IT! At the start of this year I decided that I would cut down on some things to try and make other things happen. All the while Brent was telling me,"but the things you are cutting out make you happy" (like picture of the day and chatting with friends on Facebook), while I was saying but what if these other things make me happier and I am missing them? And he just smiled and patted my knee and said "what ever makes you happy, dear." And here it is...this was my big revelation....Looking for new things to do that might be fun makes me happy. I have spent a lot of time looking for a destination not fully realizing that I am all about the journey. I know right? Not a single one of you is shocked by that. It's completely me. It's my personality in a nutshell. I've even said it before, I'm all about the journey. But for some reason until this week I didn't fully grasp it. I didn't fully get what it meant. There is no end game for me to happiness, it's all about everything all the time.
That's my choice. I don't think I will be happier 10 pounds thinner. I don't think I will be happier with more money in the bank. I don't think there is one job out there that is going to fulfill me completely. But there is a new book to read. A new story to share. A picture to take. A crow outside my window who is black and sleek and magnificent. A husband who brought me coffee and a piece of chocolate bread. A son who is on his way home for Spring Break. Friends who are reading this and hopefully realizing that happiness is in their grasp, they can decide today to start looking for the things in their lives that bring them joy.
There will also be challenges to face. And days where I will make the wrong decision about being happy. Days where I will be struck with grief. Days where it seems dark and miserable and like the world is conspiring against me. But I also know that when those things happen I get to make a different choice. I get to say, I will be happy. I will fix this and set my course back to sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. And then I will take a picture and share it on facebook so you all can be happy with me.
So what is your choice today? Happy or unhappy? Because it's on you now. What has happened in the past is done. You can't change it. And using it for an excuse for your today is weak. What is going to happen tomorrow is out of your control. It will happen or it won't. You only have so much you can do to guide your future. Using fear of what might come is weak. You only have today. Your choices today. Right now. That's where strength and happiness live. In the now. What can you do right now to be happy?
For me it was finally writing the blog that Juice asked for. Because I love her and she inspires me on so many levels to be better, happier, healthier so I give her this. Because I know she wants you to have it.
Choose happiness.
I left off with saying that when I was unhappy people still viewed me as happy. This actually sort of blew my mind when I first encountered it. Good old Facebook was the doorway to that revelation. As I reconnected with people who knew me in middle school and high school and we started chatting and sharing memories of each other one of the things that kept coming up was that I was "sweet" and "funny" and always laughing. That's not how I remember myself, but it makes sense. I have an easy smile and I laugh a lot. I can remember sitting with friends telling jokes and trying to crack each other up. So it makes sense that for them that's what they remember. The funny happy kid. Now, many of them will also tell you that I wasn't someone to be messed with. I had a bad temper that could flare but it was always at other people, not them. The me they interacted with was happy. Even if I was more reserved back then than I am now. For me the quiet part was the self protection, the angry part. They just saw it as I was a little quieter than I am now.
When I was miserable in Colorado Springs the woman who was my boss would tell you that I was one of the happiest people she knew. I did my job and figured out quickly that I had more hours in my work day than I did work to fill it so I kept taking on more and more to ease her burden. I picked up an entire department and ran it as well. I changed the way we in the office interacted with the boxers. Lightened up that relationship so they knew we were on their side. I understood a little something about kids who were guarded and cautious, you see, so I knew that for the most part if you didn't treat them like they were boxers, but like they were teenagers excited to be travelling to new places and meeting new people they would respond not like boxers but like kids. And if you ask C about his memories in Colorado Springs I would bet "my mother was miserable" wouldn't be on the list. He might tell you about school, camping with a friend, learning the trumpet or even dancing like a wild man to the Beastie Boys with his mother who was laughing like a loon.
How can this be? I was miserable. How come people thought I was so happy? That's because my baseline is happy. I've figured this out over the years as well. And I had it reinforced this week while attending my latest Institute for Brain Potential seminar. This one was on Developing Positive Emotional Habits or The Joyful Brain; the Neurobiology of Happiness. I've been interested in this area, Positive Psychology, since the mid-90s. It resonated with me. That we can make choices that will lead us to happier lives. We can change the world around us just by changing the way we view it. But how does this then translate to people thinking I was happy when I wasn't?
There was a study done in 2008 by Sonja Lyubomirsky that helped show what makes up happiness. This was an expansion of other research that had been done, as most is, but the final picture she came up with was that our happiness is determined 50% by your set point, 40% by intentional activities and 10% by circumstance. Set point is the genetic factor. By studying brain function in children as young as a few days old they can see activity in the area of the brain we associate with happiness. Happy babies have more activity in that area, fretful babies have less. By studying these children through childhood they saw that this set point happiness was pretty consistent. They also looked at sets of identical twins who were separated at birth and discovered that even though they had been raised apart, their relative happiness was the same. We have a genetic happiness level that is set. Makes sense to me. My mother and father were both very happy people. Smiling, helpful, laughing. So it makes sense that I have that, just like I have my father's brown eyes and the same face shape as my mother. Why not their happiness set point as well?
So to me what this means is that it's easier for me to be happy than it is for someone whose set point is lower. But it doesn't mean that someone with a lower set point can't be happy. Because 40% is determined by your intentional activity. Your choices. When I was making the choice not to be happy, I wasn't. But since my natural set point is happy, my "normal" state is smiling, laughing and telling jokes. I have to make the choice to be miserable. And I have at times.
The other part that shocked me was the 10% is circumstances. Now if you were to have asked me at the time why I was unhappy I would have listed all of my circumstances. I was unhappy because of x, y and z. And to a point yes, that was true. When I was going through the worst of it with my sister it would have been impossible to be happy right at that moment. But years later? When the actual situation had passed? I was unhappy because I was choosing to be. Choosing to be guarded and angry about something I couldn't change. Once I stopped making that choice my overall happiness increased. Remember when we are talking about happiness here we aren't talking cartwheels and confetti, just general contentment and pleasure in life. Life happens and sometimes it's shitty. But you always have the choice to deal with it in a more positive manner. And that's where choosing happiness comes in to play for me.
Before I start this next section, which really is the meat of what I think Juice wanted me to talk about I want to make very clear that I do believe that there are people out there that are greatly benefited by pharmacological help. I have dear friends who have chemistry imbalances that are greatly helped by these drugs and I don't want anyone to think I am saying they shouldn't be taking them or that they are choosing depression. There is Depression and then there is depression. One needs the drugs, one needs an attitude adjustment. Only you and your doctor know which area you fall in to.
Okay, now on to the choices we all make.
I've talked before about how I don't do guilt and what this means to me. And I think it falls very nicely in choosing to be happy. Guilt is an actionable emotion. If you are feeling guilty you need to change your behavior. Regret is what you are left with when the choice has been made and you can't change it. I have regrets. I'm 44 so I have accumulated a lot of them in my life. But I don't dwell. Because dwelling is a waste of time. That's not to say I don't have a "Rainy Days and Mondays" playlist of sad songs for those days when you just feel down and want to wallow a bit. Everyone has those times. Sad movie days. Sad song days. But they should be brief stops on your emotional trail. I used to have a fortune cookie slip on my computer at work that said, "He who has not tasted the bitter does not understand the sweet" and I do believe that. If you don't know what bad is you cannot grasp what good is. A friend of mine says that the good thing about being sick is that you then understand how wonderful normal is.
But are you wallowing? Are you sitting around feeling guilty about something you are doing but not changing your behavior? Are you feeling miserable day in and day out but not doing anything about it? Are you choosing to be unhappy? Take a look right now through your Facebook feed and you can tell who is choosing to be unhappy. You already know right? You know the friends you have that can find the gray cloud in every silver lining. Or the ones that can look at a rainbow over a waterfall and react with...meh... This is a choice. And we are faced with them every day. What is your choice?
We all know people who have less than us who are extremely happy and people who have more who are miserable. So we know it's not things that are making people happy. We've all met or know of people facing incredible health struggles that are lovely and happy people as well as people who stub their toe and it's FML. So it's not health that makes them happy. What is it? It's the choice to be happy. You all knew that was the answer but you are waiting for something else. Something more complicated than that. But it's not. It's just that simple. Sometimes life doesn't go the way you want it to and it makes you miserable. That's the 10%. It happens to all of us. But the really good news, the great news is that it's just 10% of the equation. We have 50% to fall back on that is just who we are (and if your 50% is pure misery there are choices out there you can make to compensate for that, you just have to work harder and probably get help from a professional who can guide you along) and then the really excellent part is we have 40% that is all on us.
