pathetic

I have spent nearly a week being pathetic. My heart breaking over the end of that relationship you didn't know about. Moping about all I could and should have done better. Sick that the memories of stuff I did with this guy were everywhere. Angry at myself for even trying again, although it seemed really right at the time and although I gave myself several months post-Dr. Yummy before taking the chance and although I took things incredibly slowly--so slowly that what we had might not have even been a 'relationship' were it not for the amount of time it took on, the promises made. Torn up over the fact that I trusted someone, again, who betrayed that trust in a cruel and all-to-familiar way. I've been unable to sleep. Unable to eat. Launched into that sickly, headached, shaking state PTSD produces. I lost nine pounds. My conversations all sounded disjointed. I was elated to learn what I did about this guy at this time instead of years down the line, but still...I felt like I should fight for him. For us. For whatever it was we had. What we could have had.

That's just my nature:

~Don't give up. ~There's always an answer. ~Hard work and faith can salvage anything. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

I didn't know how to let it go.

So, I called Ninja. And begged him to un-crazy me. And his advice was simple:

Remember who you are.

Which was the best advice I could have gotten.

Because I AM still here. I'm still me. I never let go of what I was working towards. Didn't allow  myself to get so absorbed in the relationship that I can't bounce right back into the world I rocked by myself (though my not letting go could be what ended up splitting us up, I just can't give that much thought right now because it won't change anything, and really--I think I knew how the whole thing would end from the beginning which kept me more on the outskirts than I would normally have been, or even wanted to be, all along.)

So, here I go, remembering me:

Hi, I'm Jennifer. I feel deeply. I love deeply. This sets me up for being hurt deeply, but it's still worth it, I believe. Despite being frequently disappointed, I still choose to believe the best in people. Despite losing a large number of people I love, I still believe in things that last.

My children mean everything to me. They are the four most incredible individuals I have ever come in contact with. I would be barely half the human I am now if not for them and all they have demanded of me, all they have taught me, all they have given so selflessly to me. The only time I have ever punched someone in the face enough to draw blood was when they hurt my children. Don't hurt my children. I have a mean right hook.

I am deeply faithful. My first relationship has been and always will be with my Heavenly Father. I don't understand why He has put me through some of the things that He has, but I trust in His love and supreme wisdom. I talk to Him daily in prayer, and seek His promptings in quiet moments and in scriptures. I have chosen to live my life within Christ-like boundaries and have never felt confined or repressed in any way doing so, rather the opposite--I've felt free and safe and unencumbered by addictions or unwanted consequences. In choosing this for myself though, it doesn't mean I don't interact with and respect those whose values differ from mine, and feel blessed to have an incredible variety of friends from all walks of life.

Keeping creatively active is vital to me. I am a writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, narrative journalism, and some pretty demanding to-do lists. Writing is not a hobby for me but a way to survive, to make sense of the world around me and inside of me. In addition, I am an interior designer. I play music. I paint. I dance. I like thinking up outfits. I like thinking up new words. I like thinking up something out of nothing. I am happiest when surrounded by others who are passionate about creating and sharing.

I am usually the only 36 year old woman riding at the skate park.

I am intelligent but I have so much to learn still.

I possess the divine gift to know of others' needs and show them affection. I try not to squander it.

I know the lyrics to nearly every song ever written but you would not want to hear me sing. I will sing anyway.

I am the culmination of all I have learned from my trials, but I am not my trials.

I love the sound of pennies being sucked up a vacuum cleaner. And hugs. I would love to be hugged by someone sucking pennies up with a vacuum cleaner. I think that might actually cause a rip in the space/time continuum of awesomeness.

I believe firmly that laughter is one of the greatest gifts we were given to combat the trials of this life. Laughter strengthens relationships. It can take the overwhelming-ness out of problems. It is the reason I have fabulous ab muscles. I don't laugh at everything but if you can make me laugh, I will love you forever. Hopefully I can make you laugh, too. It's more fun that way.

I hate white chocolate. I hate raisins. I really hate white chocolate raisin cookies. They should not even have the privilege of carrying the name "cookie."

Although living in a fairly vulnerable, transparent way has not been easy, it is what I have chosen for this period of singleness in my life. It still hurts my feelings when someone doesn't like me or what I have to say, and I've taken a lot of flack from people I care deeply about. But, the email folder of 2,938 emails from people all over the world telling me that I have touched and/or helped them in some way, and the nearly 1200 people a day who read this blog who I may potentially be inspiring to hold on a little longer, or making feel a little better that their trials are their own, or entertaining with the frequent train wrecks of my life...well, for them I keep going. And for the feeling of peace in my heart that, one day, I will appreciate having this record of this time in my life in addition to the things I journal.

I deserve to be loved. I deserve to be loved for all those things about myself that I like, and stuff that I may not even know is good about me yet. I deserve to be completely flipped-out, head-over-heels in love with someone who even intimidates me a little bit because they're so freaking brilliant, and who loves me back the same way.

No compromises. No settling.

Remember, Jennifer

And no more being pathetic

Don't lose another day

You're better off. Really.

not as the world giveth

You know you're in trouble when you start sympathizing with the Israelites. There you are, with an incredible abundance of blessings promised to you. You're excited and all...but for now you're sitting in the wilderness. And you have been for what feels like an eternity. Sure, you're getting manna and being sustained from day to day and all...but you're impatient. You want the safety of that city you just came out of. You want it's entertainment. You want it's... cucumbers (and all those other strange things they were missing). You start to think that maybe going back to a life where you were less than what you are supposed to be sounds better than waiting for God's promises in His time frame.

Yup.

That's me about now.

I am tired of this wilderness. Being sustained from day to day is awesome, but it's also exhausting--always fearing, wondering--will it come today? And looking around you and seeing others less faithful (like the Canaanites) prospering, and wondering, Heeeey! What about me?! I want some safety and security and fancy food already!

The thing is, for as frightened and impatient as I am, I KNOW God is going to take care of me. He showed me in a way I could understand just a week ago:

Every day for almost a year, I've worn my ipod nano. I use it as a pedometer/running tracker. It has my whole music library on it. I adore it. And last week, while sitting in the Fiction class I assistant teach, I noticed....it was gone. It wasn't clipped to the top of my skirt where it had been. I checked the floor around me, checked my pockets, checked under me. Nowhere.  I had covered a half mile of campus from my parking spot to the classroom, crossing a busy street, and rode in an elevator. Three hours had passed. There was no way I was going to find it. But a feeling came immediately into my heart speaking, Don't worry. You'll find it.

BUT HOW? It was impossible!

At 9pm, class let out. I started backtracking my steps as accurately as I could. When I would reach dark stretches of sidewalk, I would turn my phone on and shine it all around. I even went briefly into the library Starbucks where I'd stopped before turning quickly around (not wanting to wait in line behind eight people for a cup of hot chocolate). I thought of some guy finding it on the sidewalk and thinking, SCORE! Free music loaded nano!

