I had what might be considered an out-of-body experience today in which I saw myself from my 13-year-old self's perspective.
I was driving, with the warm sun shining in on my arms and face and the mountains in full view on my right, a cool song I'd never heard before playing on the radio. From my current perspective, it was a slightly above-average experience, however the fact that I was driving to the shop to pay $130 on a car repair for a problem that had no drivability symptoms neutralized the moment significantly.
Suddenly, I wondered what ten-years-ago me would think if she could see me in that moment, and realized I was the epitome of coolness. I looked cool: I was wearing cute shoes, dark skinny jeans, aviators, and my favorite teal tank top. My red hair was braided down the back and my double-pierced ears were decorated. I was in my very own car, driving parallel to snow-capped mountains, jamming out. And I was doing cool things: being an adult getting car repairs, spending adult-sized money, working, going to grad school. My 13-year-old self was dazzled. She was thrilled that over the next ten years she would become so awesome. She couldn't wait for that one moment in the car to come.
I think people tend to get really down because they compare themselves so unrealistically to others' "ideal" lives. We look at all the cool people and we're jealous of their coolness. We look at our future and despair with the fear that it won't all turn out like we hope. We daydream about the things we want to do but don't have the time or money or even motivation for and conclude that our life is useless and stupid.
But I think looking at yourself from an outside perspective can help. What would ten-years-ago you think of you? What have you accomplished that you never thought you would? What are you doing right now, in this moment in your life, that would impress someone younger and less experienced? Something as simple as working a full-time job is noteworthy. Something as normal as renting your own apartment and furnishing it yourself can seem incredibly grown-up and cool to someone who hasn't left mom and dad's yet.
Your life isn't perfect, obviously, but neither is the person's next to you. Be optimistic: if ten-years ago you is impressed by present you, think how cool present you would find ten-years-from-now you. I like where I am now, a lot, but I'm excited to meet 33-year-old Maryann. She is probably super awesome.
God bless.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Rain in the Cabin
When I was a counselor at church camp, we had code words for letting other staff know that there was an issue we don't want the kids to know about. For example, if we saw a stranger/intruder at camp, we would tell another counselor that we saw "a penguin" over by cabin 5. Or, if a camper wet the bed, it "rained in the cabin."
But we didn't always sleep in the cabin. Once a week, we would gather up all our sleeping bags and a tarp, make foil dinners, and hike out to a campsite in the woods for a night under the stars. I looked forward to "out-posting" ...on nights it wasn't rainy.
While the campers played games and gathered kindling, we counselors would labor over the fire (some of us being more experienced than others), and lay the foil dinners on the coals. We called them "hobo meals" before that term became "offensive" and we had to start calling them something nice and sweet and P.C. I think they tried to implement "dragon dinners" since that is obviously way cooler than "foil dinners," but it never got off the ground while I worked there.
Here is the recipe for hobo meals/foil dinners:
Ingredients
foil
potatoes
cooked ground beef
carrots
onions
celery
a "liquid" to keep it from burning (either ketchup or concentrated cream of mushroom soup, depending on your preference)
salt & pepper
some other spices maybe
a permanent marker
fire
tongs (this one is very important but is the one that you will probably forget, in which case, use sticks)
Chop up the veggies.
Make two layers of foil with the shiny side up so that the heat reflects back onto the food. Make a little bowl in the foil with your hands.
Put all the food into your foil bowl, with potatoes being the most prominent because they are cheapest and they fill you up.
Fold up your foil so that nothing spills hopefully. If the foil tears, add a layer. Just like they do at Chipotle.
Write your name or initials on the foil dinner with permanent marker so that you know which one is yours when you have at least a dozen other people making hobo meals. You don't want to mix them up because some people prefer ketchup over cream of mushroom soup for some mysterious reason, or maybe someone put the spiciest spice on theirs, or maybe someone likes onions even though they're gross.
Make a fire and when you have hot coals, put the foil dinners on there until they sizzle when you hold them up to your ear with tongs. Don't forget to flip them at least once.
Put them on the ring of the fire to cool.