Your choice. And just knowing you have the choice should make you happy. Now you are saying, you keep saying it's my choice but what does that mean? It means EVERYTHING!
It means looking at life differently sometimes. Like my time in Colorado. I looked at it all wrong. I focused on the negative things, I didn't ask for help when I needed it, I didn't make the right choices. But looking back I see all of the positives about our time there. Including the fact that I was miserable. Why is that a positive? Because I don't let it get like that anymore. If I feel like Brent and I aren't connecting the way we should I tell him and we work on fixing it. If I feel like I have no control over something I ask myself the questions, why? how? What can I do to fix this? Life happens. But it doesn't just have to happen to you while you take it passively. You get to decide how you deal with it all. You get to make the choice. Is it easy? Not all the time. And especially if you have been making the FML choice for years. Breaking out of that cycle is going to take you time. But you can do it. And as you do it you will notice that the meh rainbow is all of a sudden the Oh my goodness did you see that rainbow?
And it means taking stock of your life. What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy? And it means changing the things that aren't working. Either through the way you look at them and experience them or by leaving situations that aren't good for you. And by knowing during those times when the 10% is hitting and you cannot change them that they are temporary. They will pass. Know that it might suck right this very second but it will pass. And sometimes this is hard. Extremely hard. Especially if you are the only one who isn't happy. It might be a job, or a school, or a relationship that is working for everyone else but you know it's not working for you. You have to decide why and then fix it. Going along with the flow isn't your only option. You have control.
So as I was thinking about these things and how I would write this blog I had a few moments of clarity for myself. One happened during the seminar. Dr. Brian was giving his lecture and he was talking about happy people and the fact that happy people do things that make them happy which makes them happier. It's this never ending cycle of happy times. When you are already happy seeking out things that make you happy is natural to you. For instance, I chose this seminar knowing that I am already a happy person and I wanted to see if there would be any pointers there for maintaining my happiness. Was there anything new for me to learn? And there were some things, and a lot of other things I already knew, but hearing you are right makes you happy doesn't it? Or is that just me?
But then he talked about something that was very small but it struck a chord. One thing you see happy people doing that you don't see with unhappy people is scrapbooking. Happy people like to take pictures of things and then share them with other people. Look! See this thing that made me happy! It should make you happy too! And I thought...it's true. As you all know I've done the picture a day challenge three different times. And I stopped this year thinking that I was tapped out. But as January and February went by I realized I missed it. I missed not only taking the picture but also sharing it with you all. The interaction from the picture of the day. It was a way for me to share my life with friends who weren't here. And it made me happy. So I started it again. And as I decided to start it again and shared with people I would be starting I heard from friends who were excited by the news. They had missed the interaction as well. My small happy token was theirs as well.
The other thing that the picture of the day does for me is makes me slow down and really think about life. Today my prompt is "something I made" hmmm...what should I do for that? It makes me think about my day and what my options are. It's a small moment of meditation on my life. And only by paying attention to life can we make the choices we should be making. It's a small thing that picture, but it's become bigger than just a quick toss off shot and post. Because of the way I chose to look at it. You see what I'm getting at here?
And here was my other big revelation that will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who knows me. I've been in an almost constant state of trying to "find what will make me happy" for my adult life. I've tried a variety of careers and hobbies. I go from thing to thing looking for that elusive moment where I will think THIS IS IT! At the start of this year I decided that I would cut down on some things to try and make other things happen. All the while Brent was telling me,"but the things you are cutting out make you happy" (like picture of the day and chatting with friends on Facebook), while I was saying but what if these other things make me happier and I am missing them? And he just smiled and patted my knee and said "what ever makes you happy, dear." And here it is...this was my big revelation....Looking for new things to do that might be fun makes me happy. I have spent a lot of time looking for a destination not fully realizing that I am all about the journey. I know right? Not a single one of you is shocked by that. It's completely me. It's my personality in a nutshell. I've even said it before, I'm all about the journey. But for some reason until this week I didn't fully grasp it. I didn't fully get what it meant. There is no end game for me to happiness, it's all about everything all the time.
That's my choice. I don't think I will be happier 10 pounds thinner. I don't think I will be happier with more money in the bank. I don't think there is one job out there that is going to fulfill me completely. But there is a new book to read. A new story to share. A picture to take. A crow outside my window who is black and sleek and magnificent. A husband who brought me coffee and a piece of chocolate bread. A son who is on his way home for Spring Break. Friends who are reading this and hopefully realizing that happiness is in their grasp, they can decide today to start looking for the things in their lives that bring them joy.
There will also be challenges to face. And days where I will make the wrong decision about being happy. Days where I will be struck with grief. Days where it seems dark and miserable and like the world is conspiring against me. But I also know that when those things happen I get to make a different choice. I get to say, I will be happy. I will fix this and set my course back to sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. And then I will take a picture and share it on facebook so you all can be happy with me.
So what is your choice today? Happy or unhappy? Because it's on you now. What has happened in the past is done. You can't change it. And using it for an excuse for your today is weak. What is going to happen tomorrow is out of your control. It will happen or it won't. You only have so much you can do to guide your future. Using fear of what might come is weak. You only have today. Your choices today. Right now. That's where strength and happiness live. In the now. What can you do right now to be happy?
For me it was finally writing the blog that Juice asked for. Because I love her and she inspires me on so many levels to be better, happier, healthier so I give her this. Because I know she wants you to have it.
Choose happiness.
The background stuff before the blog, blog....
It's been a long time since I've written a multi-parter that wasn't fiction but I see this blog being at least two blogs long. Maybe three...
So background time! My friend Juice asked me to write this blog a few months ago. It's about a life philosophy that she and I both practice. Choosing to be happy. Sounds simple right? You just decide that you are going to be happy and do that. And it really is just that simple. In theory. In practice at times it can get tricky because you forget. Which makes no sense at all, how can you forget to choose to be happy? Does that mean you are choosing to be unhappy? Sometimes yes you are. And you will continue to be unhappy until you realize that you are choosing that path and change it.
Okay deeper background time. I have two ways I can tell my early life story. I can say I was raised in a pretty normal family. There were a few rough years as a family member struggled with some issues that affected all of us. We didn't have a lot of money but we never went hungry or homeless so we were in pretty good shape. My parents loved each other and loved all of us and did the best they could in life. I married young to my high school sweetheart and we moved away to start our own family. Or I can say, I had a shitty childhood. My sister abused drugs and while she did that she abused me as well. My parents didn't do anything to stop it and so I learned not to trust anyone at any time for any thing. I spent my teenage years pissed at the world and only through some dumb luck ended up with my husband who for some reason wanted to marry me. We left town as soon as we could and never looked back.
Both are true in their own ways. And I've used both at different times to describe the way things were. Now I tend to do a blend. I don't sugar coat the years that my sister was struggling or what it meant for me. I've told that story on here before so I won't bore you those details. It's part of what made me who I am. It completely colored my high school years. But I also don't dwell on it and I sure as hell don't use it as an excuse for anything. The same thing with my parents. They made some mistakes raising me but they also did a lot of things right. As a parent now I see that I did the same thing with C. I made some mistakes that I would love to be able to correct but I did a lot of things right as well. So I can't really judge them harshly. But all of those things were my past. They are what brought me to this point. Without them I wouldn't have the compassion or understanding that I do for other people who have struggles.
When I first decided in my late teens and early 20s that I wasn't going to be angry any more it was a life shifting thing for me. It completely changed the way I viewed the world. Now I say this like the curtain fell and sunshine came in and all was sunny and light and rainbows and unicorns from that point forward and that's not how it worked at all. The first year Brent and I were married was rough. I was still extremely angry with my family and that took a long time to fade away. I would say it was probably a good decade before I could really look at my childhood and say that it was mostly good with a small pocket of bad. And there have been many times over the years when I stopped making the choice to be happy and paid the price.
