The Lilacs

{hanging hearts for healthcare workers}

 "Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for the very first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again quite be the same person you were."

— Jennifer Donnelly

When I was little, I remember the lilacs. They were growing against the side of our dilapidated, old garage, with large purple blooms that carried the most intense, beautiful scent my five year old self had ever experienced. I remember a feeling of intoxication with spring, with the flowers that towered over me, with the blue sky beyond them. My senses overwhelmed, it was all bigger than life and my smallness only made it all the more beautiful. Though so many parts of my childhood- ones that I thought were so significant, and would mark me forever- have long faded, that memory lingers still.

A few evenings ago, we walked through spotted sunlight on the sidewalk, tulips and flowering trees as our guide. Showers of sweet pink petals fluttered upon our worried heads, lining the street like a wedding aisle. The sun was beginning to fade, and laughs from the kids running ahead of us shone in the warm glow. It would all be so perfect if the world was not on fire.

{stores: empty}

All I keep wondering is this: what could they possibly think now? In fifty years, I won't want to read the stories from other adults about what happened in the year 2020. I'll want to know what they think, these little heart with so much change swirling around them. And yet, I'm afraid to ask.

I have written so much here, only to feel my hands give up typing before I can share what I feel. I want to say something worthy of it all. I want to write something that my children can read someday, and know my thoughts in this moment. But all that seems to come out just adds to the noise of politicians and TV channels. All that breathes out is anger, and shock, and bone-weary tiredness, and a discouragement unlike anything before. Every morning, I wake up, remember, and feel my heart drop. I don't know how to write about this. I don't know.

I can't make sense of this life. Nothing is right. The same way these masks are hiding mouths and disguising so much emotion and expression, I feel as if society has changed too much for me to recognize anymore. It's been over two months since quarantine started- quarantine, a word too quaint for our modern world, and now is discussed hourly, obsessively. And yet, just in March, I was sitting in an arena with Sky and thousands of people, shoulder to shoulder, laughing at a comedian and buying beer and pretzels from a snack bar. The next day, they closed it down, and not a single show since. Am I lucky for that? Cursed? Did I escape a terrible reality, or am I living it now? Where am I?

{a food pantry sign that was posted in our neighborhood}

In 1918, the great flu pandemic took away the vibrancy of vision. It became a strange, telltale symptom of a quick and lethal disease. Colors lacked intensity and meaning. Everything was faded, saddened, as if life itself had fallen into a miserable depression while the whole world shook with a frightened pause. It feels the same today. Some people seem to almost rejoice in their open schedule, their cancelled plans, their forced rest. But I don't feel that rest. It's not just the fact that our home life hasn't changed much (something that I am ultimately grateful for, especially that we already homeschooled). It is that all those little things- sitting in a cheery cafe with the boys while Millie has a Spanish lesson, waiting for the piano teacher to knock on the door before suppertime, and even trying on ten shirts at the thrift shop only to put them all back- that gave life more meaning than I gave them credit for, and what felt frivolous before now feels like an essential part of the framework of life.

I have always been one for tradition. I am sentimental beyond all reason. But this year, there is to be no sentimentality because the traditions are gone. Swimming at the pool and getting snacks that melt all over our hands, startling, bright fireworks and noisy parades on the 4th of July, watching the Kentucky Derby for those few and swift thrilling minutes- the bookends of summer that held together the beauty of community and normalcy, the proof of a celebrated moment- disappeared. I have tried and tried to think differently about it, but it stings in a way I can't explain.

How is it possible that I disagree with both political parties and so many leaders? How is it that I can get angry at a stranger on Facebook? How can I feel frustrated with friends and family who are doing things we're told not to for the sake of others, or confused that it's supposed to be safe for them in one state, but not here in Illinois? How am I supposed to tell my kids that people are very sick, and so many more have lost their jobs, and that even the grown ups don't know what they're doing? We're supposed to be the voice of reason, but I feel like I've lost my voice completely.

{still can't believe how emotional this sight makes me}

When I was little, my worries felt big. Really, though, they were how far around the block I was allowed to ride my bike, and how I could talk my parents into letting me spend the night at a friend's house. I didn't have to worry about what surfaces I touched, or how close I stood to someone else, or why a park was closed. My parents didn't keep the news off because of the incessant briefings proclaiming loudly what the politicians still didn't know. And when I look at the faces of these three small people I'm entrusted with, my heart hurts terribly. My prayer is that they will never look at this kind of a life as normal.

Spring, of all times, is supposed to give us the grace of hope. I know, just like the scary parts of our history on this earth, that this will eventually fade. I know that something that will mark our generation in the deepest of ways will be forgotten in a few decades' time by many. I worry, I guess, about how long it will take to get to the luxury of forgetting. The unknown is the hardest part of all.