Still, the calm feeling persisted...It's going to be ok. You're going to find it. And now it was even more specific, You're going to find it right by your van.

Still I searched all the way back thinking, This is stupid! Tons of students walk the parking lot where I park. I'm not going to find it there. And sure enough, I reached my van and...nothing.
See? I thought, I knew it! I can't even catch a small break lately!

I put my bag in the back and climbed into the drivers seat. As I settled my weight in, I felt something cold against my back. It was my ipod. It had been there all along. My skirt had just shifted around so that it wasn't in the front where it was normally was.

And then God really spoke to my heart: My child, don't you recognize the feelings of comfort I'm sending you? If I say you're going to find your ipod, you're going to find it. If I say I'm going to take care of you, like I have been...I'm going to do it. I have you.

I sat there in my dark van and cried for a good ten minutes, so sorry that I'd doubted. God's going to take care of me. Of my boys. I don't know how. Nor do I know  how long he's going to keep us sitting in the wilderness, on the borders of those earthly blessings I so desire, nor what else he will ask us to pass through, but I know if I'm patient enough, remain faithful enough, all things will be mine in time.

And that's where I want to leave you all. That's WHO I want to leave you all with--the girl who still has some hope left in her.

 The Peterson's who have gone public for 661 posts now, need to struggle in private for a little while.


This blog has been my therapy, my small piece of salvation for so long now, my good friend and lifeline to the outer world.  I don't know how to leave it. It has been such a blessing to turn tragedy into triumph in whatever I can, and to help others know they're not alone. But I just don't feel like me anymore. I look at my new group of single friends--many who have only been divorced for a year now, and they are so positive and so optimistic, like the world is completely open to them.  And I think...that used to be me. Not that I still don't have hope and optimism in my heart, there are just too many things pressing down on me right now. I see other single friends losing their houses and jobs, unfairly having time with their children taken away, or surviving for two weeks on Ramen noodles. It just all seems so...unfair. That's the yucky doubt in me eating at my faith.

I want to remain a source of inspiration and hope MIXED with trial...not all trial. I don't want people reading just to find out what the next tragedy awaiting me is. I don't want to be the Jersey Shore of the blog world.

So, I'm going to take a few weeks, or maybe months off. I'm going to see what I can do to either settle comfortably in this wilderness, or go knock that freaking wall to Jericho down already. I'm going to heal as completely as I can from the ache I still  feel from Dr.  Yummy's absence. I'm going to serve more. I'm going to try and earn enough income to save my house and maintain a semblance of the modest lifestyle we've had.  I'm going to spend a lot of time learning to recognize that divine whispering of, "I got you," until I believe it enough that I'm not afraid anymore.

Thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for believing in me. May you all be blessed with only pleasant surprises.

what now?

For those of you who have been reading for some or all of  the last three and a half years, you know I've struggled with forgiving and letting go of my ex-husband, emotional healing, single parenting, school stresses, heartbreak and loneliness,and some setbacks in my physical health and spiritual growth. But through all of that, I have always been blessed to be financially secure.

Following our separation, my brother-in-laws (and for this I will ever, ever be beyond-words grateful) stepped in on my behalf and forced the sale of my husband's shares of his business, and gave me the money. "You want to leave your wife," they said. "Fine. Stupid, but fine...but you're not going to leave her with nothing." My ex was more than willing to give it to me at the time, too, racked with guilt as he was.

It was enough money to care for the boys and me--allowing me to stay mostly at home and finish school--for six years. And for the first time in a long time, I finally had enough money to live without constant worry of where the money would come from. I paid off all our old debts, then immediately learned how to work the Dave Ramsey cash-only budget to make sure I would be the best steward over the money I could be.

It was such a relief that if my kids needed shoes or clothes, we went to get them (always on sale still, of course). If they needed haircuts, they got them. Their school costs could be covered with a little left over for a fun night out as a family once a month. If something broke that I couldn't figure out how to fix myself (which was surprisingly very little, thanks to Google), I could pay to have it fixed or replaced. I didn't have to burden anyone asking for help. I even got to have the occasional, much needed indulgence like a pedicure, or throwing a party, or being able to take a friend to dinner. I could plan for it and work it into my budget.

I never mentioned this on the blog before because announcing that, "hey! I have a big pile of money over here! And I live alone!" isn't very smart.

But then things started to go wrong. First just 'normal, unexpected life things'--my ten year old van breaking down or needing new tires (again), a son who had to have major orthodontic work, a broken air conditioner, medical expenses that insurance decided not to cover. I was able to take care of these things and go on. Then bigger stuff started to happen....

In a complicated re-sell of my ex's business, I ended up losing a year of income to loss of interest. Then taxes came due and I lost another year of income. Then, my cousin ran off with the inheritance I was to receive after my grandfather's death--which was going to cover my school costs, and I lost almost another year's income in paying for three years of ever-increasing school tuition, books, parking, and overload fees. And Brad stopped paying me alimony for a time to the tune of nearly $10,000, as well as not helping with child care costs or uncovered insurance payments as was dictated by our divorce. So, six years income had been whittled to three.

*It's been three and a half years now.*

Taking on extra  design and writing work, as well as my summer internship, helped me stretch out what I had. I took out a small student loan to help out my last semester. I let my insurance go (a HUGE expense trying to cover myself). I've stayed away from credit cards.

But today I sat down and paid the bills and the last of the money is now....all gone. And from December on, I have no idea what we're going to do. Yes, I have a new job with a LOT of promise, but it's only part time at first, bringing in about a third of what I need. No matter how I've worked the budget, I come up a little over a thousand dollars short per month every time. AND THAT'S ONLY IF BRAD CONTINUES TO PAY US THE AMOUNT HE HAS BEEN, WHICH HE HAS HINTED HE DOES NOT WANT TO DO FOR MUCH LONGER. I'll look for a second job to supplement but that breaks my heart since I'm already stretched so thin in my parenting time and abilities.

This is a step into a whole new level of challenge in my life as a single mother. Now, to add to the continuing stresses of parenting alone, trying to answer questions I don't have the answer to, and remaining cheerful when I would rather just bawl my head off and give in to the sucking hole of depression that's been trying to drag me in for years...I will have to deal with stuff like: Where will we live? What will we eat? How will we stay warm and lighted? How will we have money to put gas in the van?

Serious stuff.

With no parents or other invested parties to give advice or help.

And you can probably guess that I'm petrified with terror. I really don't know what to do. I'm sick to my stomach all the time over it. I'm trying to smile and have faith here. I know God COULD make it all better....but I also know He's just as prone to saying, "Trial time. Level up, girl" and letting us struggle. I don't understand why God does that. But he does. A lot. It shakes my faith to the core. Makes me want to drop to my knees and sceam, "Oh please, God! Not here! Don't make me go here, too!"

If it were just me, I would be fine. I'd look at it as some kind of fabulous adventure, but I don't want to frighten my children. I don't want to take them through this with me. Kids need to feel safe, secure, taken care of.  I feel so useless.