Can be eaten with forks (or not). Mop up the gravy stuff left in the dents in the foil with a dinner roll or your tongue.
One particular out-posting night, we were out there with middle-schoolers and the raccoons were particularly bad. Raccoons had the tendency to terrorize us at dusk all over camp, as they like to scavenge the food the kiddos drop (or put in the trash cans), but would apparently rather have that food handed to them on a silver platter. Running at them and making noise usually gets them to run away temporarily, but like I said, this night was particularly bad.
They smelled the food, even though we were relatively deep in the woods, and came pretty close to us, hissing. We warded them off long enough to enjoy the fire and s'mores, but when we went to bed only ten yards away from where we had eaten, we could hear them going to town around the fire ring. Of course, we had gotten rid of our trash, but there were still crumbs. Let it be, we reasoned. They were just interested in the food, not us.
It was just girls this week, which was nice, because when you have boy campers, the counselors have to sleep in between the boys and the girls as a barrier, and boys tend to kick you in the face in their sleep. But in the morning one of my girls found an unpleasant surprise.
"Why is my sleeping bag wet?"
"It didn't rain last night..."
"It smells like PEE!"
"...Did you pee in your sleeping bag?"
"No... my clothes are dry."
We concluded that the pee on her sleeping bag was raccoon pee. It was the only thing that made any sense. Surely none of the girls had peed on her sleeping bag, even in their sleep, and the only other animals roaming the forest large enough to produce that much urine were deer, which were too shy to approach even sleeping humans.
So when we got back to camp, I pulled David aside and said, "Can you help me wash a camper's sleeping bag?"
"What happened?"
"It got pee on it."
"Sure. Do you have her clothes too?"
"No... They're dry."
"How did she pee in her sleeping bag without getting any on her clothes? Didn't you say it rained in the cabin?"
"No, no... it didn't rain in the cabin. It was a raccoon. A raccoon peed on her sleeping bag."
Well that communication, and the situation itself, was hilarious to David, and he went around telling that story for the rest of the summer.
Me? Looks like I'm still telling that story five years later.
I wonder how long the camper will be telling her version. She had a good sense of humor about it.
God bless.
But we didn't always sleep in the cabin. Once a week, we would gather up all our sleeping bags and a tarp, make foil dinners, and hike out to a campsite in the woods for a night under the stars. I looked forward to "out-posting" ...on nights it wasn't rainy.
While the campers played games and gathered kindling, we counselors would labor over the fire (some of us being more experienced than others), and lay the foil dinners on the coals. We called them "hobo meals" before that term became "offensive" and we had to start calling them something nice and sweet and P.C. I think they tried to implement "dragon dinners" since that is obviously way cooler than "foil dinners," but it never got off the ground while I worked there.
Here is the recipe for hobo meals/foil dinners:
Ingredients
foil
potatoes
cooked ground beef
carrots
onions
celery
a "liquid" to keep it from burning (either ketchup or concentrated cream of mushroom soup, depending on your preference)
salt & pepper
some other spices maybe
a permanent marker
fire
tongs (this one is very important but is the one that you will probably forget, in which case, use sticks)
Chop up the veggies.
Make two layers of foil with the shiny side up so that the heat reflects back onto the food. Make a little bowl in the foil with your hands.
Put all the food into your foil bowl, with potatoes being the most prominent because they are cheapest and they fill you up.
Fold up your foil so that nothing spills hopefully. If the foil tears, add a layer. Just like they do at Chipotle.
Write your name or initials on the foil dinner with permanent marker so that you know which one is yours when you have at least a dozen other people making hobo meals. You don't want to mix them up because some people prefer ketchup over cream of mushroom soup for some mysterious reason, or maybe someone put the spiciest spice on theirs, or maybe someone likes onions even though they're gross.
Make a fire and when you have hot coals, put the foil dinners on there until they sizzle when you hold them up to your ear with tongs. Don't forget to flip them at least once.
Put them on the ring of the fire to cool.
Can be eaten with forks (or not). Mop up the gravy stuff left in the dents in the foil with a dinner roll or your tongue.