Until it becomes a memory, I have to do the small things that insist life is normal in some ways- tuck Millie and Walter in at night. Nurse Harry and watch him learn new things every day. Plan ways to celebrate three summer birthdays somehow. Tell Sky that I'm too tired to cook dinner. Sit on the front steps, looking at his baby toes. Look for a bicycle to take the kids on a neighborhood ride. Open my Bible to search for passages about joy in trouble. Take walks in the evening under beautiful dogwoods and cherry blossoms.

And I hope, in it all, that they don't remember the confusion, the panic, and sadness of what was lost. I hope they only remember the lilacs.

Hold Dear

 "Hold dear to your parents for it is a scary and confusing world without them." 

— Emily Dickinson

Remember that far back? When you were only 5 or 10? Your parents were still all-knowing, mostly without flaws, and you were pretty sure they didn't actually exist as people until you arrived- the thought of them having any other roles besides Mom and Dad was such a strange concept that it never crossed your mind. God put the two of them on this earth for the sole purpose of raising you, and maybe a sibling or two down the road, inconsequentially. You relied on them for everything you wanted or needed, but you dreamed of future independence.

You knew adulthood would be glorious. So much freedom. No answering to anyone. You'd have a fun job, a cool car, and spend your time eating ice cream at 2 am, staying up to watch David Letterman, or whatever it is parents do after your 8 o'clock bedtime. But you would never do things like them, or utter the words "because I said so", or even be corny enough to be a parent in the first place. You'd be your own person.

And then it happens. Parenthood lands in your lap with a thud, a wide-eyed, cooing baby looking at you the way you must have looked at your parents. Suddenly, you feel smaller, and maybe even more childish than before you met your own child. How is it that you are supposed to raise this little one for the next eighteen years and not make a complete mess of it all? Almost instantly, you understand your parents- everything they said to you, you want to repeat to this little child. Be careful driving in the rain- it's slick out. You're gorgeous on the inside, and that's the most important thing. Don't date that boy. Don't do something you'll regret. Clean your room.

Then you make phone calls for that Christmas cookie recipe, for ideas to soothe that baby crying in the middle of the night, for questions about your childhood. You realize that they really do know everything, or nearly, and that they are flawed because they're real people with deeply interesting stories- some that you've heard fifty times over, and some you've never heard in all your 31 years. You want them to tell about your story, but even more, you want to hear their own.

You realize they parented without Google and feel amazed that they were so capable, that they planned vacations with brochures and phone books, that you're actually jealous of that Pontiac station wagon with the faux wood paneling, and that, somehow, they didn't poison you even though they couldn't grab their phone and look up the correct dosage for children's Tylenol at 4 o'clock in the morning.

And if they don't live in the house next door, you miss them, though you tell them this about once for every thousand times the feeling passes through you, or maybe you never tell them at all. After all, you still put on a show about being an adult, when all along, you know that you may be able to fool some people, but never them.

We always think we'll outgrow our need for the people who brought us into the world. But the secret truth is that we need them always, and in some ways, even more than we did when we were 5.

Or maybe it's just me.

Empty Spaces

"You've walked those streets a thousand times and still

you end up here. Regret none of it, not one

of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,

when the lights from the carnival rides

were the only stars you believed in, loving them

for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.

You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,

ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house

after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs

window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied

of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering

any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign

on the corner, and watch all the people walk by." 

— Dorianne Laux

I turned onto the main road as I was telling him about it, little yellow leaves trying to keep up with the tires for a brief moment, before they sighed and settled onto the street again. "I picked up some Christmas presents at a lady's house- did I tell you about that buying co-op I recently joined? They had Melissa and Doug toys on sale?- and anyway, her house was big and impressive looking. You know, one of those typical subdivision houses that cost a few hundred thousand and have no shade on the street because the trees are so young?"

My dad nodded from the passenger seat. We have similar taste in houses.

"So I get there, and pick up the boxes that were sitting in her living room, and I realize there is nothing in it but stained carpet and a couch. The next room was just as bare. It was really strange."

Dad chimed in. "I saw the same thing on calls," he told me, referring to his firefighting. "Big, fancy houses that looked impressive, but they couldn't afford a stick of furniture." We speculated about how many had likely gone into foreclosure. So much show in a house, but no comfort of a home. Empty spaces with a sorrowful echo inside, but their stately appearance outside fooled the rest of the world.

And then, this morning, I saw another empty space that made me gasp.

Just across the hall from where we live now, another apartment is familiar, too. It's the one Sky and I lived in right before Millie was born. The most recent tenants abruptly (i.e., sneakily) moved out early last Saturday morning, leaving a few belongings, some empty boxes, and a huge mess for the landlords. I heard them cleaning it this morning, and watched their pickup rumble down the street toward a dumpster.

Instantly, something in me was curious. I opened my front door, staring into the other apartment where that front door had been left wide open. It smelled dirty, the carpet was a mess, and yet I was tempted. I looked around the hall, and stepped two small steps into our old place. I stood there for a moment and surveyed the past.