That's the thing about choosing happiness. You actually have to do it. And it can get away from you. Work is a tough one. We get wrapped up in jobs and careers and sometimes end up working in a place that isn't a good fit, or has other issues with it and we are miserable there. But we tell ourselves that we can't change. That we have to do it, for the money, the security, the insurance and so we "suck it up" and deal with it. I talked about this when I wrote my work blog series. And I also talked about my last job when I was at my most miserable I got a reminder that I was making the choice to be miserable. That the situation wasn't great, the people around me could be awful at times but my reaction to them was on me. And when I made a change in my behavior, things started to shift. My choice.
If you ask me about living in Colorado Springs I will tell you I was miserable. It was not my cup of tea. I loved Oregon but we made the choice to leave because it would be good for Brent's career and it would move us closer to our family. My parents were getting older, my dad's health wasn't the best and I wanted to be able to have C get a chance to get to know them better. Things didn't start well. Our house up here didn't sell so we missed out on buying a few places that came on the market that we really liked. The house we ended up in was in a decent school district with a wonderful view of Pike's Peak but I didn't like anything else about it. Our first weekend there my car was hit in a parking lot by a woman who wanted us to lie to the insurance and say her husband was driving so that was a big mess. We wouldn't, of course, she did, it all worked out but it was crazy. Brent decided to go ahead and get his MBA while we were there so he ended up working very long hours at work as he site managed the construction job and then added a pretty full course load on top of that so he wasn't home much. When he was home he was stressed from not enough time and having to deal with a wife who was not happy about the time he wasn't there. C was busy in school and out of it so I was running him from activity to activity and also working myself. The politics in CS don't match mine nor does the fact that it's home to Focus on the Family so when people would ask you "what church do you attend?" and your response was "we don't" it could get a little frosty. My parents didn't make the trip up to CS like I had assumed they would. We saw them 3 times in the Springs in the years that we lived there. So I ended up miserable, bitter, angry, not talking to my husband about why I was so mad because what good would that do, not happy.
But here is the other story of Colorado Springs. C went to a school that was home to the best teacher he ever had. She was the one who taught us how to teach him. She was his advocate through the talented and gifted program. Working together they helped to actually redesign the testing process. She told us that she really felt that all of her training had led her on a path to meet C and she felt blessed to have been part of his life. How wonderful is that? He was able to attend enrichment programs through Colorado College that were the best he's ever been to. He learned how to play trumpet while in CS which led him to years of musical enjoyment including attending a performing arts high school where he was able to make close friends and thrive in a small school environment. Brent was able to earn his advanced degree which opened up so many more doors for him at Intel including the position he holds now. I was cured of my vertigo through what was a brand new procedure at the time because the physical therapist who had developed it spoke at a luncheon that the nurse practitioner I saw happened to go to. If we hadn't been in CS and she hadn't been thinking of me at that luncheon who knows when or if I would have been able to be cured of that, and believe you me, that's a life changer right there! Brent's parents came up at least four times a year and also because we were close actually took C for a Spring Break so he could stay with them one on one. Losing Brent's dad at such a young age I am extremely grateful now for that time. We also lived close enough that when my sister-in-law's mother died I was able to drive down and be with her. And the last piece, after reaching the bottom with communication in our relationship when I finally told Brent I was miserable he did this really wild thing, he helped me make it better.
Looking back at that time I wonder how much of it I could have changed just by making a different choice earlier. I didn't choose to be happy during that stretch. In fact I seemed to be actively choosing to be miserable. Instead of telling Brent I was floundering and unhappy I just stopped talking to him about what I was feeling. He knew I wasn't bouncing around pleased, but he had no idea how miserable I was. Because I didn't tell him. And because that's not my normal personality. Instead of being mad that my parents weren't making the choice to come see us like I had hoped I should have just been grateful for the time with Brent's parents. And I should have been glad for the times we made the trip down to NM to see them instead of resenting the fact that they didn't reciprocate. My niece lives there now, she holds similar political and religious beliefs (probably not as extreme as mine but similar) and she has found friends that she is close with and is pretty content there. She made a different set of choices.
But it was a learning experience. I will tell you I was miserable there. But I will also tell you that it was my fault I was miserable there. Because I wasn't choosing to be happy.
So now that I've spent an entire blog on things you already knew I will wrap it up with one mind blowing (to me) piece of information. The entire time I was miserable in high school, at work, in Colorado Springs the people I knew and interacted with would tell you that I was a nice happy person. How can this be? I was miserable. I was angry. I was pissed at the world at different points. How could they think anything differently?
Well because they were right. I was a happy person. And in the next blog I will dive deeper in to why.
So background time! My friend Juice asked me to write this blog a few months ago. It's about a life philosophy that she and I both practice. Choosing to be happy. Sounds simple right? You just decide that you are going to be happy and do that. And it really is just that simple. In theory. In practice at times it can get tricky because you forget. Which makes no sense at all, how can you forget to choose to be happy? Does that mean you are choosing to be unhappy? Sometimes yes you are. And you will continue to be unhappy until you realize that you are choosing that path and change it.
Okay deeper background time. I have two ways I can tell my early life story. I can say I was raised in a pretty normal family. There were a few rough years as a family member struggled with some issues that affected all of us. We didn't have a lot of money but we never went hungry or homeless so we were in pretty good shape. My parents loved each other and loved all of us and did the best they could in life. I married young to my high school sweetheart and we moved away to start our own family. Or I can say, I had a shitty childhood. My sister abused drugs and while she did that she abused me as well. My parents didn't do anything to stop it and so I learned not to trust anyone at any time for any thing. I spent my teenage years pissed at the world and only through some dumb luck ended up with my husband who for some reason wanted to marry me. We left town as soon as we could and never looked back.
Both are true in their own ways. And I've used both at different times to describe the way things were. Now I tend to do a blend. I don't sugar coat the years that my sister was struggling or what it meant for me. I've told that story on here before so I won't bore you those details. It's part of what made me who I am. It completely colored my high school years. But I also don't dwell on it and I sure as hell don't use it as an excuse for anything. The same thing with my parents. They made some mistakes raising me but they also did a lot of things right. As a parent now I see that I did the same thing with C. I made some mistakes that I would love to be able to correct but I did a lot of things right as well. So I can't really judge them harshly. But all of those things were my past. They are what brought me to this point. Without them I wouldn't have the compassion or understanding that I do for other people who have struggles.
When I first decided in my late teens and early 20s that I wasn't going to be angry any more it was a life shifting thing for me. It completely changed the way I viewed the world. Now I say this like the curtain fell and sunshine came in and all was sunny and light and rainbows and unicorns from that point forward and that's not how it worked at all. The first year Brent and I were married was rough. I was still extremely angry with my family and that took a long time to fade away. I would say it was probably a good decade before I could really look at my childhood and say that it was mostly good with a small pocket of bad. And there have been many times over the years when I stopped making the choice to be happy and paid the price.
That's the thing about choosing happiness. You actually have to do it. And it can get away from you. Work is a tough one. We get wrapped up in jobs and careers and sometimes end up working in a place that isn't a good fit, or has other issues with it and we are miserable there. But we tell ourselves that we can't change. That we have to do it, for the money, the security, the insurance and so we "suck it up" and deal with it. I talked about this when I wrote my work blog series. And I also talked about my last job when I was at my most miserable I got a reminder that I was making the choice to be miserable. That the situation wasn't great, the people around me could be awful at times but my reaction to them was on me. And when I made a change in my behavior, things started to shift. My choice.
If you ask me about living in Colorado Springs I will tell you I was miserable. It was not my cup of tea. I loved Oregon but we made the choice to leave because it would be good for Brent's career and it would move us closer to our family. My parents were getting older, my dad's health wasn't the best and I wanted to be able to have C get a chance to get to know them better. Things didn't start well. Our house up here didn't sell so we missed out on buying a few places that came on the market that we really liked. The house we ended up in was in a decent school district with a wonderful view of Pike's Peak but I didn't like anything else about it. Our first weekend there my car was hit in a parking lot by a woman who wanted us to lie to the insurance and say her husband was driving so that was a big mess. We wouldn't, of course, she did, it all worked out but it was crazy. Brent decided to go ahead and get his MBA while we were there so he ended up working very long hours at work as he site managed the construction job and then added a pretty full course load on top of that so he wasn't home much. When he was home he was stressed from not enough time and having to deal with a wife who was not happy about the time he wasn't there. C was busy in school and out of it so I was running him from activity to activity and also working myself. The politics in CS don't match mine nor does the fact that it's home to Focus on the Family so when people would ask you "what church do you attend?" and your response was "we don't" it could get a little frosty. My parents didn't make the trip up to CS like I had assumed they would. We saw them 3 times in the Springs in the years that we lived there. So I ended up miserable, bitter, angry, not talking to my husband about why I was so mad because what good would that do, not happy.