One particular out-posting night, we were out there with middle-schoolers and the raccoons were particularly bad. Raccoons had the tendency to terrorize us at dusk all over camp, as they like to scavenge the food the kiddos drop (or put in the trash cans), but would apparently rather have that food handed to them on a silver platter. Running at them and making noise usually gets them to run away temporarily, but like I said, this night was particularly bad.
They smelled the food, even though we were relatively deep in the woods, and came pretty close to us, hissing. We warded them off long enough to enjoy the fire and s'mores, but when we went to bed only ten yards away from where we had eaten, we could hear them going to town around the fire ring. Of course, we had gotten rid of our trash, but there were still crumbs. Let it be, we reasoned. They were just interested in the food, not us.
It was just girls this week, which was nice, because when you have boy campers, the counselors have to sleep in between the boys and the girls as a barrier, and boys tend to kick you in the face in their sleep. But in the morning one of my girls found an unpleasant surprise.
"Why is my sleeping bag wet?"
"It didn't rain last night..."
"It smells like PEE!"
"...Did you pee in your sleeping bag?"
"No... my clothes are dry."
We concluded that the pee on her sleeping bag was raccoon pee. It was the only thing that made any sense. Surely none of the girls had peed on her sleeping bag, even in their sleep, and the only other animals roaming the forest large enough to produce that much urine were deer, which were too shy to approach even sleeping humans.
So when we got back to camp, I pulled David aside and said, "Can you help me wash a camper's sleeping bag?"
"What happened?"
"It got pee on it."
"Sure. Do you have her clothes too?"
"No... They're dry."
"How did she pee in her sleeping bag without getting any on her clothes? Didn't you say it rained in the cabin?"
"No, no... it didn't rain in the cabin. It was a raccoon. A raccoon peed on her sleeping bag."
Well that communication, and the situation itself, was hilarious to David, and he went around telling that story for the rest of the summer.
Me? Looks like I'm still telling that story five years later.
I wonder how long the camper will be telling her version. She had a good sense of humor about it.
God bless.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Boy Scout Beach
I've convinced myself that, although some people tell me that in order to get good at writing fiction I need to practice, I really should never write fiction again. I'm not very proud of my last two blog posts; any fiction I seem to produce seems devastatingly hokey to me.
However, I still want to practice story-writing. So I guess I'll try writing stories that actually happened. Wish me luck.
Last summer, I and 19 other women on Juneau Summer Project headed out to Boy Scout Beach to camp. Technically we were backpacking, because we had to hike a mile to the site with our food, tents, etc. loaded onto our backs. This short hike covered a wide range of gorgeous terrains (as many hikes in Juneau do): forest, open field, marsh, beach. The beach was beautiful; the water stretched out almost as far as the eye could see, but was cut off by snow-capped mountains lining the horizon. The beach was soft with sand and stopped abruptly with a field of tall grass.
I occupied myself with building the fire while the other girls set up the tents and galavanted in the rising tide. The fire was of minor importance, as we had already eaten dinner and the weather was relatively warm, but I had a trick I wanted to share with the ladies that Elizabeth had shown us the previous summer: fire breathing.
It was pretty simple: crumple up a piece of newspaper, shove it onto the end of a stick, light it on fire, fill your mouth with corn starch, and blow the corn starch into the blazing newspaper. The result can be pretty impressive when done well, as all the little corn starch pieces catch fire and spread out in the air like a blow torch. I was the first to demonstrate, and the problem I found was that if you don't blow out the corn starch almost immediately after putting it in your mouth, your saliva moistens it and it doesn't want to be blown. Nevertheless, we amused ourselves with this trick for a good ten minutes.
The tide was rising quickly and it was getting dark (not because the sun was really going to go very far below the horizon, but because it was cloudy). I went out into the water with one of the ladies and timed it as the water level traveled about ten meters in a minute. We couldn't really see a line in the sand where we anticipated the water level would stop. We were camping high on the sand close to the grass, which was too tall to camp in. Behind the grass a ways was the beginning of a pine forest with a clean floor where theoretically we could have camped, but we wouldn't have felt it fair to say we had camped on the beach in that case.
