Archive for parenting
My Day.
Posted by: | CommentsI have a tendency to hide my stories. Keep them inside and whisper them into secret ears when I get brave or someone hands me a glass of wine. I bottle my anxieties, fears, celebrations, excitements unsure of how to let them out.
I want to tell my stories.
In fact, before I ever meet you I probably have chosen stories I want to share with you and practice how I will tell them to you. My best stories hand picked for you. And then I see you and get nervous and ramble about something un-related to both of us and wonder why I can’t chill out.
Even writing this makes me feel embarrassed.
I took a vacation day today.
I woke up early and put on a dress and suit jacket. I showered and fixed my hair and put on lipstick. All of things I don’t do on work days. Ironic right?
I dropped Aiden off at school and felt powerful walking in all dressed up. (as opposed to the make-up less face and Gap t-shirt I normally sport)
I bolted from the school and drove an hour to meet with a room full of brilliant accomplished ladies. We brainstormed events and speakers for the upcoming year and I got excited to be apart of something so great.
The meeting ended and I hurried back home to swipe Aiden up from school. He had an appointment to get his very first filling and I was already late. I picked lunch up on our way to the dentist and my anxiety started creeping up as I realized I was late. What if we miss his appointment? What if they dont have time to get everything done? What if? What if? What if?
But we arrived. (right on time I might add) and everything went fine.
That is a lie.
They didn’t tell us that they normally don’t do fillings on the first visit. We chose this dentist to handle his filling because he was so nervous. Oh my gosh he was so nervous. I realized they might not do the fillings that day and I wanted to yell at them and demand things from them because I was so frustrated.
I did neither.
After talking for a while they decided to do two fillings today and informed me that I would have to pay 20% of the total cost of the filling that day. Right there. So I made a call and had the less than comfortable conversation with Aidens other parent and started re-working my monthly budget in my head.
They walked me back to the room where Aiden was chatting with the dentist and I could see the fear in his eyes and feel the nervousness in my heart. I was working numbers in my head and dealing with my twisted stomach as I watched his eyes as Little Nemo blared in the background. My heart started racing faster and faster and from the look on the dentists face I looked more scared than Aiden.
Finally it was over and everything was fine.
Except me.
My heart was racing and I couldn’t stop my mind from spinning. I tried deep breathing and music and wondered if I needed Xanax or if I should take up smoking or maybe I could take a nap or start running. or …or..or…
I am still trying to calm my mind as I write this and every part of me is wanting to never hit publish.
A dear friend has asked us to try and just write. I really avoid this type of exercise because my words just spewed onto a page are rarely if ever beautiful. Baby steps people. Baby steps.
Memories.
Posted by: | CommentsMy first memories are being right around the age that Aiden is now.
We lived in the south and the concrete would burn the bottoms of my bare feet as I ran around the driveway. We had honey suckle and blackberries growing in the yard and a clothes line that seemed to always have sheets covering it. There was a fence all the way around and my best friend and I would holler at each other from across the wire.
My dad had a Harley and I was petrified by its power. I would sit on it and squeem away when it started up. It was bright yellow and on his way home one night he hit a car. Flipped right over the hood and hobbled away with a few stitches in his foot. My dad became an instant super hero in my mind.
He would spend hours in the driveway trying to put that bike back together. The yard smelled like grease and beer and swear words would feel the air. I ran through the yard with our dog and felt safe. My dad could take on anything.
My friend from Illinois passed away and my mom told me as we walked home from kindergarten. The trees hung over top of us and the southern sun peeked through. I tried to imagine God and the bigness of the world and tried to picture things that my mind could not grasp. My great grandmother died later that year (or maybe earlier) and the same thing happended then.
I tried to imagine God.
I tried to imagine nothingness.
The world felt big.
My friend had a tree and we could climb to the tippy top and not fall off. He had a pool and a dalmation and his father worked at the bowling alley. We got to go in the back of the alley one day and I remember the balls making their way through the machines.
There were boys who lived next door. They were probably in highschool. They would play basketball outside and I would watch them and pretend I wasn’t.
My dad went to solmalia and he was shot. I was laying in my parents bed and it was late at night. I could hear my mom talking and crying which made me realize this was probably a big deal. I didn’t cry. I had no idea where he was and what was happening but whatever it was he could take it on.
The world felt small and safe.
And he was safe; we just didn’t know it yet.
We had an icecream truck and I was obsessed with the Ginger Bread man.
Run run as fast as you can you can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man.
We had colorful plastic bears we would count and place on cardboard shapes. I would run around the playground and sing country songs.
I was going to be a country singer.
I had a my little pony lunchbox and my mom would make me wear stirrup pants. I would pull the stirrups over my shoes and walk on them until they broke. She teased my hair for special occasions and swept it up into a side ponytale. I knew, even then, that I looked absolutely ridiculous.
I don’t know if all of these things happended when I was five or six or seven but they were somewhere in that time of life. This was my childhood and memories swirl through my mind as I think of that time and I can’t help but wonder what Aiden will remember.
What images will swirl through his mind in nineteen years.