Empty and silent, with windows open and sun shining through. I thought of all the arguments that had tinted those walls, how there were stains of the our history that I'll never quite be able to scrub clean. If walls could talk, ours would have sobbed, most likely. I thought about how we left for the hospital right before midnight on a Thursday, how Millie was born on a Saturday, and how she was carried over the threshold on Monday. I thought about the lonely nights I spent with just her there, crying every few hours to be fed, or to be held, and how I would cry along with her. I remembered the awkward visits a therapist would make, sitting on the loveseat while I sat with Sky on the couch, trying to bravely say how I felt until I would dissolve into a mess of anger and heartbreak. I thought of the time I made a lasagna, only a few days after moving in, and left the house for a a half an hour as it baked in the oven, returning to blaring carbon monoxide alarms that forced the whole building to evacuate while the firemen roamed our apartment until it was safe. With all the betraying, fighting, and blaming in that apartment, it was never safe. As we slowly added pieces of furniture to the rooms, we also added resentment, pain, and scars.

But this place, just across the hall in the same building, trudging up the same staircase every week to put away groceries? This place is going to be different. While outside, the bricks blend in, looking like any apartment building on the street, the inside is full to the brim. We'll have a life to pack up when we move out- the two sets of chipped white dishes, minus one cracked bowl that recently landed in the trashcan. We'll have scribbled artwork made with Crayolas and chubby, little hands. We'll have a lot more books than we even started out with, which is shameful and glorious all at the same time. There are old quilts folded up in the closet, old dishes hanging daintily on the wall, and old journals stashed under a bed. There are seldom used kitchen supplies packed in shallow boxes, last season's clothes tucked away for the year, and childhood mementos that I can't part with just yet. Mismatched, decorated with clearance Target furniture, and usually covered in small fingerprints, our home is nothing to the world, but it is full to the brim of these memories. 

When we leave what we have here, it will be for a house, maybe one with a vast yard for the kids and a big, shady tree or two for me. But this place won't be empty. If these walls could talk, they would tell you of the hurt that moved in, and the hearts that painstakingly took one step forward and two steps back until they finally had enough strength to outrun old ghosts. They would tell you of hurried mornings before church on Sunday, and quick dinners before choir practice on Monday. It turns out that the natural, easy pace of children growing is actually a messy, heartbreaking, intentional, day-in-and-day-out task, and this little apartment is full of that. It's full of these first days of school, of trying new recipes, of growing waistlines. It's full of Christmas presents hidden on a high up shelf, and board books abandoned across the couch. It is where we brought another small one over the threshold. In a few years, we'll pack everything and load it in a truck for a new destination. Yet I have a feeling it won't be as empty as when we moved in. 

There is so much here, in the air around us. While the weather turns chilly, our home is staying warmed, a refuge. And when I shake out the rugs, sending out specks of dust to turn into brilliant sunbeams, I wonder if the soft, filmy glow is what we'll leave someday.

Twilight

"It was the time of year, the time of day, for a small insistent sadness to pass into the texture of things." 

— Don DeLillo

He was clutching his stuffed mouse, cradled in my arms, and I carried him through the hallways to his room. I turned the doorknob slowly until it clicked, and waited for another cry, but he was too tired now. I stood in the deep, eerie purple of twilight that shifted into blue, tinting the walls, the daisies on my table, and the dishes I was too tired to put away. It was silent and serene, waiting there in the almost-dark for nothing. The movement of night-blackened trees through the window caught my eye, and reminded me there were hours left in the day despite the moon's sheen. I'm not afraid of the dark anymore. I'm used to it.

When her auburn curls are tousled on a flowery pink pillow, and an airplane mobile barely flutters over his blonde head, I tell myself that this is all I need. I lay sideways on the bed and press play on an old black and white movie. (Right now, it's anything with Barbara Stanwyck.) Was it better then? If I had the right kind of hat to wear with my coat, and lipstick to match my high heels, would everything feel settled? Would it all wrap up neatly the way it tends to do in an hour and a half of romance, confusion, love letters, and resolution?

I keep wondering how I got here. In the span of a few years, life has changed many times over. I remember the girl I was five or ten years ago. She wasn't sure of herself, but she was sure of the world- a strange place to be. She hoped and trusted, and she believed in happy endings to the darkest stories. I laugh at her, pity her, and want to be her all over again. There may be a secret to a soft heart after heartache, but I haven't found it yet. It seems more knowledge only brings more to defend against. Sometimes at night, I think about the ones who have told me their secrets and sorrows, and wonder if they're still awake, too.

I've been exchanging letters with someone who is in his late eighties. He tells me about his childhood and early adulthood, and I marvel at it. There are twists and turns in his story so painful, I catch my breath as I read. So much tragedy for someone that young. But he tells me these things because they are a part of his story now, and, I think, he accepts them. And while I wonder if he would change them if he had the chance, I also wonder if he's thought of it that way. I'm still looking for an escape, and he's content. Among the sadness, he vividly remembers the good, the foolish, and the details of many events like they were yesterday.