We went to bed kind of late, about 11:00 p.m., and fell asleep without a plan regarding what would happen if the tide got too high. We reasoned that we had camped on this beach the previous summer, when the tide had risen at about the same time of day, and hadn't had any issues with the water level getting too high, so why should it be a problem this year?
I awoke at about 1:00 a.m. to the sound of Lexi's voice hissing my name from outside my tent. I had been in deep sleep and was pretty groggy when she explained to me that she had set a frisbee on the sand about ten feet in front of the tents, and that she had stayed up watching the water level with the plan that if the water reached the frisbee, she would wake me up for collaboration. I started coming to; it was decision time. Do we wake the girls up and move our tents to the forest area? Do we wake the girls up and leave altogether? Do we do nothing and risk getting everything, including ourselves, pretty soggy?
We decided to leave. It wasn't worth the risk, and if we were going to have to pack up and go, we might as well go all the way home rather than try to set everything back up elsewhere in the middle of the night just to say we had camped through the night.
We woke the ladies up and everyone sprung into action. Impressively, we were all packed up and ready to go within ten minutes. The water had risen almost to where our tents had been, and we determined we had made the right choice. While everyone was folding tents, gathering bear bags, and packing their packs, I was handed the can of bear spray and told that I was in charge of warding off bears during our mile hike back to the cars. After I packed my bag and everyone was still bustling around me, I sat there studying the instructions on the can with the light from my headlamp trying to figure out how to operate it.
I led the group on the hike out. The trail had flooded as it had started drizzling during the night, and of course it was dark. I marched through the tall grass beside the trail, trying to avoid the flooding, with 19 women parading behind me. We sang songs and tried to be cheerful. I saw dozens of frogs as we hiked, who seemed to be delighting in the puddles. I warned people of them so that they wouldn't get stepped on. Meanwhile, I was armed and ready with bear spray, on the lookout for a furry midnight attacker.
What relief when we reached the cars! We arrived back on campus at 2:00 a.m., dropped our gear, and fell into bed.
Was our camping trip an utter failure? Yes. Was it worth it? Definitely. Sometimes failing brings out more of the adventurer in you than succeeding. All 20 of us have a story to tell now.
God bless.
However, I still want to practice story-writing. So I guess I'll try writing stories that actually happened. Wish me luck.
Last summer, I and 19 other women on Juneau Summer Project headed out to Boy Scout Beach to camp. Technically we were backpacking, because we had to hike a mile to the site with our food, tents, etc. loaded onto our backs. This short hike covered a wide range of gorgeous terrains (as many hikes in Juneau do): forest, open field, marsh, beach. The beach was beautiful; the water stretched out almost as far as the eye could see, but was cut off by snow-capped mountains lining the horizon. The beach was soft with sand and stopped abruptly with a field of tall grass.
I occupied myself with building the fire while the other girls set up the tents and galavanted in the rising tide. The fire was of minor importance, as we had already eaten dinner and the weather was relatively warm, but I had a trick I wanted to share with the ladies that Elizabeth had shown us the previous summer: fire breathing.
It was pretty simple: crumple up a piece of newspaper, shove it onto the end of a stick, light it on fire, fill your mouth with corn starch, and blow the corn starch into the blazing newspaper. The result can be pretty impressive when done well, as all the little corn starch pieces catch fire and spread out in the air like a blow torch. I was the first to demonstrate, and the problem I found was that if you don't blow out the corn starch almost immediately after putting it in your mouth, your saliva moistens it and it doesn't want to be blown. Nevertheless, we amused ourselves with this trick for a good ten minutes.
The tide was rising quickly and it was getting dark (not because the sun was really going to go very far below the horizon, but because it was cloudy). I went out into the water with one of the ladies and timed it as the water level traveled about ten meters in a minute. We couldn't really see a line in the sand where we anticipated the water level would stop. We were camping high on the sand close to the grass, which was too tall to camp in. Behind the grass a ways was the beginning of a pine forest with a clean floor where theoretically we could have camped, but we wouldn't have felt it fair to say we had camped on the beach in that case.