It was another reason I was so grateful to God for bringing Dr. Yummy into my life when He did. Dr. Yummy talked (a lot) about marrying me, and I thought--Yes! This must be the answer to my prayers. Someone who loves me and my children, and whom I love so deeply in return AND who could help turn this ship around? Perfect. Blessed. Grateful. With him in our lives, I could even do the MFA program if I got accepted. Almost too good to be true...and yeah...yeah. I guess it was. And since he decided against me, not only am I now too heartbroken and disenchanted to try again but who the heck is going to want me now? In this situation?

Never thought almost four years ago when I was the wife of a successful business owner, stay-at-home homeschooling mom, serving in my church and decorating my dream house, that I would so quickly end up a 36 year old working single mother living on five hours of sleep a night and wondering if she and her children would end up bankrupt and hungry in a subsidized apartment somewhere. It's like I have stumbled into a George Saunders story and can't find my way out.

I have worked so hard and sacrificed so much and been so faithful so as to not get to this stage. I don't understand. I don't.

I just don't see how this can end well.

But, we go on. We have no choice but to go on.  It won't always be like this, right? Right?!?!

I know everyone has their trials, their junk they have to deal with--stuff far worse than mine and without the benefit of Belief to aid them. I'm sorry to complain. Sorry to feel so alone. Please bare with me.

It would be lovely to have someone swoop in and rescue me, make the suffering go away, but  it looks like that's not going to be the case.  That doesn't mean that *I* can't rescue me though. Some of the biggest barriers in my way are ones I create in my own head with fear and doubt. I won't doubt me. I'll take what I'm dealt and make the best of it. I'm too hard working and too smart and too talented and too resourceful not to figure this out. I am my mother's daughter. I am my Father in Heaven's daughter. That is a powerful lineage. Somehow I'm going to do this...or die trying.

it's a process, to process

It's been a little over a week since the break up. I'm not dead yet. But...

This whole healing thing is quite the process. I haven't had such a hard time reckoning the man I thought Dr. Yummy was versus the man who kind of tucked tail and ran since my ex-husband. Not that Dr. Yummy had done ANYTHING like Brad , just didn't see it coming is all. At all.

 I'm glad I'm practically an expert on the Kubler-Ross stages of grief and can identify where I'm at in the process, and keep as calm and rational as possible--but it's kind of like knowing that getting a shot is going to hurt... the knowing doesn't make it hurt any less.

Out of habit, Dr. Yummy is still the thing that comes to my mind first thing when I wake up. Used to make me smile, now kind of feels like a good morning punch in the gut.

He used to be at the top of my text list--ready to share words of encouragement or tidbits of funny things going on in my day with. Now he's moved  to about eighth. I have to scroll down the screen to see him. The last thing he texted  me was the word "sure."

J had a very unique way of saying Dr. Yummy's name in a way that only an adorable 5 year old with a lisp can produce. He hasn't said it in several days. I miss the sound of it.

I'm taking on as much freelance writing work as I can, but that's meaning more late hours in front of my computer again. That old familiar, palatable silence that closes in on me like a choking fog is starting to be my companion again. I'm back to talking in a British accent to a picture of Jaime Oliver hung on my bulletin board. I think that's more sane than talking to nothing.

The other night, while I was at a poetry reading, the poet said something I found hilarious--but which was supposed to be  very serious. I knew it wouldn't be appropriate to laugh out loud, so I went to stifle my sudden laughter in Dr. Yummy's shoulder...only to realize that it wasn't him sitting next to me but one of the poetry professors who probably wouldn't have been cool with my face in his shoulder. Suddenly, I didn't feel like laughing anymore.

Most of my close single friends got married over these last seven months. I've had to kind of push out of my comfort zone to try and make new single friends. And they really are so, so nice--all of them, and funny and great to be around. I'm lucky to have them and will be there for them whenever they need me. After 3 1/2 years of this though, I just grow weary of the singles scene, especially when reminded how awesome it is to have one best friend and confidant like Dr. Yummy was.

One of the Christmas presents I ordered him arrived. It's sitting in my closet, unopened. Nonrefundable.

My hand misses his.

My feet are cold without his leg to tuck them under.

My smile is heavy.

I am lonely.

I actually did go to see him again. This last Saturday. I was going from a reading on my way to meet up with some friends, using my GPS to navigate. It ended up taking me right by Dr. Yummy's house. It felt weird to not stop when I was so rarely on that side of town. So I did. And we talked for a little while.

He did his psychiatrist thing where he asked me how I was and what I was thinking and listened with his chin on his hand, nodding appropriately. I answered as honestly as I could, knowing the real answer probably wouldn't change anything. That answer being: Actually, I'm miserable and I don't understand why you won't let my boys and I love you the way we want to  and the way you deserve to be and why are you  such a chicken and how come you don't trust us to keep a really perfect relationship perfect and how can you just run away from something this good and and are you ever going to change your mind and come back? But I guess there's no fixing the guy who fixes everyone else. Also, I have accepted that no one comes back for me.

So, we shared a brief hug before I left. I think he smelled my hair. He watched me drive away. He didn't try to stop me. Then he went back in to race cars on the XBox, and I went to have dinner with my big group of single friends where I was hit on by  another guy eating at the same restaurant--a 25 year old bass player  in a revenge death metal band with a faux hawk and stretched lobes. And I couldn't help but think: Jennifer, this is your life now. Again. Swallow it down. And don't look back.

Lest you think I'm without hope though, wait for what comes in my next post. God either has some plan up his sleeve, or a perfectly strange sense of humor. Maybe both.

what do you say when you don't know what to say?

My boys have been asking a lot of questions about Dr. Yummy's whereabouts lately. I knew they would. They'd grown as anticipating of and accustomed to his daily presence in our life as I had. Within the last two hours, three of the four have come to me at separate times, wondering if he was coming to the pumpkin patch with us tonight. Even our cat was used to being fed by him. My first inclination was just to brush my kids questions off, say he was busy or that he'd moved or something. But, they're smarter than that. I'm pretty sure they've felt the heaviness in my smile over the last few days. Caught me crying in my room before I had the chance to wipe the tears away and smile fast enough.

But my oh my, what baggage from my past this situation dredges up.

My dad died when I was 4, and my mom didn't remarry again until I was 23. But she did date off and on. I can recall six or seven men whom she dated seriously enough that they became part of our lives. She never had them sleeping over or anything--in fact, she was always (like I am) very discreet in her physical affections towards "boyfriends", but we knew that they were important to her somehow.

At first, I liked it. I wanted to have a step dad. I embraced them enthusiastically, wanted to spend time with them. But, over the years, and due to many factors (not excluding teenager-y self-centeredness), I learned to hate these men. Learned that they weren't worth the emotional investment,they'd probably not stick around longer than a year, that at least a few times they left due to my brother and I and the responsibilities that came with taking on another woman's children. And that, when they would *disappear*, my mom would be very sad. I didn't like people making my mom sad.