I wonder what I will have to write about in another fifty years. If the good triumphs by then, and I can feel my heart beating beneath my hand and know that I have lived fully. Life is forever a back and forth, round and round motion. Much of the good is hard to get in focus. Sometimes it means holding it very close to see it well. And other times, it means standing at a distance, and surveying all I have.

There are gifts here, I remind myself, if I can breathe and wait long enough for the light to see them clearly.

How I Got Here

"The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education." 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I began a few times, you know.

The first time, I was a naive 16 year old, homeschooled and working at the small apple orchard on the edge of town, bordered by cornfields and beehives. I came home from my job smelling like their apple cider doughnuts, as if I'd spritzed a cinnamon perfume on my wrists to make the five dollars and change per hour. After my regular schoolwork was done for the day, I would reach for the textbooks to my two online college courses, flipping through them while I waited for the dial-up tones to finish beeping. I took Introduction to Fiction and Basic Newswriting, figuring it would cover all the bases of my future career as a writer. My computer was beige and roughly the size of a small car.

I moved away from home at 17, however, four hours south and left, landing at the very edge of Indiana. People spoke with a twang and there were more hills there. I began a second time, and took an English class, but it was extremely expensive for a girl who left home with a $900 savings account and a '87 stick shift Honda. Instead, I worked- first at a chain restaurant as a hostess, where I faked extroversion until I could flee to the safety of my apartment, then at a doughnut shop, where I served cherry bagels and coffee in the drive through window when the sun hadn't even stretched and yawned yet.

Next was a year at a job cleaning hospital rooms. It was cheerful work when people were leaving with a cart full of flowers and balloons, and heart-wrenching when I'd be assigned the children's ward, oncology, or an ICU room where the bed hadn't been occupied long enough for a mess to be made. I cried more than once as I mopped those floors, knowing a family was grieving. It was a busy, but quiet job. After that, I worked at the same hospital as a secretary, and it felt like I had landed my first grown up position. I wore khakis, read on my lunch hour, typed on a computer, rubbed elbows with doctors, and locked up at night. When it was quiet, I wrote blog posts to myself in emails. 

That's when I began for the third time. I started off with a medical terminology class that the hospital offered (which counted as college credit). I didn't choose it for its purpose of enriching my job, although it did. I just loved all the -isms and -ologies, and was overjoyed when I'd find the particularly long words for small conditions (blepharospasm!). I decided to take a couple night classes then, driving straight from work in my khakis to a lecture hall where I'd nearly fall asleep, At first, the obvious choice was nursing- not just for my hospital job, but because my mother and 3/4 of her family are in nursing. I realized when I barely squeaked by with a C in anatomy that it probably wasn't a great idea. And anyway, during all that time of cleaning patient rooms, I found myself coming home to write about their lives rather than wonder about their medication dosages. I quit the hospital and worked at a vet for a year, but the pets had less interesting stories.

Life changed again, and at age 25, I moved back to Illinois, thank goodness. I found a job as a medical secretary again, and because the clinic offered tuition reimbursement, I took another two online courses at the college I started at years before- my fourth beginning. I met Sky during that time. I met Millie not long after.

When she was two, it suddenly occurred to me that the Pell Grant existed, and that I should use it (and I'll forever be thankful for it). I enrolled again for my first full time semester- my fifth time in school by this point- and found out I was pregnant with Walter a month later. I continued with school that year full time, even though Sky was away nearly the entire spring semester. Some of  the time, I would take my quizzes laying on one side of the couch, clutching my laptop and praying I wouldn't feel the morning sickness anymore. Once Walter was born, I took my first purposeful break from college. I wanted that first year to be free from distraction. I'm still so glad I took it.

And for the sixth time in my life, at age 30, I enrolled in full time classes again. Most of those were math, and I've never been more intimidated. I made the Dean's List, got a 4.0 my last semester, and felt like I was actually getting the hang of it. My bed became a temporary desk, and I would spread out syllabuses, textbooks, and my laptop all around me. There were countless nights of stopping in the middle of homework to soothe a crying baby or calm a little girl with a bad dream. It was exhausting, and it was hard, and it felt awful and amazing. 

On May 14th, I stopped going to school. 

This time, it was because I had finally graduated with an associate degree.

What technically began at 16 ended a few days ago. I celebrated on the rooftop, taking in the night air and posing for a few photos in my cap and gown. I wanted to wear it forever. At home, I poured a sparkly drink into a crystal flute, and felt the gratefulness sink deep into my bones. It was such a long journey- much longer than it needed to be- but I know, without a doubt, that I appreciate that little degree so much more than I would have a decade ago. It feels like I earned it, yes. But it feels like a gift, too.