We went to bed kind of late, about 11:00 p.m., and fell asleep without a plan regarding what would happen if the tide got too high. We reasoned that we had camped on this beach the previous summer, when the tide had risen at about the same time of day, and hadn't had any issues with the water level getting too high, so why should it be a problem this year?
I awoke at about 1:00 a.m. to the sound of Lexi's voice hissing my name from outside my tent. I had been in deep sleep and was pretty groggy when she explained to me that she had set a frisbee on the sand about ten feet in front of the tents, and that she had stayed up watching the water level with the plan that if the water reached the frisbee, she would wake me up for collaboration. I started coming to; it was decision time. Do we wake the girls up and move our tents to the forest area? Do we wake the girls up and leave altogether? Do we do nothing and risk getting everything, including ourselves, pretty soggy?
We decided to leave. It wasn't worth the risk, and if we were going to have to pack up and go, we might as well go all the way home rather than try to set everything back up elsewhere in the middle of the night just to say we had camped through the night.
We woke the ladies up and everyone sprung into action. Impressively, we were all packed up and ready to go within ten minutes. The water had risen almost to where our tents had been, and we determined we had made the right choice. While everyone was folding tents, gathering bear bags, and packing their packs, I was handed the can of bear spray and told that I was in charge of warding off bears during our mile hike back to the cars. After I packed my bag and everyone was still bustling around me, I sat there studying the instructions on the can with the light from my headlamp trying to figure out how to operate it.
I led the group on the hike out. The trail had flooded as it had started drizzling during the night, and of course it was dark. I marched through the tall grass beside the trail, trying to avoid the flooding, with 19 women parading behind me. We sang songs and tried to be cheerful. I saw dozens of frogs as we hiked, who seemed to be delighting in the puddles. I warned people of them so that they wouldn't get stepped on. Meanwhile, I was armed and ready with bear spray, on the lookout for a furry midnight attacker.
What relief when we reached the cars! We arrived back on campus at 2:00 a.m., dropped our gear, and fell into bed.
Was our camping trip an utter failure? Yes. Was it worth it? Definitely. Sometimes failing brings out more of the adventurer in you than succeeding. All 20 of us have a story to tell now.
God bless.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Letter #2: Child to President
You may or may not have noticed that while my blog is more or less a place for me to experiment with writing, I almost never publish any sort of fiction.
I would like to wade into the world of fiction by practicing something that I hope will be easy: fictional letters.
Please allow me to experiment as I try this out. Please feel free to comment below with comments or suggestions. My plan is to create two new people each time; a letter-writer and a letter-receiver, both of which you will hopefully learn a little bit about.
I have no idea how this will go, so again, your comments and suggestions are not only welcome, but I ask them of you.
Dear Mr. President,
I listened to your speech last night and I think you did a good job. Your wife is very good at ironing your shirts. Mom said you were giving a "message of hope," and Daddy said that means you're telling our country that it will all be okay.
I'm not worried, though. I know that bombs and war are bad but things always get better. My brother is a soldier in the army and he says all his friends are very brave.
Guess what. Someday I want to be President of the United States of America too. And I will always give messages of hope to people who are sad or scared.
My friend Katie said if she were president she would make sure all the orphans would have mommies and daddies to adopt them. And Doug said if he were president he would make sure everyone had ice cream every day for free but I told him that was stupid because some people are lactose-intolerant.
Anyway I have to go feed my dog, Rocket now. He's a golden retriever.
Love,
Teagan
I would like to wade into the world of fiction by practicing something that I hope will be easy: fictional letters.
Please allow me to experiment as I try this out. Please feel free to comment below with comments or suggestions. My plan is to create two new people each time; a letter-writer and a letter-receiver, both of which you will hopefully learn a little bit about.
I have no idea how this will go, so again, your comments and suggestions are not only welcome, but I ask them of you.
Dear Mr. President,
I listened to your speech last night and I think you did a good job. Your wife is very good at ironing your shirts. Mom said you were giving a "message of hope," and Daddy said that means you're telling our country that it will all be okay.