I can remember so vividly my grandmother and other adults talking to me about how wonderful it was that my mom had ___________ (fill in the name) in her life. "Don't you WANT your mom to be happy?" they'd ask.

And yeah, I did. Surely. But I didn't get it. Why couldn't she just be happy with us, her kids? Why weren't we enough? We weren't going to go away. We had fun with her.

Of course, now I get it. How happy my mom WAS with just us, how content she was in her life and with her hobbies, but that there is a difference in the type of happiness you derive from your children vs. the type of happiness you get from being in a committed, romantic relationship that ideally leads to marriage. How there are so many things you don't want to burden your children with, or that they wouldn't grasp,but that you need to share with another person who loves you  no matter what. How a hug from a child warms your heart, but a hug from your husband can let you just be weak for a while, or set your body tingling. God put the divine longing for companionship in the soul of every man and woman, then commanded them to go out and "cleave unto (one another)" THEN to "multiply and replenish."  Though they can share certain heavenly characteristics, they are two different things--love for a spouse and love for children. Passion vs. affection.

Most of all, as a child, I just wanted someone to speak the truth to me. Maybe they did and I just didn't understand, but it always felt like everything was getting sugar-coated somehow. Like they didn't think I  could sit with the truth when I think I could have. When sometimes what I guessed was going on was much worse than it actually was and it would have been nice to know.

So, I'm trying to figure out what to tell my kids. *I want them to understand the divine longing I do have in my  heart to one day, some day,  marry again, and how that takes looking and testing, and not settling for just anyone.

*I want them to know that I take whom I introduce them to very seriously. That I really thought each and every one of these men thus far had potential to be "the one."

*That (and this I know for a fact) the ones I have chosen to date exclusively have loved my kids very much--or at least found them delightful, even if they were uncertain as to how to function as a step parent.

*I want to explain why it's hard to maintain the same type of friendship with someone after you have been more than friends, and why it is that these men can't come to visit the way they did before. But to acknowledge that I know how much the boys miss them.

* I want them to understand that they, my boys, are the focus of my life and my first priorities, and that dating, while important, has never taken precedence over them. But that I also need to interact with adults on a regular basis, too--to go to my writers groups or out to dinner with friends.

*How I would never have chosen this life for us--that I wish it could have stayed just me and their dad and none of this to deal with--but that I'm doing the best I can and following the direction I receive humbly in prayer. And that we can all still live awesome lives.

Is that too much for children? Too many details they might rather not be told?

*And I guess the big question is...do I tell them I don't plan on dating anymore until they're grown? Because no one holds you to your word like kids do, so I don't want to say it unless I mean it. And it might be a good thing--when things get rough down the road and I'm feeling terribly lonely again, I can just remind myself that this was a CHOICE I made. Like a nun. No backing out of it. And shrug it off, shut down, and keep plugging forward.

But honestly...oh, what a hard thing to picture living for years and years and years a shrugged off, shut down, plug-y kind of life, void of human intimacy. Is it the best thing? Ugh. What a mess.

I made Dr. Yummy very aware from the beginning how frightened I was to get serious with him, knowing it was more than likely my last run at trying a serious relationship. But that I thought he was totally worth it. And he was. In the end though, it was easier for him to leave, not risking much, because it was obviously not his last run. He thinks he can do better. That hurts. And these are a lot of questions with no answers...

I guess for now I just inch along in the direction I feel most inspired to go and see what happens. Open my mouth and see what comes out. Does anyone know where I can purchase a "just make it all better" kit? If so, I'll take five of them. I could use one, too.

breaking.

I went to a hockey game tonight (Saturday). I went with Dr. Yummy. Yes, we have continued to date. Hoping. Seeing. After our last break up, we barely made it two days before realizing we were miserable without each other. We decided to give it a little longer, but I was still in it to succeed, and he was still in it just not to fail. Every time I seemed to happily settle into what and who we were again, even if it wasn't what I'd hoped, he'd feel the need to remind me that "something just didn't feel right." I missed the man from a month ago who showed up with purple tulips and washers for my leaky hoses and who looked at me like no man has ever looked at me before.    But now, while he made me feel happiness and laughter and anticipation, I made him feel discomfort and uncertainty. Hardly seems a fair trade, right?

So he finally ended it tonight. For real. Said it was him, not me. Though I've heard that so many times now I don't know that I can believe it. I guess it feels better not to wonder who made it not work, just to accept it wasn't meant to be. Just one of those things that's supposed to happen for some yet unknown purpose. Again. I'm not angry. I have only wanted the best for him from the beginning. I think he's completely and perfectly wonderful. I loved him from the top of his curly head to the bottom of the toes that he hated to have tickled. My J even asked the other day how to spell Dr. Yummy's name because he was "making a list of our family." So, yeah. I guess it's best it ended now. Before anyone got hurt. More.

How could I be such an idiot as to let this happen again? I promise I do not go into these things willy-nilly. I promise I do a lot of praying about who I choose to get serious with. Nothing had ever felt as right as this, gosh darn it.

Anyway, we went to that hockey game. And had a great time, too. I didn't see a break up coming. Maybe I started to feel it on the drive home though. We exited the freeway and passed the Sizzler in front of the mall. Suddenly, it felt like I had been transported back in time six, maybe seven years. In my mind, I was getting out of the van and walking into that restaurant with my three boys (the fourth not yet born) and my husband. We were going to eat Malibu Chicken and Steak. Brad and I each had hold of one of the bigger boys' hands, and I was carrying little L. My mom lived just around the corner, and we talked about going to visit her afterwards. I could feel it, all of it, perfectly.

It was all so familiar, so near, but also like it had happened to someone not me.

Like I have lived a million years in the last 3 1/2 without any recollection of how I got to where I'm at now. I thought of all the things I had in that flashback that I don't have now---not just people, but situations, emotions--security, safety, the luxury to worry about small and insignificant things like saving for a new couch, or what kind of tile to put in the kitchen.

Now those things are gone. My husband is gone, married to someone else, with another baby. My kids, in a way, are gone--not having the same opportunities I saw them having before. Mom is gone. I haven't even eaten at the Sizzler for four years.

And then I thought of all the things that have happened since. The people who have come in and out of my life--Haute Cakes, Green Eyes, Ninja, now Dr. Yummy. Other friends and acquaintances, too, who were so important for a short time and then gone. The myriad ways I have seen and hoped and planned for things to settle back into a comfortable place, to end happily again. And how they have all unraveled. How, I can count on one hand the number of mornings I have woke without fear.

And I worry, that type of worry that balls me up inside, into this thing that makes me shake and shake and shake.

Who am I anymore? What is going to happen to me? How can I keep doing this? What am I even doing? And who cares? When I look down at them, my hands seem foreign. Sometimes I catch a reflection of myself in a window and wonder, who is that woman? How can I continue to meet the emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of those around me when my well of all those things is dry?