But here is the other story of Colorado Springs. C went to a school that was home to the best teacher he ever had. She was the one who taught us how to teach him. She was his advocate through the talented and gifted program. Working together they helped to actually redesign the testing process. She told us that she really felt that all of her training had led her on a path to meet C and she felt blessed to have been part of his life. How wonderful is that? He was able to attend enrichment programs through Colorado College that were the best he's ever been to. He learned how to play trumpet while in CS which led him to years of musical enjoyment including attending a performing arts high school where he was able to make close friends and thrive in a small school environment. Brent was able to earn his advanced degree which opened up so many more doors for him at Intel including the position he holds now. I was cured of my vertigo through what was a brand new procedure at the time because the physical therapist who had developed it spoke at a luncheon that the nurse practitioner I saw happened to go to. If we hadn't been in CS and she hadn't been thinking of me at that luncheon who knows when or if I would have been able to be cured of that, and believe you me, that's a life changer right there! Brent's parents came up at least four times a year and also because we were close actually took C for a Spring Break so he could stay with them one on one. Losing Brent's dad at such a young age I am extremely grateful now for that time. We also lived close enough that when my sister-in-law's mother died I was able to drive down and be with her. And the last piece, after reaching the bottom with communication in our relationship when I finally told Brent I was miserable he did this really wild thing, he helped me make it better.
Looking back at that time I wonder how much of it I could have changed just by making a different choice earlier. I didn't choose to be happy during that stretch. In fact I seemed to be actively choosing to be miserable. Instead of telling Brent I was floundering and unhappy I just stopped talking to him about what I was feeling. He knew I wasn't bouncing around pleased, but he had no idea how miserable I was. Because I didn't tell him. And because that's not my normal personality. Instead of being mad that my parents weren't making the choice to come see us like I had hoped I should have just been grateful for the time with Brent's parents. And I should have been glad for the times we made the trip down to NM to see them instead of resenting the fact that they didn't reciprocate. My niece lives there now, she holds similar political and religious beliefs (probably not as extreme as mine but similar) and she has found friends that she is close with and is pretty content there. She made a different set of choices.
But it was a learning experience. I will tell you I was miserable there. But I will also tell you that it was my fault I was miserable there. Because I wasn't choosing to be happy.
So now that I've spent an entire blog on things you already knew I will wrap it up with one mind blowing (to me) piece of information. The entire time I was miserable in high school, at work, in Colorado Springs the people I knew and interacted with would tell you that I was a nice happy person. How can this be? I was miserable. I was angry. I was pissed at the world at different points. How could they think anything differently?
Well because they were right. I was a happy person. And in the next blog I will dive deeper in to why.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
I just need one little favor....
Jeri sat waiting for Anthony to show up. He would be five minutes late she knew. He was always five minutes late. It was long enough for the person waiting to think maybe he wasn't going to show up but not so long that they would be angry with him or would leave. She wasn't even sure if he realized he did it, but she knew. She had thought about showing up 10 minutes late just to make a statement but it was a brief thought. The time in her life where she wanted to say anything to him had passed years ago. Now she just wanted to see what he was after and go home.
The bell on the shop door rang and Jeri looked at her watch, 2:05, right on time.
"Jeri! You look great! I can't believe it's been so long." Anthony put his arms around her hugging her tightly. "Can I get you anything? I see you have a coffee already, you must have gotten here awhile ago, I was held up, how had I forgotten that traffic was so bad on this side of town? I don't know how you stand living out here." Typical Anthony to turn his being late into a knock on her choice of where to live. Or maybe typical of her to hear the insult when he was just talking to fill space.
As he made his way to the counter to order Jeri noticed a few women in the shop looking at him over their coffee cups. He was fully aware of the attention and made sure to smile over his shoulder at Jeri, but really it was so the women looking at him could be dazzled by his perfect grin and adorable dimples. Then he turned to flirting with the barista. Most likely she would end up giving him his coffee for free, or at least her phone number. In the beginning of their relationship Jeri would have been proud that so many women found him attractive and he chose to be with Jeri, by the end she would be tired of it. Tired of sharing his attention. Tired of knowing that he craved that attention more than he would ever admit. And never really knowing if flirtation was all he was after.
He came back to the table with his coffee and sat looking at her. Soul gazing he would call it, where you look deeply in to someone's eyes. It used to make her feel like he was the only one who truly saw her. Who understood her. And who wanted to know her more. But then she realized he used it on everyone right before he asked for a favor. He had figured out that he could form almost an instant bond with someone by just looking at them. That was one of the things Jeri had learned from him, that people just wanted to be looked at. To be seen. Though Anthony never really saw anyone. He just liked the reflection of himself he could see in their eyes.
He started to hum along with the song playing in the background, "Oh my God, do you remember where we were the first time we heard this song?"
"Stop it." Jeri told him.
"Stop what? What are you talking about?" Anthony put on his best puzzled face.
"Stop trying to manipulate me. You've been doing it since you called. You knew I wouldn't answer if I recognized the caller ID so you called my office instead of my cell. You knew I would never agree to drinks or dinner with you so you suggested afternoon coffee. And you knew I would never just go grab a cup of coffee with you so you asked for help for Jeanie. Now you are trying to soften me up by telling me how great I look and bringing up good memories. So stop it. I'm here. I'm listening, what do you want?"
"When did you become so cynical, Jeri? It doesn't really become you."
Jeri could see the ice in his eyes this time. He was recalculating his next set of moves. He should laugh and pat her hand and then move on....
Anthony laughed a little and reached out to pat her hand, "Oh, Jeri, don't be so tense. I wasn't trying to manipulate anything. You do look great and of course I would think of the first time we heard that song. You are sitting right here in front of me. Don't try and tell me it's not bringing up a lot of memories."
Jeri gave Anthony a tight smile, "What did you need, Anthony? You said you needed to talk to me about Jeanie."
Anthony sat back away from the table and for the first time that day Jeri saw his real face. The one he rarely showed to anyone. No smile, no charm, no dazzling dimples. Just a normal calm face. Now he would speak the truth.
"There isn't an easy way to say this. Mom's dying. The cancer came back. They didn't catch it until it had spread too far to treat. They think she has three months left at most."
"Oh, Anthony, I am sorry. She was always lovely to me. She even called a few months after we split to see how I was. I didn't go see her, for obvious reasons, but I was touched that she thought of me."
"She always liked you. She thought you were the one for me, did you know that? I told her I thought so too."
And there it was back in place. His show face. This time he was going with soft charm.
"Why are you here telling me this? What do you want from me?"
"Mom has been talking a lot about her life. What she has done and hasn't done. And her biggest regret is that she didn't get to be a grandmother. Felicia got married last year but they haven't had kids yet and there isn't time for her to give Mom a grandchild even if she got pregnant right away."
As he spoke the anger bloomed inside of Jeri filling her with ice. She wasn't sure she could move without shattering. He couldn't possibly be here to ask for that. To want that. To think she would give him that. She took a deep breath to try and keep calm.
"And what exactly does this have to do with me?"
"Look, I know I blew it, okay, I know that I made a bad choice but it was what 6 years ago? I've changed, I've grown up. I want to make it right."
"And you thought that making it right would be what exactly? Coming here and asking me for what, Anthony? What do you want?"
"I know that when we talked about what we were going to do you talked about open adoption. And I thought maybe you had gone through with that? I tried to check at the hospital but they wouldn't give me any information, even though I'm the father."
"No, Anthony, you aren't. Don't you remember? When I refused to 'take care of it' the way you wanted me to you said you wanted nothing more to do with it. There was no 'what we were going to do', you made it perfectly clear that it was my problem and if I wasn't going to take care of it you wanted nothing to do with it. I have a legal document you signed giving away all rights and responsibilities as a parent. You never were the father. Ever."