I haven't learned a hundred great truths. I have not remembered the way to chart the phases of the moon, the format for writing copy for television news, or most of those words from medical terminology. But I have learned it's okay to keep going, slowly, because it gives you a kind of grit you don't find other places. Someday, I'd like to continue, and get that journalism degree I've been eyeing since I was young. Until then, I have this; the knowledge that I can accomplish something I work at, the example I hope to set for Millie and Walter, and the honor cords and tassel carefully put away. Class of 2015.

A Quiet Resolve

"The highway signs say we're close,

But I don't read those things anymore.

I never trusted my own eyes."

-Stubborn Love by The Lumineers

A year in review?

I don't know.

I don't know what I'm closer to, or what I'm farther from.

My heart is so much happier, and so much more full of ache.

I am older and wiser, but I wish I could be younger and oh-so-naive again.

Maybe everything is changing, or maybe it's tortuously the same.

I know more of what I want, and less of how to get it.

I can't make sense of most of what I've seen this year. And maybe it doesn't matter, now that it's ending, and being replaced by a shiny 2015, with glitter and flashbulbs to assure me that this is the year. This time I'll figure it out. This time I'll know. The confetti will shower me in an avalanche of goals and resolutions that will outshine all the regrets and broken promises.

Sometimes, I feel like a boat in an ocean with no land in sight. Because I can control what I do. But there are seven billion other people in seven billion other boats, and I can't control any of them. And there are big storms that come out of nowhere, it seems. And boats are kind of lonely things anyway.

There are times when I blaze into a new year full of wild hope and bubbly excitement, as if I'd toasted the whole bottle of champagne to myself. There are others where I simply pray a silent prayer in the dark, waiting until everyone has gone to sleep and it's just me in the blankets, staring up at God in a kind of hesitant wonder. We have a long, but mostly wordless talk. And for the most part, I just tell Him that I don't know. I don't know. My best prayers are probably when I keep my mouth closed.

I've had thirty years of these midnights, of the calendar rolling to a new page. They no longer seem worthy of sequined dresses or noisemakers. Instead, they tend to arrive without any fanfare at all. The Christmas decorations look outdated and out of place already. The ball dropping in New York is too far away from a small town in central Illinois farmland.

And anyway, isn't that what the Midwest is known for- a quiet resolve? A steadfast determination? No matter the weather, the farmers have to sow and reap at some point. You do what has to be done. There is a beauty in that, even though it's mostly lost in the world today.

So 2015 will find me doing what has to be done, whatever that may be. I will love my children. I will finish school. I will cook our meals and make our trips to the library. I will sit in the hallway during her ballet class, and console him after his immunizations. I will laugh and I will cry. I will sing along with the radio. I will read lots of board books and mourn for time to read from my own shelf. I will try to make the holidays happy. I will buy hair dye in a box. I will revel and glory in fall's return. I will celebrate birthdays and marvel at new accomplishments. I will get a new pair of shoes, and pay taxes, and discover new recipes. I will still check on them at night. I will get teased for the amount of photos I take of anything and everything. I will stay up too late and wish for time to sleep in. I will write.

I will do the small things that constitute this life, a life that feels small, but one that God sees nonetheless. And even though I don't know, He does. For now, I go to bed and wake up again.

The Show

"What's past is prologue." 

— William Shakespeare 

I haven't written about you in a while.

Two nights ago, we went to a play. You wore a tie and asked for help on deciding which silver tie clip to wear. You wrapped the scarf around your neck even though you didn't like it. I curled my hair and put on a little black dress and tights, dabbing red lipstick on my lips and spritzing on a rose perfume that you bought for me long ago. I found my heels in the back of the closet, and tried to walk without stumbling. You opened the car door for me. It'd been probably two years since the last time we did this or anything even close to it.

The two of us shared a pasta dish at a dimly lit Italian place. We rolled our eyes at the overbearing waiter, and savored the tiramisu. We ordered water to save money and ate copious amounts of those little bread slices, dripping with oil and Parmesan. We talked about what comes next in our lives: hopefully, your promotion and my graduation. All the talk was about the future.

At the show, we watched silently, thoughtfully. I wanted to close my eyes and somehow absorb the voices as they rose and fell in "Oh, Holy Night". Echos of the refrain reached to the ceiling and back to my chair. The tenderness of the story and beauty of the music was nearly heartbreaking. I had forgotten that heartbreak could have such a lovely, sweet edge to it.

And then, after the show, we stopped by the cafe on the other side of the road, glittering with Christmas lights in the windows. I used to spend moody nights there, drinking something warm and sugary, talking with a friend or writing private thoughts that I hoped would be public someday. It's strange how we leave parts of ourselves in every place we visit.

Sometimes I have dreams about the boy I had a crush on in elementary school. I wonder what life would look like if he was the one who sat beside me at that show. And I know there are girls in your past that you wonder about, too. All the people we thought we would spend life with fell away somehow- maybe they walked away, or maybe we did- and now it's you and I standing here. It almost feels like it was just chance. Maybe it was. We certainly can't say that this was our plan, to meet while you were across the globe and I was afraid for your life. Now we find ourselves with wedding rings and babies five years later.