It is unsettling. Disorienting. It really does make me want to go to bed and not wake up. Sometimes I even pray for that--not that I would ever consider taking my own life, just that I want God to know I'm ok if He decides to take me now. Quickly and painlessly, preferably.

But that is selfish, I know. And selfishness is an unfamiliar emotion to me, like rage. You know, when soldiers try out for the Navy Seals, they usually start in a group of 200 plus? By the time they're finished, there are generally no more than 20 left. It's not because the others weren't strong and capable and qualified. It's that it comes down to character. The ones that didn't quit, didn't quit because they cared too much for the man on either side of them. They cared as much about getting them through as they did themselves.

Not that I'm Navy Seal material. I'm a poor shot and a weak swimmer (I've got soul but I'm not a soldier...), but I do care more about these men, these boys of mine, on either side of me, than I do about myself. As long as they need me, which they do, I'm going to keep going. I will live through the disorientation, the frequent bouts of being unrecognizable. I'm going to keep getting up and trying and smiling my brave smile. Keep being that annoying type of cheerful that people get when they have no other choice but to be cheerful. When they've walked through hell and learned to shrug their shoulders and chuckle. When they've learned to accept God's will isn't usually the same as theirs but it's still the only way to go. I'm going to keep believing that something wonderful is always just around the corner. Because you know what? Sometimes it is. But for now, stuff really sucks. Guess that's why they call it *breaking up.* That's just how it feels.

dear future husband, part 2

Dear Future Husband,

I liked that last letter I wrote to you much more. You know, the one I wrote when I was certain you still existed. When I thought I had found you and then thought it again...and again. But I see now, that life is just too complicated being divorced, with children, at 36. It's too full of wisdom for us to be. I looked at my boys the other day and wondered when on earth they'd gotten so big?! I realized how, unknowingly, so much of my time, emotion, thoughts, and energies had gone into trying to find you, that 3 1/2 years had zoomed by. I thought you would complete us as a family again. I thought you would fall in love with my almost perfect boys and find them as absolutely amazing as I do. But, all the men I've thought might be you thus far have been afraid of stepping in to join our family. And I get that. I'm glad you told me. I would be miserable if the man I thought I loved didn't love my boys. We're a set, the five of us, a darn good one, too. But I know it's a lot. I've known that all along.

So, Future Husband, I'm going to have to ask you to wait for a while. Probably a long while. Like, my youngest is 5, so 13 years type of while. I need to give all of me to them. It's an answer I've felt looming inside me almost since the beginning but haven't wanted to accept. I hope I can find the emotional, spiritual, physical strength to do it...that's where you were supposed to come in, you know--the part where you become that source of joy and fresh strength and perspective, that trusted second hand, that manly example I so needed. But, I've managed to do it, just God and I, this far and I guess we'll figure out how to keep doing it. Improv-ing and improving.

I hope I'm still attractive enough in 13 years. I hope I still have enough spunk left in me to have some fun with you. I hope I haven't closed myself off too much to let you in when the time is right.

But, for now, I have to forget the picture of you hunched over a jewelry case somewhere, wondering what ring you should pick. I'm going to have to forget the image of you coming home every night, and me being so excited that I run out to hug  you while you're still in the driveway. I'm going to have to stop seeing you standing in a card aisle helping my kids pick out a Mothers Day card, or standing by the flower bins at the grocery store trying to remember if it was lilies or tulips I liked (it's both, by the way). No more thoughts of you and your too-small hipster t-shirt and goofy hat and gazes across the room meant just for me. And once I've forgotten all those images, I have to forget what it feels like to be held. The warmth and security of it. Or that dizzy feeling I get when I get kissed just right. I will need to forget how helpful it is to have someone listening to my silly dilemmas, someone on my side even if they don't agree. I will be ok buying my own Christmas and Birthday gifts. I will keep scratching my own back. I will wear socks to keep my toes warm in bed.

Don't you know you could have made all the difference in not one, but FIVE lives? Why didn't you believe I really am as good as I seem? Why didn't you believe my kids could really love and accept you? My Z needs someone who can throw the football better than I can. My E needs someone to watch his magic shows. My L needs someone who likes math and Legos. My J needs someone to wrestle around with and burn off some of his boundless energy. We all needed some extra spiritual bolstering you were capable of giving. Why didn't you believe that, had you just loved me, just given me a chance, there's nothing I wouldn't have done to make sure we built a strong, joyous, healthy marriage where we got most stuff figured out?

But, even more than I want you, Future Husband, I want God's will done in my life...and it just doesn't seem to be His will that we be together yet. I wish I could keep waiting and hoping and dating and seeing...but I just can't. My poor heart can't take it anymore. I can't live with the yearning of finally finding someone worthy to be you, only to have it not work--either right away or (worse yet) after I've fallen deeply in love with you. My boys, they can't take good men like you coming in and out of their lives anymore, either. I swore I wouldn't be "that" woman doing "that" to my kids...and I won't be.

I won't.

So, keep working and growing and increasing your cache of cheesy jokes, Future Husband, and, if you're out there wondering where on earth I am, too...and you're willing to wait for me....we'll find each other one day. I promise. And we'll understand perfectly why it all had to work the way it did.

With all my heart,
~Jennifer

things we do not choose

It's the year 731. Abbess Eusebia and the 40 nuns under her care at the ocean side monastery in Marseille, France receive warning that Saracens of Arabia have invaded. Knowing that they could not escape, and knowing of the infamous cruelty of the invaders, Abbess Eusebia and those women under her make a drastic decision: In order, they hope, to preserve their sacred virginity--which they view as an integral part of their covenant relationship with God--they cut off their noses, believing their disfigured faces would thwart their would be attackers. And do you know what happened?

They were raped. So far as the historical records indicate, all of them were raped. Then killed. And their monastery burned to the ground.

Yup.

Hard to understand, isn't it? It's one of those stories that makes many throw up their hands and say, "there is no God. If there were, how could he let such horrible things happen to those who love and serve Him most?" It's a question we believers have some answers for---but that we can't fully reconcile in our hearts either. We try, I'm certain, but we fall short, knowing that there are so many questions we will never have answers for in this life. But that we have faith WILL be answered one day, somehow, by the only One who can answer them. Perfectly. Usually, that explanation doesn't go over so well with those who don't "get it."

So, it's one thing to hear a story like Abbess Eusebia (now a saint) and think, yeah, well, she was a nun. That's practically like signing on to be a martyr. We reason the same for the apostles who met horrible deaths. But not us, right? We just want to be humble followers. We agree to give, even to give until it's uncomfortable---but certainly God will never try us to the same ends as abbesses and apostles, right?

Well, I am not being asked to cut my nose off, nor being asked to endure torture and imprisonment for my beliefs. But, I do worry God is calling me to pass through more than I am able to, more than I am even able to comprehend passing through. And I am struggling desperately to figure out why?!