Anthony reached out to try and pat Jeri's hand again but she pulled away from him like he had burned her. "Jeri, don't be like this okay? I just want to know if it's possible for me to give my Mom the one thing she regrets not having."
"You are unbelievable. How did you think this was going to go? That you would call the hospital and they would be so pleased to hear from you that they would give you all of the information you wanted just like that?"
"Well they didn't..."
Jeri cut him off, "And when that didn't happen you thought you would call me and I would tell you what you wanted? Help you give your Mom a grandchild? Did you think this through at all?"
"I haven't thought of much else since she said this was her big regret. I knew I could give her this. How can you be so selfish to not even consider it?"
"How did you plan on doing this, Anthony? How did you see it going? That you were going to walk in to Jeanie's house and present her with a child? 'Look, Mom! Your grandchild!' and then she would be so happy and pleased with you that she would declare that from this moment forward and forever more you would be the favorite child? That you could hold this over Felicia's head until the day one of you died? That you were the one who gave Jeanie her grandchild. You were the one she loved best."
As Jeri spoke she could see on Anthony's face that this was exactly how he thought it would go. That this was, as it always was, about him. How he could be the one everyone loved. How he could be the best. His mother wanted a grandchild? Well he just happened to know where he might be able to get her one, beat that Felicia.
"Well let me save you from yourself one more time. Not that you deserve it but let me tell you how it would have gone. If you had walked in to Jeanie's house with a five year old child and presented her with her long lost grandchild she wouldn't have been happy with you, Anthony, she would have hated you. Don't look so shocked. You told me her one regret was not having grandchildren, how do you think she would feel knowing that she did have one and for five years she hasn't had a relationship with that child because you didn't want anything to do with it. You wanted the pregnancy terminated. No child at all. And now five years later you want to show a woman on her deathbed that she could have had what she always wanted except you were too selfish to give it to her."
"I didn't..."
"No, you didn't, because you never do. And what did you think was going to happen after your big presentation? This is a child we are talking about not a show pony. Did you think you could just pick up and drop off and not leave a mark on this child's life? Not cause pain and confusion to an innocent child? Just because you wanted to come play the hero? You know that as soon as your mother passed playing at being a dad in any way shape or form would wear thin and what then? Did you think at all about the child? For even a second?"
Anthony sat staring at Jeri, "So you won't help me then?"
"Have you been listening to me at all? Your fantasy of how this would have gone was just that, a fantasy. It would have been a disaster. You would have hurt your mother and the child by trying to be the hero. Just let it go. And besides I didn't do the open adoption so I can't help you anyway."
At this point Anthony's face fell. "I know you don't believe it, Jeri, but I really have changed. I've grown up a lot. And I really did think this was going to be good for her. I'm not the selfish monster you seem to think I am."
"Anthony, I would believe you except for two things. First off do you remember the last time we talked? You called me because you needed a ride home from a party. You were drunk and couldn't drive and needed me to get you. You told me how you could always count on me. I would always be there for you. But when I told you I couldn't come get you, you lashed out. Called me selfish. Spoiled. Mad at you because you didn't want to get married and settle down. I told you again I couldn't come and hung up.That was the last time you called me until this week.
March 23, 2008. I know the exact date because I had been in the hospital all day. I had just woken up from an emergency C section. My uterus was punctured during labor and if they hadn't gone in when they did I would have bled to death and the baby would have died as well. When my phone rang and I saw it was you I was so happy. You did care, you had to have heard and you were calling to make sure I was alright. We were alright. And then I realized you didn't have a clue."
"How was I supposed to know?"
"You could have asked. Asked a simple question, Anthony. How are you? But you didn't. And that's the second way I know you haven't changed. You haven't asked the one thing any normal person would be wondering. Was the baby a boy or a girl? So I can't help you, Anthony, it wasn't an open adoption. You are going to have to try and beat out Felicia with some other move. Now if you'll excuse me, and even if you won't, I have someplace else to be."
And with that Jeri picked up her bag and left.
When she was getting in her car her cell phone started ringing. Stealing herself to see Anthony's number on the caller id she smiled and relaxed when she saw who it really was.
"Hey, I'm on my way to pick up Joy from kindergarten, do you need me to pick up anything on the way home?"
"No, I'm good, but thanks for asking. I'll see you soon. And, hun? I love you."
The bell on the shop door rang and Jeri looked at her watch, 2:05, right on time.
"Jeri! You look great! I can't believe it's been so long." Anthony put his arms around her hugging her tightly. "Can I get you anything? I see you have a coffee already, you must have gotten here awhile ago, I was held up, how had I forgotten that traffic was so bad on this side of town? I don't know how you stand living out here." Typical Anthony to turn his being late into a knock on her choice of where to live. Or maybe typical of her to hear the insult when he was just talking to fill space.
As he made his way to the counter to order Jeri noticed a few women in the shop looking at him over their coffee cups. He was fully aware of the attention and made sure to smile over his shoulder at Jeri, but really it was so the women looking at him could be dazzled by his perfect grin and adorable dimples. Then he turned to flirting with the barista. Most likely she would end up giving him his coffee for free, or at least her phone number. In the beginning of their relationship Jeri would have been proud that so many women found him attractive and he chose to be with Jeri, by the end she would be tired of it. Tired of sharing his attention. Tired of knowing that he craved that attention more than he would ever admit. And never really knowing if flirtation was all he was after.
He came back to the table with his coffee and sat looking at her. Soul gazing he would call it, where you look deeply in to someone's eyes. It used to make her feel like he was the only one who truly saw her. Who understood her. And who wanted to know her more. But then she realized he used it on everyone right before he asked for a favor. He had figured out that he could form almost an instant bond with someone by just looking at them. That was one of the things Jeri had learned from him, that people just wanted to be looked at. To be seen. Though Anthony never really saw anyone. He just liked the reflection of himself he could see in their eyes.
He started to hum along with the song playing in the background, "Oh my God, do you remember where we were the first time we heard this song?"
"Stop it." Jeri told him.
"Stop what? What are you talking about?" Anthony put on his best puzzled face.
"Stop trying to manipulate me. You've been doing it since you called. You knew I wouldn't answer if I recognized the caller ID so you called my office instead of my cell. You knew I would never agree to drinks or dinner with you so you suggested afternoon coffee. And you knew I would never just go grab a cup of coffee with you so you asked for help for Jeanie. Now you are trying to soften me up by telling me how great I look and bringing up good memories. So stop it. I'm here. I'm listening, what do you want?"
"When did you become so cynical, Jeri? It doesn't really become you."
Jeri could see the ice in his eyes this time. He was recalculating his next set of moves. He should laugh and pat her hand and then move on....
Anthony laughed a little and reached out to pat her hand, "Oh, Jeri, don't be so tense. I wasn't trying to manipulate anything. You do look great and of course I would think of the first time we heard that song. You are sitting right here in front of me. Don't try and tell me it's not bringing up a lot of memories."
Jeri gave Anthony a tight smile, "What did you need, Anthony? You said you needed to talk to me about Jeanie."
Anthony sat back away from the table and for the first time that day Jeri saw his real face. The one he rarely showed to anyone. No smile, no charm, no dazzling dimples. Just a normal calm face. Now he would speak the truth.
"There isn't an easy way to say this. Mom's dying. The cancer came back. They didn't catch it until it had spread too far to treat. They think she has three months left at most."
"Oh, Anthony, I am sorry. She was always lovely to me. She even called a few months after we split to see how I was. I didn't go see her, for obvious reasons, but I was touched that she thought of me."
"She always liked you. She thought you were the one for me, did you know that? I told her I thought so too."
And there it was back in place. His show face. This time he was going with soft charm.
"Why are you here telling me this? What do you want from me?"
"Mom has been talking a lot about her life. What she has done and hasn't done. And her biggest regret is that she didn't get to be a grandmother. Felicia got married last year but they haven't had kids yet and there isn't time for her to give Mom a grandchild even if she got pregnant right away."
As he spoke the anger bloomed inside of Jeri filling her with ice. She wasn't sure she could move without shattering. He couldn't possibly be here to ask for that. To want that. To think she would give him that. She took a deep breath to try and keep calm.
"And what exactly does this have to do with me?"
"Look, I know I blew it, okay, I know that I made a bad choice but it was what 6 years ago? I've changed, I've grown up. I want to make it right."