I'm not worried, though. I know that bombs and war are bad but things always get better. My brother is a soldier in the army and he says all his friends are very brave.
Guess what. Someday I want to be President of the United States of America too. And I will always give messages of hope to people who are sad or scared.
My friend Katie said if she were president she would make sure all the orphans would have mommies and daddies to adopt them. And Doug said if he were president he would make sure everyone had ice cream every day for free but I told him that was stupid because some people are lactose-intolerant.
Anyway I have to go feed my dog, Rocket now. He's a golden retriever.
Love,
Teagan
Letter #1: Woman to ex-lover
You may or may not have noticed that while my blog is more or less a place for me to experiment with writing, I almost never publish any sort of fiction.
I would like to wade into the world of fiction by practicing something that I hope will be easy: fictional letters.
Please allow me to experiment as I try this out. Please feel free to comment below with comments or suggestions. My plan is to create two new people each time; a letter-writer and a letter-receiver, both of which you will hopefully learn a little bit about.
I have no idea how this will go, so again, your comments and suggestions are not only welcome, but I ask them of you.
Nate-
I don't know if I'm going to send this letter yet or not. Part of me just wants to vent, but the other part can't help but be -kind of- grateful. You've ruined my life and given me everything. Can you even begin to understand that?
You led me to believe things about you that simply aren't true: your trustworthiness, your faithfulness. You didn't bail when things got a little difficult, like when I got the flu and couldn't come to your parents', or when we got in that fight when you came home stinking of booze and weed. We always seemed to make it work somehow. We always said sorry and we always did our parts to fix things. But I guess Mallory was too much for you.
You didn't just leave. You disappeared. I came home from a twelve-hour shift to find the apartment half-empty. No note. Nothing. I found out from a mutual friend that you had moved to Chicago. What? I mean, WHAT?!? Do you realize how heart-breaking that was for me? Do you realize how alone and confused I felt? I am estranged from my parents and friends because of you, and now I'm on my own. I blamed myself for awhile, but it's not my fault. I know it's not my fault.
Eventually I realized that you don't deserve Mallory. I'm glad I finally figured that out.
To be honest, I thought about an abortion. Then I thought about adoption. It was terrible making all those decisions on my own. But if you had stuck around, there wouldn't have been a decision: she would have been ours. The thought of raising her on my own absolutely terrified me. I work full-time and don't make much money. I'm paying rent by myself now. I can barely keep my own life together, let alone take care of someone else's. Why would you put my through this? You perceived the "freedom" to take this situation or leave it, but I never had that freedom. I don't have a choice but to deal with this.
I wonder if you miss me. If you ever wish this had never happened so that we could still be together. Are you happy?
I can't say motherhood isn't kicking my butt. I want to scream 98% of the time but I don't because then I will wake up or scare Mallory and that will just make it worse. Financially, I'm barely scraping by. I still don't have friends or my parents. I lost my freedom. But maybe it was lost all along, from the day I met you.
BUT. Listen to me, Nate. I am so happy to have Mallory. She is my world and my heart beats for her in a way that it never did for you. When I feel like completely giving up, her precious toothless smile brings all meaning back to my life. I live for her. And you would, too, if you would just catch one glimpse of her beautiful blue eyes or her tiny, tiny fingers. I'd send a picture, but you don't deserve that. If you really wanted to love her, you could come see her for yourself. You know where we live.
The other day, my coworker, June (remember her? Sweetest person ever.), asked me innocently if motherhood was worth losing you. The question took me aback because I really haven't talked about the situation much at work. It was really a pretty bold question for her to ask, but she's sweet as honey and I know she was being genuine when she asked me that. I asked her what she meant. "Well, maybe that's not what I meant. Maybe I'm asking if being with him was worth it, rather than losing him. I like you, Shelly, but you made some mistakes, I think. It seems like that guy was no good but you dove into the relationship head-first and now you're suffering the consequences. Easy come, easy go. But you were also rewarded for enduring his abandonment: you have a beautiful daughter. Was it worth it?"
Yes, June, it was worth it.
Yes, Nate, it was worth it. Good riddance.