Why does God say, Here are things that I have sent to make you most happy: security in a family unit, marriage, the blessing of raising children together as a couple, prosperity in order to be able to help others. Yes, these are the very best temporal blessings I can give, says God. Look around you and see evidence of that everywhere.  But you....you cannot have them. I know you want them more than anything, and that they're righteous desires but they are not meant for you. No you, you will be one who has to walk a different path, a lonely path. I will walk with you, and you will feel my divine presence when you need it the most, but you will also feel terrible, horrible loneliness that you will need to find a way to crawl on top of so it doesn't eat you alive.

And what do you say to that? You can't run away from what you know and believe--you'd forever be a shadow of yourself (ask Jonah!) but how, too, do you find the courage inside yourself to answer, "Well, I've lived my life in faith and devotion to you hoping one day you would deliver me, in a sense, in this life, and set me in a blessed and secure place, but you are now saying you're not going to do that and that this is my 'fate'? Well, that's ok, Lord. I'll still follow you. And be happy about it."

I'm not to that point yet.  I can't answer with that surety. For as strong as my faith is, I'm just not there. I'm like the girl on the pinnacle of the largest hill on the roller coaster screaming, "STOP! STOP THE RIDE!" all the while knowing there's no getting off at this point. Not without a lot of damage. And haunted with the sick feeling that , although it's a roller coaster, I'm not going to 'enjoy the ride' all that much.

Cryptic post? Yes. I'm sorry about that. But even without being given all the specifics of how it relates to my life, can't you feel how it might relate to you? Do you ever ask yourself, what would I really give up to follow my faith? I mean, really , really? And what is your answer...?

changing directions

From age 6 to age 11, I used to spend nearly every Friday and Saturday night at the local rollerskating place. Round and round I'd go with all the other kids, and the teenagers with their hands in each other's back pockets, clapping and singing along to Kool and the Gang's "Celebrate" and Prince's "Little Red Corvette," the disco ball throwing flecks of light across the worn, wooden floor, the scent of lemon disinfectant spray heavy in the air.  Every half hour, a loud bell would ring and the DJ would announce, "It's time for everyone to turn around and skate in the reverse direction!" And, obediently all of us would drag our rubber-stopped toes along until we had slowed enough to turn and go the other way...never giving any thought as to WHY we needed to change directions...just doing it, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to completely reverse directions on a regular basis, as though it were interesting and even....fun.

My nearly perfect summer is coming to an end in several ways, but only one that I'm ready to talk about.  As much as I wanted it to last, it really has felt like I've been waiting these last two months for that bell to ring. That mandatory call to switch directions. Things had been far too easy. Far too happy.

Sooner than I thought, and even sooner than they'd expected (due to budget rearrangements), my freelance internship job at the PR/Marketing place came to an end yesterday. I did great work, and I go with stellar recommendations--they'd even hire me if they could--but, like everyone else, even the  best companies are hurting and having to stay slim for a little while longer. I have loved every minute of it--my co-workers and their creativity, my boss and his high fives, my orange desk and comfy chair, free parking, ping pong tournaments, the vibe of being downtown every day, lunch breaks where I got to walk to some great little cafe and sit and observe and read or write. I think most of all , though, I will miss the security. And the money.


Yeah. Money and security are nice things to have. Especially with four children and a mortgage. And no one to fall back on.

I'm not doubting, mind you, nor feeling sorry for myself. Knowing I did my best,  I'm surprisingly at peace about the whole thing. I picked up another design job to get me through October. I will continue to do what I can to help Fusion magazine (whom I write for) take off to the point they can start paying competitive rates. I've updated my resume to now include strong organizational and research skills, work with nonprofits, and solid training in social media marketing. I put together a list of possible leads and contacts. My job will now become to find a job.


I have no idea what will happen...but I hope it will be something good. I have to trust there's a reason and a time for everything.

Am I weary of living in this constant state of uncertainty--physically and emotionally? You betcha. Years of it can take a toll on even the best of us. But, just like the call to skate in the reverse direction, if I don't stop and turn when I'm told to, I'll get ran over. Skating upstream is no good. So, I continue to make the best of it, to see the adventure in it all, to embrace the possibility. To try and be strong and optimistic, especially for my boys.

And when I feel the most threadbare and worn and doubting, I picture myself wrapped in my Savior's arms--much the way Brad used to hold me when I was afraid--and Him holding onto me for all He is worth and reassuring me, "It's ok, Jen. I'm the one asking you to do this, and we're going to get through it together. Trust me." Then, because I am ever prone to silliness, I even picture the Savior wearing roller skates. And Mr. Roboto playing in the background. And I smile. I think He's fine with that :)

Here's to my reverse direction. My next adventure.

it's a girl

This has not been a good week. On the surface, it's been good, normal at least. It's what has been happening under the surface that has been so difficult. I have been carrying too much lately, trying my darndest to figure out how to throw some of the weight off.

 There was the lingering sadness of having what *could have been* something potentially awesome with Mr. Perfect end before it really got started, and the accompanying doubt of whether or not I am ever going to be good enough for someone I think good enough for me.

Then there was the sudden $3000 in medical bills I racked up for cardiac work I was ordered to have done back in December which my insurance (which I paid dearly for, being self-employed) decided not to cover, and which I now have to cancel my insurance for in order to pay.

And then there was....this other thing. This thing I wouldn't let myself think about.

*So, I spent the last week eating comfort food and candy like a bottomless pit--a tactic I haven't tried in three years. And while that was delicious, it left me 4 pounds heavier, hating the way my pants fit, and realizing that trading one kind of out of control for another wasn't helping.

*I also started to write a new story: a great, quirky un-love love story where I can take all the elements of my life, mix them up with fiction, and make them end however I want. That usually helps, but not so much this time.

*I weeded my whole yard and planted my garden. Usually fresh air, sunshine, the smell of flowers and herbs, and dirt under my nails works miracles for my soul. Yeah, again, the weight was still there.

*I threw myself into my job, taking on the social media assignment I was given with the determination of a prize fighter. I impressed the heck out of my two bosses who couldn't believe I wasn't a business major--but kudos didn't help.

*Scripture study helped for about an hour.

*Text yelling at poor Ninja for abandoning me as my best friend these last few months really, really didn't help.

*Then tonight, I ran 5 1/2 miles, not at my usual pace, but as hard and fast as I could. I wouldn't let myself stop. I ran until my side seized with a sharp pain and it felt like my heart was going to burst open. I finished, glazed in sweat and heaving, unable to go another step--my legs trembling and weak with fatigue. And still--it only brought the sadness closer to the surface without letting it go.

* So finally...I gave in. I did the thing I didn't want to do. I acknowledged the source of the pain and I let myself fall into it, hoping I could do so and still come back out the other side.

Brad went into the hospital with his new wife today to have their new baby. A girl.