"And you thought that making it right would be what exactly? Coming here and asking me for what, Anthony? What do you want?"
"I know that when we talked about what we were going to do you talked about open adoption. And I thought maybe you had gone through with that? I tried to check at the hospital but they wouldn't give me any information, even though I'm the father."
"No, Anthony, you aren't. Don't you remember? When I refused to 'take care of it' the way you wanted me to you said you wanted nothing more to do with it. There was no 'what we were going to do', you made it perfectly clear that it was my problem and if I wasn't going to take care of it you wanted nothing to do with it. I have a legal document you signed giving away all rights and responsibilities as a parent. You never were the father. Ever."
Anthony reached out to try and pat Jeri's hand again but she pulled away from him like he had burned her. "Jeri, don't be like this okay? I just want to know if it's possible for me to give my Mom the one thing she regrets not having."
"You are unbelievable. How did you think this was going to go? That you would call the hospital and they would be so pleased to hear from you that they would give you all of the information you wanted just like that?"
"Well they didn't..."
Jeri cut him off, "And when that didn't happen you thought you would call me and I would tell you what you wanted? Help you give your Mom a grandchild? Did you think this through at all?"
"I haven't thought of much else since she said this was her big regret. I knew I could give her this. How can you be so selfish to not even consider it?"
"How did you plan on doing this, Anthony? How did you see it going? That you were going to walk in to Jeanie's house and present her with a child? 'Look, Mom! Your grandchild!' and then she would be so happy and pleased with you that she would declare that from this moment forward and forever more you would be the favorite child? That you could hold this over Felicia's head until the day one of you died? That you were the one who gave Jeanie her grandchild. You were the one she loved best."
As Jeri spoke she could see on Anthony's face that this was exactly how he thought it would go. That this was, as it always was, about him. How he could be the one everyone loved. How he could be the best. His mother wanted a grandchild? Well he just happened to know where he might be able to get her one, beat that Felicia.
"Well let me save you from yourself one more time. Not that you deserve it but let me tell you how it would have gone. If you had walked in to Jeanie's house with a five year old child and presented her with her long lost grandchild she wouldn't have been happy with you, Anthony, she would have hated you. Don't look so shocked. You told me her one regret was not having grandchildren, how do you think she would feel knowing that she did have one and for five years she hasn't had a relationship with that child because you didn't want anything to do with it. You wanted the pregnancy terminated. No child at all. And now five years later you want to show a woman on her deathbed that she could have had what she always wanted except you were too selfish to give it to her."
"I didn't..."
"No, you didn't, because you never do. And what did you think was going to happen after your big presentation? This is a child we are talking about not a show pony. Did you think you could just pick up and drop off and not leave a mark on this child's life? Not cause pain and confusion to an innocent child? Just because you wanted to come play the hero? You know that as soon as your mother passed playing at being a dad in any way shape or form would wear thin and what then? Did you think at all about the child? For even a second?"
Anthony sat staring at Jeri, "So you won't help me then?"
"Have you been listening to me at all? Your fantasy of how this would have gone was just that, a fantasy. It would have been a disaster. You would have hurt your mother and the child by trying to be the hero. Just let it go. And besides I didn't do the open adoption so I can't help you anyway."
At this point Anthony's face fell. "I know you don't believe it, Jeri, but I really have changed. I've grown up a lot. And I really did think this was going to be good for her. I'm not the selfish monster you seem to think I am."
"Anthony, I would believe you except for two things. First off do you remember the last time we talked? You called me because you needed a ride home from a party. You were drunk and couldn't drive and needed me to get you. You told me how you could always count on me. I would always be there for you. But when I told you I couldn't come get you, you lashed out. Called me selfish. Spoiled. Mad at you because you didn't want to get married and settle down. I told you again I couldn't come and hung up.That was the last time you called me until this week.
March 23, 2008. I know the exact date because I had been in the hospital all day. I had just woken up from an emergency C section. My uterus was punctured during labor and if they hadn't gone in when they did I would have bled to death and the baby would have died as well. When my phone rang and I saw it was you I was so happy. You did care, you had to have heard and you were calling to make sure I was alright. We were alright. And then I realized you didn't have a clue."
"How was I supposed to know?"
"You could have asked. Asked a simple question, Anthony. How are you? But you didn't. And that's the second way I know you haven't changed. You haven't asked the one thing any normal person would be wondering. Was the baby a boy or a girl? So I can't help you, Anthony, it wasn't an open adoption. You are going to have to try and beat out Felicia with some other move. Now if you'll excuse me, and even if you won't, I have someplace else to be."
And with that Jeri picked up her bag and left.
When she was getting in her car her cell phone started ringing. Stealing herself to see Anthony's number on the caller id she smiled and relaxed when she saw who it really was.
"Hey, I'm on my way to pick up Joy from kindergarten, do you need me to pick up anything on the way home?"
"No, I'm good, but thanks for asking. I'll see you soon. And, hun? I love you."
Friday, February 15, 2013
Clean up...clean up...everybody everywhere...
You know that movie or sitcom cliche where the adult goes back home for a visit and has to sleep in his or her childhood bedroom and it's not been changed? The teen idol posters on the walls, the Star Wars sheets on the bed? And then much hilarity ensues. Well this has always been amusing to me but not really identifiable as real. A few months before Brent and I got married my parents moved in to a new place and there weren't enough bedrooms for the amount of people living there. Since I was moving out in a few months I slept on the couch in the living room so I didn't even have a childhood bedroom to go back to if I had wanted to.
So today I was cleaning up C's room in prep for Corrie coming to visit next Friday (yay!) and as I dusted shelves and straightened books I thought, "This really has turned in to a time capsule." C doesn't live here any more, he visits when school is out of session. Home is his apartment in Burlington with his roommates. That place looks like a group of men in their early 20s live there. His study here is like that. Video games, computer desk, comfy chair. But his bedroom has really stopped changing since he graduated from high school.
The books on the shelves are his favorites from growing up so there are books there that he read and re-read from elementary school on through high school. There are pictures of his Benihana birthday celebrations from his middle school years. Pictures of both sets of grandparents. His first set of Mouse Ears from Disney. His trumpet and music. The rocking chair that has been his since before he was born. Now, I've noticed this before and written about it but it was a few years ago and more about how it's like he hasn't really left because his stuff is here. But now what is here is the stuff he's outgrown. It's like a giant memory box.
Brent and I have decided to stay here until C graduates and finds a job someplace then we will either move downtown or find a place closer to the coast or in the hills. Then we will pack all of his things up and send them to his new place and he will decide what he really wants to keep and what he doesn't. What bridges his past in to his future. But until that happens he can come home to sleep in the Shrine of C's Childhood. And I hope that when he does he smiles and feels pride at the awards and the honors that are framed and kept. And I hope he remembers the trip to Disney were he got that set of Mouse Ears. And the trips to Benihana when those photos were taken. And even sitting in that rocking chair silently crying when he heard about his grandfather's death.
And now when I see that old cliche played out in a movie I will smile a sad smile and know what the parents feel like every time they dust those old trophies and remember the time at Bullwinkle's when he and his buddy won enough tickets to buy that silly foam rocket launcher...
But for now, the room is clean, the sheets are freshly washed, everything is dusted and vacuumed and ready for Corrie's visit. Where the adult comes and sleeps in the childhood room and much hilarity ensues....
So today I was cleaning up C's room in prep for Corrie coming to visit next Friday (yay!) and as I dusted shelves and straightened books I thought, "This really has turned in to a time capsule." C doesn't live here any more, he visits when school is out of session. Home is his apartment in Burlington with his roommates. That place looks like a group of men in their early 20s live there. His study here is like that. Video games, computer desk, comfy chair. But his bedroom has really stopped changing since he graduated from high school.
The books on the shelves are his favorites from growing up so there are books there that he read and re-read from elementary school on through high school. There are pictures of his Benihana birthday celebrations from his middle school years. Pictures of both sets of grandparents. His first set of Mouse Ears from Disney. His trumpet and music. The rocking chair that has been his since before he was born. Now, I've noticed this before and written about it but it was a few years ago and more about how it's like he hasn't really left because his stuff is here. But now what is here is the stuff he's outgrown. It's like a giant memory box.