Everyone likes to caution that marriage is hard, although they say that padded in phrases about how wonderful and rewarding it is. They never tell you why it's hard. They never tell you what that feels like. They talk about the lights and forget all the shadows.

We have been to lows that I didn't know existed. We have tasted the kind of bitterness and ache that is hard to write about it. The battle- because, dear God, it is a battle- is fought on steeper ground each year that these rings stay on our fingers.

It was a little easier, that night at the show. It was a little remembrance of where we started, and the laughter we had, and the drinks that made us dizzy, and the love. The love.

There were many people at the play, crowding around us in their seats with jewelry sparkling, perfume behind their ears, and programs on their lap. They were listening to the chords rising and falling just like we did. I wonder if they saw the trail of our years behind us. Their shadows, crumbled and tired. I wonder if they realized that as the story of the World War One Christmas truce was being performed on that stage, you and I had a truce of our own.

I don't know if we were meant to be here. I don't really understand the way God works, or what twists and turns should have happened, or if this is the master plan. But we are here, still. And it will be five years soon. I can't say I haven't given up, but I've stayed in spite of it, and you're still here, too.

My wish is that this new year will be merry and bright. My hope is that we stop trying to grasp for what we can't ever get back, and begin trying to live in a new way, with new memories and a new foundation. I am the kind of girl who clings to the old, but let's stop. The old is gone.

Let's pretend that we met at that show. Let it be our holy night. Let it be the first day. And there was light.

Start there.

The Beginning: My Own Birth Story (Written By My Mama)

My new little self, sleeping in the bassinet that my dad and all his siblings used,
and the one that I used for Millie and Walter

When, on her birthday, my blog friend Jess had her mom share her birth story, I thought it was a wonderful idea. So today, on my 30th birthday, I'm snagging that idea for my blog. I've heard bits and pieces of this story before, but it means ever so much more now that I'm a mom. And besides, it's always nice to hear a part of your story. This is the very beginning of it. Thanks for writing this, Mom!

The Official Birth Story of Erika

I was a little surprised to hear that women write “birth stories.”  Women tend to verbally share the stories of childbirth with gross exaggerations and lots of histrionics, as though they were unique from the billions of other labors and deliveries and certainly far worse than any other.  But I guess we’re all a little curious about our own stories and have only our parents to tell us about them. And being born is a big deal. Erika, this is your story.

I was in labor for 842 days.  I think that beats all the other stories I’ve heard, but not by much. The real story isn’t as shocking, but I’ll tell the truth.

I worked nights as a nurse on a psychiatric unit and thought it would be a good idea to take off about a week before my due date to readjust to days. Even though I knew that babies, being under legal age, don’t consider the due date as a contract, I still more or less thought that Erika would be born on her due date. I worked the last shift and came home to do some nesting, or cleaning and packing.  At bedtime that night, around 9 P.M., I felt the definite more-than-just-a-trickle of amniotic fluid escaping.  (I chuckled a bit remembering the story of my mother-in-law’s maiden aunt who came to stay for the birth of the baby. My mother-in-law called down the stairs to “Auntie” with the news that her water had broken.  “That’s all right, Alice.  It happens to me all the time,” replied her aunt.)  

I told Erika’s dad that I thought my water had broken and called the hospital maternity ward to let them know.  I was having mild contractions, and though I knew logically it could be quite some time with this being my first, I still felt a feeling of needing to hurry to the hospital.  (Isn’t that how it happens in the movies? The mother-to-be feels a single cramp, and they speed away to the hospital. But she can never get there in time, so the baby is always born in the taxi.)  The nurse told me to come right in, so I checked the suitcase one last time, and we got in the car – a green Chevrolet Impala with a bad transmission.

I wasn’t in the company of an experienced taxi driver who could deliver the baby, so it seemed to be a good thing to hurry a little.  We drove from our little rural subdivision onto the main street safely, while the contractions were becoming pretty uncomfortable and much closer together, about 3 minutes apart.  Maybe things would happen like they did in the movies! We passed a gas station, and Erika’s dad suddenly whipped the car around and pulled in.  I asked why we were stopping, and he said he needed an antacid.  Now, we were on our way to a hospital, and surely, they would have antacids there – rooms of them. Didn’t having a baby overrule indigestion?  

When I arrived at the hospital, it was as a patient this time; it was intimidating to be on the other side of the fence.  Riding in the wheelchair seemed really strange.  The halls looked very different and so “hospital-ish.”  Watching some labor and deliveries of other women when I was in nursing school didn’t prepare me at all for my own.  I thought, “I can’t do this, but there is no turning back now.”  I prayed the whole time.  I was so fearful that I hadn’t eaten right or may have done something to injure the baby in some way, too, and now would come the reckoning.  I thought of those many mornings after work when I could only stand the thought of orange Crush soda for breakfast. (And maybe some toffee.)