Before he moved his stuff out of our house after we separated, I took one of his shirts and hid it. It was a Bugle Boy shirt I gave him for our first Christmas together 17 years ago--made of soft corduroy, cream with small, mossy green checks. I loved him in that shirt. In fact, the November day in 1997 when we went into the hospital to have our first baby, I told him to wear that shirt. It was comforting to look at, and I liked the feel of it. I still keep a picture by my bed of him holding newborn baby Z. You can't see Brad's face, but you can see the shirt. 

Tonight, after the kids were in bed, I pulled that shirt of the back of the closet where I had tucked it away, and I examined it: the elbows worn thin from wear. The shirtsleeves still rolled up the way he used to do for work. There was even a crusty spot over the pocket that I knew must have been spit up from J--a reminder of how little he still was when Brad left.

Then, I just hugged the empty shirt tight and remembered all the good times. All the hard times we got through. Remembered the four times we went together to the hospital to have our boys, the concern on his face at seeing my pain, how proud he looked holding the tiny blanketed bundles, how he would kiss me and tell me, "good job, sweetheart." I let the anger surge and die. Let the disappointment in the way his whole family seems happy for him and oblivious toward me get cried out. Just sat with the sad truth that my own marriage and family had to go away in order for this young girl to start hers with the man who was our husband and daddy. That the miracle of birth would no longer be an experience that only he and I shared together. That the man I loved so very, very dearly could be so cruel, so unlike everything I believed him to be.

It wasn't the same as not letting my husband go. I know he's gone. I've known it for a very long time. I have accepted and made peace with it. I've been comforable, mostly, in my life just as it is. Which was why it was so hard to visit it again tonight. But necessary. Very necessary. I finally feel...empty. Like the weight is thrown off.

And tomorrow I will take the boys to the store and let them pick out something girly to take to their sister. And I will try to ignore the surreal feeling of all of it. And I may even be brave enough to look at the new baby, which I'm sure will be very cute. As babies are.

permission to fall apart

One short story I can read over and over (with all the cuss words edited out in my personal copy...because that's just me) is George Saunders' Sea Oak. It's essentially about male strippers, teenage moms who watch TV all day, deep poverty, and one always-cheerful-yet-perpetually-down-on-her-luck Aunt Bernie-- who comes back from the dead as a decaying, mean corpse. Put that all together and you wouldn't expect to come away feeling deeply moved, but Saunders is a genius. You finish reading and say, "oh...yes."

Because the bigger story is about what it means to fall apart. In this case, Aunt Bernie--who stays forever optimistic despite everything going wrong in her life--dies before anything ever gets better. And then she comes back from the dead...and she gets to just 'lose it', give in to her bitterness, the irony of life's unfairness...finally.

And I so. get. that.

I have gotten up when it felt like my insides were falling apart. When I was so filled with grief and pain and hurt and loneliness and fear and anxiety and anger and doubt and heartbreak that it nearly consumed me. When I could not separate myself from the weight pressing down on me. I was weight. Heavy, heavy weight. I still got up. I still put a smile on my face. I still took care of my kids, my house, my friendships, my work, my school, my job. I laughed.

It seemed the best thing to do. The hopeful thing. The healthy thing.  The "me" thing. What God would want me to do. And I still believe that. But I understand now...why my Mom would come home from work some days, exhausted, and just throw herself back on her bed and cry and cry and cry. Big, loud, no-bottom-to-the-well kind of sobs. She was one of the strongest, happiest people I knew...but she understood about falling apart. She understood that one can only be strong for so long before they just have to crumble a little.

She did the single parent thing that I'm doing for 17 years.

Seventeen.

I like to think she was happy when she died--although the whole body being ravaged by cancer thing at the end of her life totally sucked. She had been happily remarried for 8 years. She was surrounded by adoring children and grandchildren and friends. She crafted and baked and gardened. She went on all kinds of adventures, saw much of the world. She captained her own boat around North America at age 60, for crying out loud! And she never went a day without writing to someone in the family--one of us kids, or letters that were all pictures she'd drawn to my boys before they could read. All of her elderly aunts got letters, too. She just loved....everyone.

I wonder if her last, mostly happy, safe years made up for all those years of struggling on her own in quiet solitude? The hours and hours of labor and worry she bore alone.  I regret now, walking wide circles around her when she did fall apart, having no idea how to comfort her. Just thinking, "meh--she'll be fine tomorrow." And she always was. But still....I wish I would have tried, even in my childlike way. I know now what a blessing any attempts at sympathy or comfort are.

I wonder, too, how much longer my sustained strength and optimism can hold out? Sometimes I feel as though I lost myself, found myself, and lost myself again. I'm just tired. In so many ways. I'm tired of never being right for anyone. I'm tired because I sleep too little. I'm even just a little tired...of myself (I mean, seriously, have you HEARD how much I prattle on around here? :) ) I want to fall apart for awhile. I just fear that if I do, I won't be able to put myself back together again. So, I keep pretending that I can do this...and, for the most part, with God's help, it turns out I can.

Sea Oak ends with our protagonist (the male stripper) thinking about his Aunt Bernie who has disintegrated into a pile of parts and died again. He's saving up for a headstone for her: "What do you write on something like that? LIFE PASSED HER BY? DIED DISAPPOINTED? CAME BACK TO LIFE BUT FELL APART? All true, but too sad, and no way I'm writing any of those. BERNIE KOWALSKI, it's going to say: BELOVED AUNT. Sometimes she comes to me in dreams. She never looks good. Sometimes she's wearing a dirty smock. Once she had on handcuffs. Once she was naked and dirty and this mean cat was clawing its way up her front. But every time it's the same thing. 'Some people get everything and I got nothing,' she says. 'Why? Why did that happen?' Every time I say I don't know. And I don't."

And neither do I.


So, instead of falling apart, I'm going to go to California tomorrow. And though I'll see old friends, including Haute Cakes, I'm going for no one else but me this time. I'll be spending my birthday there...healing in my own way. I'm going to go eat a frozen banana and stroll around Balboa Island. I'm going to go walk the back bay and watch the dredge boat work. I'm going to peruse furniture stores full of stuff that costs more than my house. I'm going to watch the sun go down over the ocean. I'm going to dig around in the sand just to see what I can find. I'll do a lot of thinking. And if I still feel like I need to have one of those no-bottom-of-the-well sobs myself....well, so be it. Just like my Mom, I trust I'll be fine in the morning. 

saying good bye to motherhood as i've known it

This is a hard post for me to write. Not sure what day I'll actually  hit "publish", but I'm writing early Sunday morning. I'm still in bed, looking out my window as I type--the now leafy assortment of trees in my backyard filtering soft gray light. A robin chirping his two-note song over the top of the not so distant sound of cars on the freeway. The kids haven't woken up yet, but I know when they do, they'll all make an appearance here, in my room--the big ones to say good morning, sit on the edge of my bed, and chat for a while. The little ones usually crawl  under the covers with me for a few minutes and warm their freezing toes on my legs, request various things for me to make them for breakfast, yet often manage to eat an entire box of Nilla wafers or some other half-appropriate food before I actually get to make anything. Peacefully crazy, usually happy, predictable...I love our mornings.