Brent and I have decided to stay here until C graduates and finds a job someplace then we will either move downtown or find a place closer to the coast or in the hills. Then we will pack all of his things up and send them to his new place and he will decide what he really wants to keep and what he doesn't. What bridges his past in to his future. But until that happens he can come home to sleep in the Shrine of C's Childhood. And I hope that when he does he smiles and feels pride at the awards and the honors that are framed and kept. And I hope he remembers the trip to Disney were he got that set of Mouse Ears. And the trips to Benihana when those photos were taken. And even sitting in that rocking chair silently crying when he heard about his grandfather's death.
And now when I see that old cliche played out in a movie I will smile a sad smile and know what the parents feel like every time they dust those old trophies and remember the time at Bullwinkle's when he and his buddy won enough tickets to buy that silly foam rocket launcher...
But for now, the room is clean, the sheets are freshly washed, everything is dusted and vacuumed and ready for Corrie's visit. Where the adult comes and sleeps in the childhood room and much hilarity ensues....
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Well aren't you talented....
So here is a question for all of my artistic friends. Do you ever wish your talent was in another area? Or that you had more areas you were talented in, for those of you multi-hyphenates?
I can tell a story. I can sit down with you and tell you a story or I can sit here at the computer and write you one, but I know I can tell a story. If I do a good job with the story I am telling I can surprise you. I can make you feel something. I can paint you a picture with my words. But one thing I cannot do is paint you an actual picture. Or sketch you out something that you would recognize. Visual art like that is not my strength. And sometimes that's very frustrating.
Writing books for children would be so much easier if I could illustrate them myself. Kids like pictures you see. Now, I could work with other people, either ones that publisher out there who is going to say yes one of these days hooks me up with or with people I know who I could reach out to. But that's not the same. I have an idea in my head how I want things to look. How I see them. And once someone else is in charge of the visual it's not mine anymore. Because no matter how much I describe them, they will be the one who draws them and it will be different.
And then there are times like right now. I have a story in my head. It came to me the way a lot of the stories I tell do. Whole and complete and just there. The only problem is this one came as a series of pictures. I have no way of getting these pictures out of my head and on to a piece of paper like I do a written story. And it's frustrating. So instead I'm going to tell you the story. Then I am going to describe the pictures for you. And I am going to hope you can "see" what I am showing you.
There was a woman walking through the forest. Feeling the sun on her face and the breeze in her hair. She saw a tree that was larger than all of the other trees around it, with a thick trunk and branches full of leaves. She went to the tree and listened to the birds that were making their nests high in the branches. Listened the the squirrels cheeing at her and at each other. She rested her back against the trunk of the tree and wondered what it would be like to be a giant tree in a deep forest.
As she thought the tree wrapped its bark and branches around her. She leaned farther against the tree and felt the stillness of the center of tree. Hundreds of years old. Then she closed her eyes and you could no longer tell the woman from the tree.
She tilted her head and felt the sun warm her face. She felt the birds start to nest in her hair. The squirrels running up and down her arms. She breathed deeply and slowly feeling the stillness of the tree. And she stayed. The sun warming her face. The breeze cooling her skin. The rain nourishing her. And she stayed.
Then one day she opened her eyes and looked out on to the forest. She shook her head and the birds that had built their nests in her hair flew higher in to the tree top. She stretched her arms and the squirrels ran away cheeing their displeasure at her. And she stepped away from the tree. And walked on through the forest.
(visual in my head)
I see these as black and white simple sketches.
A woman in a wooded area walking up to a large tree. We only see her and the bottom of the tree. It's much bigger than other trees around her.
As she touches the tree you see a wispy branch reaching toward her as well.
She leans against the tree and you see the bark (dark shading) start to cover her from foot to head in a few frames. As it reaches her head you see her hair spread away from her head like the sun.
The next frame see the tree with her eyes peering out.
Then just the tree
Season pass. Birds nesting. Squirrels running up and down the tree. Leaves falling. snow covering the tree then leaves budding again
Then you see the tree with the eyes again.
Then she is stepping out from the tree. She is taking shape out of the shadows, the dark of the tree still holding part of her. Her hair is the last to disentangle from the tree.
The last frame as she is walking away her hair which was all light in the first frame now has dark streaks from the tree and a few leaves are trailing behind her as she walks.
Can you see it? And if you could see it without the story I told would it have meant something different to you? Would you have told your own story?
Oh how I wish I could draw.
And sing.
And dance.
And act.
But mostly I want to direct....
I can tell a story. I can sit down with you and tell you a story or I can sit here at the computer and write you one, but I know I can tell a story. If I do a good job with the story I am telling I can surprise you. I can make you feel something. I can paint you a picture with my words. But one thing I cannot do is paint you an actual picture. Or sketch you out something that you would recognize. Visual art like that is not my strength. And sometimes that's very frustrating.
Writing books for children would be so much easier if I could illustrate them myself. Kids like pictures you see. Now, I could work with other people, either ones that publisher out there who is going to say yes one of these days hooks me up with or with people I know who I could reach out to. But that's not the same. I have an idea in my head how I want things to look. How I see them. And once someone else is in charge of the visual it's not mine anymore. Because no matter how much I describe them, they will be the one who draws them and it will be different.
And then there are times like right now. I have a story in my head. It came to me the way a lot of the stories I tell do. Whole and complete and just there. The only problem is this one came as a series of pictures. I have no way of getting these pictures out of my head and on to a piece of paper like I do a written story. And it's frustrating. So instead I'm going to tell you the story. Then I am going to describe the pictures for you. And I am going to hope you can "see" what I am showing you.
There was a woman walking through the forest. Feeling the sun on her face and the breeze in her hair. She saw a tree that was larger than all of the other trees around it, with a thick trunk and branches full of leaves. She went to the tree and listened to the birds that were making their nests high in the branches. Listened the the squirrels cheeing at her and at each other. She rested her back against the trunk of the tree and wondered what it would be like to be a giant tree in a deep forest.
As she thought the tree wrapped its bark and branches around her. She leaned farther against the tree and felt the stillness of the center of tree. Hundreds of years old. Then she closed her eyes and you could no longer tell the woman from the tree.
She tilted her head and felt the sun warm her face. She felt the birds start to nest in her hair. The squirrels running up and down her arms. She breathed deeply and slowly feeling the stillness of the tree. And she stayed. The sun warming her face. The breeze cooling her skin. The rain nourishing her. And she stayed.
Then one day she opened her eyes and looked out on to the forest. She shook her head and the birds that had built their nests in her hair flew higher in to the tree top. She stretched her arms and the squirrels ran away cheeing their displeasure at her. And she stepped away from the tree. And walked on through the forest.
(visual in my head)
I see these as black and white simple sketches.
A woman in a wooded area walking up to a large tree. We only see her and the bottom of the tree. It's much bigger than other trees around her.
As she touches the tree you see a wispy branch reaching toward her as well.
She leans against the tree and you see the bark (dark shading) start to cover her from foot to head in a few frames. As it reaches her head you see her hair spread away from her head like the sun.
The next frame see the tree with her eyes peering out.
Then just the tree
Season pass. Birds nesting. Squirrels running up and down the tree. Leaves falling. snow covering the tree then leaves budding again
Then you see the tree with the eyes again.
Then she is stepping out from the tree. She is taking shape out of the shadows, the dark of the tree still holding part of her. Her hair is the last to disentangle from the tree.
The last frame as she is walking away her hair which was all light in the first frame now has dark streaks from the tree and a few leaves are trailing behind her as she walks.
Can you see it? And if you could see it without the story I told would it have meant something different to you? Would you have told your own story?
Oh how I wish I could draw.
And sing.
And dance.
And act.
But mostly I want to direct....
Friday, February 1, 2013
Whispers in the dark....
She had fallen asleep while he was in the shower. Snuggled deep in the tussle of blanket and sheets they had messed up just a few minutes earlier. The lines in her face were smooth. The crease in her forehead and the pucker around her lips that were there when she said, "I suppose you won't be staying the night" were gone now. Her breathing deep and even. She was lovely but he knew this would probably be the last time he would see her. He had told her at the start that he only had so much to give and she, like the others before her, had said she understood. And she did for awhile. Then the subtle complaints started.
"You never spend the night."
"I never hear from you on weekends."
"I never hear from you on weekends."
"Just once I wish we could spend a holiday together."