My gorgeous mama, pregnant with me

The nurses checked for amniotic fluid, but couldn’t find any trace.  They decided it was a “high leak,” and decided to keep me there.  As the night progressed, the labor slowed somewhat, like it often does.  As midmorning passed, I was getting very tired after not sleeping for so long. Labor picked up after the doctor completely ruptured the membranes, and at that point, I felt that Lamaze was a joke. I didn’t use any pain medicine, afraid that it might hurt the baby. When staff moved me to the delivery room, they placed me on my back with feet up in stirrups, which is probably the worst possible way to give birth.  The time finally came to push, but I didn’t have any energy left.  Nurses were pushing down on my belly, while the doctor kept speaking encouragement. I thought I was pushing, but they kept telling me that I wasn’t.  It seemed to take forever before I heard the doctor announce that “it’s a girl!” It was about noon. He seemed to be thrilled and chattered away for a second, but almost immediately he grew serious.  I heard him call for oxygen.  Erika was whisked away before I really had even a moment to hold her.  

My sister, also a nurse who worked at the same hospital, was there for the birth, but she was somewhat blurry to me then, as was everyone in the delivery room.  I was so tired, but so scared.  The doctor told us that you had a wee bit of Erb’s palsy because of the length of the labor, and that you were a little short of oxygen, all of which resolved very quickly with no permanent damage. What relief it was to hear that Erika was fine! She was truly fine! After knowing you were well, it seemed as though the birth hadn’t really happened in some ways. So much of that night faded away quickly.  A nurse came with a basin of warm water and soap and told me to wash up.  As she left the room, she asked me if I was really going to wash, or was I going to fall asleep.  I told her that I would wash, not to worry, and that’s the last thing I remember for a while.

I was so thrilled to finally have Erika brought to me to nurse.  I couldn’t believe that she could be so tiny.  I was built like a toothpick at 100 pounds before pregnancy, which made for a really funny shape when I was full term, though I only weighed 125 pounds then. People actually laughed at me without even attempting to disguise it! (Just what a nine months’ pregnant woman needs for her self-image, yes?) But even though my belly had seemed so large, there you were, all complete, but so little at 7 pounds, 11-1/2 ounces.  And you were pink, not orange Crush-colored, thank God.

We couldn’t wait to bring you home.  One reason was that wonderful excitement we felt to begin that huge adventure, almost too wonderful to believe.  The other was because the woman next to me kept singing “The Lullaby of Broadway” to her baby.  Don’t ever do that.  If you must sing a lullaby, sing a real one, even horrible songs like “Rock-a-Bye Baby in the Treetop,” which has terrible, frightening lyrics. No show tunes.

There you have it.  You were born, thank God.  He makes the best stuff. And you just keep getting better and dearer all the time.

On Turning 30

 

"I am not young enough to know everything." 
— Oscar Wilde

When I turned 29, it felt like a such a sudden, big milestone. All the years before were instantly condensed into "my 20s", and I was standing on the edge of a new decade. It seemed a whole lot more monumental than turning 10 or 20 did.

In twelve short days, my 20s will officially be a thing of the past. When I think about the girl I am now, I can't help but be amazed at all the girls I have been before. I thought I would share a few of the things I've learned these past ten years, along with some photos of my journey so far.

{first day of kindergarten. minnie mouse backpack.}

1. I've learned that being alone is good for me. I used to assume I was a failure because I am never surrounded by 50 friends or because I don't attend parties every weekend. I've realized that the company of my own thoughts is what I crave much of the time. Solitary drives are beautiful. Walks alone are sacred. I am not the kind of girl who needs the noise of others. I need the quiet. I love the quiet.

2. My parents were right. Especially the times I didn't think they were right. (There you go, Mom and Dad.)

3. My self esteem has never been particularly high, but it's a lot higher now than it was when I was 15. I'm thankful for that. I'd hug that beanpole girl if I could.

{bonnet baby.}

4. On the whole, if I get the chance to do something, I should do it. And if I don't, I shouldn't beat myself up about not doing it.

5. I don't have time for relationships that constantly disrupt my happiness. I've learned to value peace above pretending to like someone who doesn't like me. It's okay to have some distance from toxic acquaintances.

{hahahahahaha.}

6. I like old things. I always have, so this is not a new discovery, but when I wrote that I wanted to do more with my hands, I really meant it. It's important to me that Millie and Walter have a mom who can do things like plant something, embroider something, bake something, read something for pleasure, and fold an origami crane.

7. I had an amazing body when I was 20. And even though I could tell you dozens of things about myself that I wish I could change, I'm trying to appreciate that I probably look better now than I will when I'm 70, so I might as well enjoy it. And enjoying it can mean wearing something that isn't always from the juniors section. I realize the 'grown up section' is actually okay now. I like being a grown up sometimes.