So what makes this post, this day, so difficult? After 13 1/2 years, today is my last day of being a stay-at-home Mom.

Kind of killing the vibe of ***Hey! I got this amazing job against all odds at the coolest firm where the floors are concrete and the ducts are exposed and the artwork is inspiring and and  I have a view out the oversized windows of downtown and my desk is orange and my computer is fancy and I have my very own comfy office chair and a boss who seems really neat and I start tomorrow.***

I hate it because of the statement I had to make: "I need to figure out what to do with my kids."

I would never mean it in such a way, but it sounded like I was going on vacation and had pets that needed boarding or tended. "FIGURE out what to DO"....ugh. Even going to school these last three years, I went out of my way to take classes at night, on Saturdays, online--times that wouldn't interfere with being there for my boys to drive them to and from school, to piano lessons, to run them forgotten homework or lunchboxes, bring them home if they got sick, to make cookies once a week, to teach my little J how to write his name and sit on the floor and play Tinker Toys with him as we spent our afternoons together. Now...I don't know what I'm going to do. I haven't had a 'go to the office' type job since 1995. I am as terrified as I am excited.

I've got makeshift babysitting plans for J for the coming week to buy me a little more time to look into permanent options, including for all four of them for the summer when school is out. Just the idea of someone not me having my kids 7 hours a day is making me sick to my stomach. J is barely 5! I remember being 5 and having to go to my babysitter's house. I hated it. The other kids there were mean. The babysitter sometimes got mean. Once she spanked me so hard with a wooden spoon over not eating my sandwich that the spoon broke. Her oldest daughter made me steal gum from the store for her once. It did not feel safe. I did not feel loved. I never told my mom these things or I'm sure she would have done something about them. Nor do I spend much time dwelling on them, because they all still managed to make me who I am and I wouldn't want to be any other way.

Speaking of my mom, though, it would be awfully nice to have her still living about now. She was the let's make a mess together creating something/ go on an adventure/ pitch the tent in the living room/ stop and smell the daisies/ climb on my back and I'll give you a horseride type Grandma. She was a kid magnet, and my boys--and I-- adored her. I don't think I'd turn her into my primary caregiver, but it would be a blessing to have a steady backup of some kind. Someone to count on. Someone who loved my kids as much as I did. Who could do the mom things I can't while I'm trying to do the dad thing. I'm sure, since she lost her mom in her early 20's and then was widowed by the time she was 37 with young children, she wished for the same thing.

But she made due working 12 hour days. So, I will, too. Somehow, as busy as she was and as much as she had to carry alone, she managed to put me in piano and cello lessons. Pay for roller skating and movies and ice cream outings for my friends and me. Let me participate in cheerleading and dance. Bought me my first Ensoniq VFX synthesizer that I spent hours writing music on. I spent two summers in exchange programs in Europe. I might not have had a cache of designer clothes, but I would draw what I wanted and Mom would stay up all night sewing my creations. She paid for me to get blue streaks put in my hair. She shelled out the hundred (probably extremely precious) dollars for Doc Martens and another hundred for a leather biker jacket. She kept everything I wrote. She always supported me in my individuality. Life was not how she wanted it, nor expected it to turn out---she expressed that to us often, but it worked. And she worked. And we loved her dearly for it in our own ungrateful, youthful ways.

My life is not how I wanted it, nor expected it to turn out either...but I'm hoping for the same result. I could not have tried any  harder than I did to create a different life for my own children than what I had growing up, and yet--here I am. And here they are with me. I don't know for what reasons God chose to make it so, but I have faith that He who knows not only what's best for me, but best for my children, will make it alright. In the meantime, I will work with all the ingenuity, integrity, and tenacity I can to get to a place where I can be home with my kids again--even if it is still working from my home. The Lord giveth no commandment save He prepare a way....

Wish me luck. Lots of it. And the ability to offer continued forgiveness towards Brad for putting the boys and me in this situation in the first place. Yeah.

why i am (mostly) ok with not getting into the MFA program

Dear Ms. Peterson, We have given your candidacy very careful consideration, but are sorry to say your application was not a finalist. The interest in our MFA program was very high this year, etc. etc. Wishing me the best. And...the end.


I only had a 1 in 150 chance of getting in, assuming they were going to take someone from the university to begin with. If not, I had a 0 in 300 chance. Not very good odds. And I was up against some fierce competition. And I only really felt comfortable with half of what I submitted. And it was the literary equivalent of a kamikaze run to only apply to one school. So, I honestly didn't expect to get in anyway. But dang! If it didn't still hurt. Like, a whole lot.

I suppose most of the pain stems from the cold, hard truths that yet another "no" presses out of me:  That I am pushing 36 years old. Whatever youthful optimism or beauty I once had has been slowly bled out of me over the last few years of cruel, harsh reality. I have no idea where I am going to go or what I am going to do to provide for my precious children. I have lost my father. My mother. Lost close friends to death or distance. I've lost my husband. I've lost a good deal of my health. I've lost the few relationships I've been in. I will more than likely soon lose my home. And now I've lost the one foreseeable path I had to accomplishing my dream of being the type of writer I want to be. People whose talent I very much respect looked at what I put hundreds upon hundreds of hours into writing and said, "Not good enough." Will my best ever be good enough for anyone or anything?!

God...I will go where you want me to go and do what you want me to do, but please tell me you're still there and still mindful of me. Please tell me that there is still some purpose in my acting, that I do not have to surrender to being acted upon.

Boo hoo. Poor me. Enough self-deprecating already, I know. Sometimes I just have to get it out of my system.

Despite not having the time to do so, I sat down and re-read all of John Gardner's "On Becoming a Novelist". It was one of the books that first inspired me to chase this dream in the first place. Only this time, I read a portion of it I hadn't before--the foreword, written by Raymond Carver. And this is what it said:

"So along with this desire to get an education, I had this very strong desire to write; it was a desire so strong that, with the encouragement I was given in college, and the insight acquired, I kept on writing long after "good sense" and the "cold facts"--the "realities" of my life told me, time and again, that I ought to quit, stop the dreaming, quietly go ahead and do something else."

And may I remind you that was Raymond freaking Carver?! Who soon went on to become the darling of the literary world for over a decade? I'm sure every great novelist or short story writer has said at some point, "I should give up". But they don't.

Not that I expect Carver-esque fame, but I KNOW I am a passable writer. Better than the average bear, even. The MFA seemed like the most probable way to get me to where I wanted to be, with the joyous added benefit of teaching, but I can go on and get better with or without it. Not all publishers care if you've got an MFA stuck after your name.

Ninja promised to take me to the gun range to shoot the rejection letter. That sounds therapeutic.


Something will come along, right? And who knows. Maybe, just maybe, I've got enough gumption left in me to apply one more time.