Each time his response would be a smile and "You know I can't. Let's enjoy what we can have instead of what we don't." And that would work for awhile. Until it didn't any more. He looked at her one last time. She really was lovely but she deserved someone who could love her completely and that wasn't him. He left a note on the bedside table and quietly left her apartment.
Each time his response would be a smile and "You know I can't. Let's enjoy what we can have instead of what we don't." And that would work for awhile. Until it didn't any more. He looked at her one last time. She really was lovely but she deserved someone who could love her completely and that wasn't him. He left a note on the bedside table and quietly left her apartment.
In the cab ride to his condo on the other side of town he looked at his watch. The twins would already be in bed by the time he got home. He had called Lindsey earlier and let her know he would be late tonight and to go ahead with dinner and bedtime without him. He wasn't sure if he heard a small sigh from her end of the line or if he was just imagining it. Tomorrow they would take the boys and Stacey to the museum. Stacey had a report to write on one of the travelling exhibits. He would take the boys in to the Little Explorers area while Lindsey and Stacey looked at the exhibit. Then they would all go to lunch and have a family movie night later. Stacey could write her report on Sunday while he and the boys roughhoused in the living room or maybe went to the park. Lindsey would take the day for herself while he handled all of the household things.
He opened the front door as quietly as he could just in case the boys weren't sleeping soundly yet. He didn't want to wake them and have them get wound up again. It was almost impossible to get them back to sleep after that and the last time it had happened Lindsey had told him he was on his own getting them settled since he was the one who woke them up. It was fair, but it was still exhausting. Two four year olds with just enough sleep in them to have recharged were more than a match for a 40 year old after a long day at work and then out with a friend.
Walking through the living room he picked up a couple of empty glasses to take to the kitchen. Looking at the toys strewn all over the floor he had to smile. When he was a newly married man living in the big city he would scoff at the television sitcoms showing harried families and their disaster area homes. It would never be like that in his family. They would be perfectly behaved children who picked up their toys every night before bed and the house would be pristine. And with Stacey it was easier to keep things mostly clean, but once the boys came along they had given up on pristine and most days slightly tidy seemed like a big win.
Lindsey was sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in a book open in front of her. "Hey, how was your day?"
"Good, long, but good. And you?"
"Not bad. The twins both got gold stars in Miss Diane's class today for being excellent helpers and they also both ate all of their vegetables without any negotiating. I am not sure what they are going to ask for tomorrow from the museum gift shop but I have a feeling they are laying the groundwork for something big. Stacey started work on her project tonight. We did some research together on the internet to get started. I don't remember having this detailed of work to do when I was in the third grade, do you?"
Lindsey was sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in a book open in front of her. "Hey, how was your day?"
"Good, long, but good. And you?"
"Not bad. The twins both got gold stars in Miss Diane's class today for being excellent helpers and they also both ate all of their vegetables without any negotiating. I am not sure what they are going to ask for tomorrow from the museum gift shop but I have a feeling they are laying the groundwork for something big. Stacey started work on her project tonight. We did some research together on the internet to get started. I don't remember having this detailed of work to do when I was in the third grade, do you?"
"No but it was hard work to get her in to the best school in the city, I guess this is what we should expect. Is she enjoying the project at least?"
"Oh yes, she is. You know Stacey, she is finding it all interesting and having an excuse to get an extra 45 minutes of computer time was a treat for her. She's looking forward to the exhibit tomorrow. She asked if she could go through it with both of us. Once with me and then again with you. I told her she could ask you and see."
"Oh yes, she is. You know Stacey, she is finding it all interesting and having an excuse to get an extra 45 minutes of computer time was a treat for her. She's looking forward to the exhibit tomorrow. She asked if she could go through it with both of us. Once with me and then again with you. I told her she could ask you and see."
"I notice even optimistic Stacey didn't want to try and go through it with the boys."
"Oh no, not at all. She helped with dinner and bath times tonight. Though they are getting to the point where they can handle pretty much everything on their own. Just a quick behind the ears inspection to make sure they used soap."
"They grow up so fast. Even boys.
Okay, I'm going to go check in on Stac before she goes to bed."
He stood for a second at his daughter's door. She was lying in bed reading a book obviously engrossed in the story. Her face changing expression slightly as she read. When she noticed him standing there she put the book down and held out her arms for a hug. "Dad! You're home! I missed you today. Did you hear I helped with the boys tonight? They were really good today. I have an idea about the museum tomorrow you two could trade off watching the twins and each go through the exhibit with me. That way I can see it once for fun and once to take notes and you both get to see it that way as well. It wouldn't take much longer because the time for fun would be fast, and the boys love to play in the explorer room so they would be happy to be there."
He started to laugh. Once Stacey got talking you couldn't slow her down. All of the thoughts in her head would come out as one big rush. Like she was afraid if she didn't say everything right then she wouldn't get the chance. "Slow down, Tiger, take a deep breath. I think that's a good plan. The boys will be fine and you can soak in all there is to see. Now don't stay up too late, it's going to be a busy day tomorrow."
"Okay, Dad, just one more chapter." Stacey was already picking up her book.
He smiled, "You sound like your mother. Night, sweetie."
He couldn't say how many times he had heard, "One more chapter then I will go to sleep" One more chapter usually meant reading until I can't keep my eyes open anymore. Stacey was definitely her mother's child. Smart, pretty, kind. The boys were him but in duplicate. Action stars in their own heads. Jumping and running and taking everything apart just to see how it works. All three of them were the joys and lights of his life.
"They grow up so fast. Even boys.
Okay, I'm going to go check in on Stac before she goes to bed."
He stood for a second at his daughter's door. She was lying in bed reading a book obviously engrossed in the story. Her face changing expression slightly as she read. When she noticed him standing there she put the book down and held out her arms for a hug. "Dad! You're home! I missed you today. Did you hear I helped with the boys tonight? They were really good today. I have an idea about the museum tomorrow you two could trade off watching the twins and each go through the exhibit with me. That way I can see it once for fun and once to take notes and you both get to see it that way as well. It wouldn't take much longer because the time for fun would be fast, and the boys love to play in the explorer room so they would be happy to be there."
He started to laugh. Once Stacey got talking you couldn't slow her down. All of the thoughts in her head would come out as one big rush. Like she was afraid if she didn't say everything right then she wouldn't get the chance. "Slow down, Tiger, take a deep breath. I think that's a good plan. The boys will be fine and you can soak in all there is to see. Now don't stay up too late, it's going to be a busy day tomorrow."
"Okay, Dad, just one more chapter." Stacey was already picking up her book.
He smiled, "You sound like your mother. Night, sweetie."
He couldn't say how many times he had heard, "One more chapter then I will go to sleep" One more chapter usually meant reading until I can't keep my eyes open anymore. Stacey was definitely her mother's child. Smart, pretty, kind. The boys were him but in duplicate. Action stars in their own heads. Jumping and running and taking everything apart just to see how it works. All three of them were the joys and lights of his life.
As he left Stacey's room he saw Lindsey coming down the hallway for bed. "I thought I'd make pancakes tomorrow before we left, what do you think?"
Lindsey smiled her patient smile, "You really want to take the boys to the museum after syrup? Maybe pancakes for Sunday?"
"Oh yeah, that's a good point. Eggs and toast tomorrow I think then. We can plan on breakfast around 8 and getting to the museum when it opens at 10?"
Lindsey smiled her patient smile, "You really want to take the boys to the museum after syrup? Maybe pancakes for Sunday?"
"Oh yeah, that's a good point. Eggs and toast tomorrow I think then. We can plan on breakfast around 8 and getting to the museum when it opens at 10?"
"Sounds good to me, good night."
He bid his nanny goodnight and headed off to his room. Even after three years this was the worst part of his day. The kids were asleep. The details of life were taken care of for one more day. One more day living without his wife. One more day missing her. One more day carrying on like her death hadn't killed a part of him as well. He climbed in to bed, took the picture from his bedside table and whispered, "I love you. Good night"
He bid his nanny goodnight and headed off to his room. Even after three years this was the worst part of his day. The kids were asleep. The details of life were taken care of for one more day. One more day living without his wife. One more day missing her. One more day carrying on like her death hadn't killed a part of him as well. He climbed in to bed, took the picture from his bedside table and whispered, "I love you. Good night"
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