{angelic in saddle shoes.}

8. I have a blog, I only take online college courses, and I use Google with the best of them. But if I could choose, I would go back to the world before the internet. Truly.

9. I've learned that it's stupid to order the largest drink at the movie theater if I want to sit through the whole movie, and I've also learned that it's usually stupid to pay $9 to see a movie when I hate 95% of the ones I see. Spend a dollar at Redbox, wear pajamas at home, pause the movie 50 times, and eat all the snacks I want.

{sitting on the porch with my brother, wearing clear glitter jellies. NBD.}

10. I've learned that I have to prioritize. I don't get a chance to read for pleasure when I'm taking full time college classes. I don't get to clean as much if Millie and I are baking something together. I don't get to bake as much if Walter is having a rough day. Everything has a time and a place, and figuring those out makes everyone a lot happier.

{Christmas presents after my dad's shift at the firehouse.}

11. I will never like math, I will never be great at public speaking, I will never enjoy science, and I should never say never. Except about those things, because yuck.

12. When I think about Millie and Walter turning 30, it makes me a nervous wreck to think about all they will have to go through to get there. But it makes me happy that they will probably arrive in a similar spot as I am, with experiences that taught them the good and the bad in life, and the comfort of knowing that life really does get better with each year- not necessarily the circumstances, but the outlook.

{I like your sleeves. They're real big.}

13. I should always set my standards high. So high. And then give grace when they aren't met, because I've never met everyone's either.

14. I still don't have a clue about what I'm doing when it comes to being a mother, but I am figuring it out a day at a time, and that's all I can do. Millie and Walter unknowingly teach me every day, and those lessons slowly make me a better parent. Sometimes I look in the mirror, and see such an unqualified, too young, foolish girl to be in charge of two little souls. But they love me and I am over the moon for them and, somehow, that is enough to get us where we're supposed to be.

{hugging my brother, which looks like a carbon copy of Walter.}

15. I am much more okay with turning 30 than I thought I would be. Because I wouldn't have learned these things any other way. And because, like the rest of the 30 year olds, I see how young 30 really is, and how I still have so much more to learn. And because I can be 30 years old and still wear cute boots or sparkly nail polish or non-mom-jeans.

30 is not the new 20. Instead, I am the new 30. So out with the old, in with the new, and here's to a new decade of blank pages.

Begin Again

Here I am. Again.

I wrote at my chambanachik blog for five years. Before Sky, before Millie, and before Walter, it was me and a laptop. Things have changed so much since then. Those three people have created a family for me. I gave birth to two beautiful babies. I got married, struggled in it, stayed with it. I went to school, then stopped, then went, then stopped and went again. I lived in several different apartments on different streets. I probably became different people along the way. Or maybe it's that I found out more of who I really am.

Chambanachik never fit me. It's not that I've outgrown it; it just never felt like it represented me well. A website in town started a similarly-titled blog about a year after I began mine. The "chik" part is (purposefully) misspelled (it's a long and pretty uninteresting story), and the whole thing sounds a little young and ditsy. But the truth is, I'm just days away from my 30th birthday, and I sincerely hope I'm not a ditz. I am starting a new space because I made a silly mistake that ended up deleting every photo I've ever posted on my blog. Photos that go with stories, that have meaning, that mattered to me. But in a silver lining sort of way, I have a chance for a fresh start. My blog will probably have less followers. It'll be smaller than it was before. But it will still be me, still writing.

When I was little (and really, to this day), I had dreams of writing for a living. I would sigh every time our family drove by the newspaper building in town. For a short while in high school, I did get the chance to write a few articles for that newspaper. I had the hardest time cashing the $20 checks that they gave me, because I couldn't believe that someone had paid me to write. Even before that, I came up with a (short-lived) family newspaper (The Smith Gazette), and poorly designed a couple-page edition every so often, complete with headlines to stories everyone in the family already knew, and lots of wing-ding accents. It's in that ridiculous but nostalgic spirit that I'm beginning this new blog: The Midwest Press.

The tagline for chambanachik was "marriage, motherhood, the military, and my world in Chambana". Nothing much will change here. Those things comprise the biggest parts of me. I briefly considered giving up a blog altogether after all my pictures were gone. But at the end of the day, I'm not a photographer. I'm a writer. And write I shall.

So thank you. For following me to a new place because you care what I have to say. Do you know how much that humbles me? Chambanachik began when I didn't know a soul in blogland. Now I know so many of you. Dear friends. Military spouses. People who live down the road for me. Family. You are all a part of my world in one way or another, and you all matter to me. Thank you for letting me matter to you. Thank you for reading.

Out with the old, and in with the new. There's nothing but wide, open space here. Time to make it my own.

For those of you who'd like my new links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themidwestpressblog
Bloglovin': http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/12718857

Instagram: http://instagram.com/themidwestpress

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/themidwestpress/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/themidwestpress

Email: themidwestpress(at)gmail(dot)com -or- chambanachik(at)gmail(dot)com