-Shelly
I would like to wade into the world of fiction by practicing something that I hope will be easy: fictional letters.
Please allow me to experiment as I try this out. Please feel free to comment below with comments or suggestions. My plan is to create two new people each time; a letter-writer and a letter-receiver, both of which you will hopefully learn a little bit about.
I have no idea how this will go, so again, your comments and suggestions are not only welcome, but I ask them of you.
Nate-
I don't know if I'm going to send this letter yet or not. Part of me just wants to vent, but the other part can't help but be -kind of- grateful. You've ruined my life and given me everything. Can you even begin to understand that?
You led me to believe things about you that simply aren't true: your trustworthiness, your faithfulness. You didn't bail when things got a little difficult, like when I got the flu and couldn't come to your parents', or when we got in that fight when you came home stinking of booze and weed. We always seemed to make it work somehow. We always said sorry and we always did our parts to fix things. But I guess Mallory was too much for you.
You didn't just leave. You disappeared. I came home from a twelve-hour shift to find the apartment half-empty. No note. Nothing. I found out from a mutual friend that you had moved to Chicago. What? I mean, WHAT?!? Do you realize how heart-breaking that was for me? Do you realize how alone and confused I felt? I am estranged from my parents and friends because of you, and now I'm on my own. I blamed myself for awhile, but it's not my fault. I know it's not my fault.
Eventually I realized that you don't deserve Mallory. I'm glad I finally figured that out.
To be honest, I thought about an abortion. Then I thought about adoption. It was terrible making all those decisions on my own. But if you had stuck around, there wouldn't have been a decision: she would have been ours. The thought of raising her on my own absolutely terrified me. I work full-time and don't make much money. I'm paying rent by myself now. I can barely keep my own life together, let alone take care of someone else's. Why would you put my through this? You perceived the "freedom" to take this situation or leave it, but I never had that freedom. I don't have a choice but to deal with this.
I wonder if you miss me. If you ever wish this had never happened so that we could still be together. Are you happy?
I can't say motherhood isn't kicking my butt. I want to scream 98% of the time but I don't because then I will wake up or scare Mallory and that will just make it worse. Financially, I'm barely scraping by. I still don't have friends or my parents. I lost my freedom. But maybe it was lost all along, from the day I met you.
BUT. Listen to me, Nate. I am so happy to have Mallory. She is my world and my heart beats for her in a way that it never did for you. When I feel like completely giving up, her precious toothless smile brings all meaning back to my life. I live for her. And you would, too, if you would just catch one glimpse of her beautiful blue eyes or her tiny, tiny fingers. I'd send a picture, but you don't deserve that. If you really wanted to love her, you could come see her for yourself. You know where we live.
The other day, my coworker, June (remember her? Sweetest person ever.), asked me innocently if motherhood was worth losing you. The question took me aback because I really haven't talked about the situation much at work. It was really a pretty bold question for her to ask, but she's sweet as honey and I know she was being genuine when she asked me that. I asked her what she meant. "Well, maybe that's not what I meant. Maybe I'm asking if being with him was worth it, rather than losing him. I like you, Shelly, but you made some mistakes, I think. It seems like that guy was no good but you dove into the relationship head-first and now you're suffering the consequences. Easy come, easy go. But you were also rewarded for enduring his abandonment: you have a beautiful daughter. Was it worth it?"
Yes, June, it was worth it.
Yes, Nate, it was worth it. Good riddance.
-Shelly
Friday, August 14, 2015
Pursuit
For her you planted fields of blooming silk
And with your palette and brush,
You set that field ablaze.
She drives past.
For her you sculpted a body;
The purest pearl as a home for her soul
With dark wisps for eyelashes.
She beats and neglects it.
For her you took your fingertips
And gently lifted the sun
Into the glory of morning.
She turns on her mattress.
For her you created sound waves
That she might joy to hear and to sing
And perhaps return your affections thus.
She would rather weep.
For her you brought yourself to shame
By being slaughtered like cattle,
Letting your blood and tears intermingle.
She forgets to thank you.
Your tortured longing,
Your screams for her
To notice and accept your love
Go ignored.
But you found a servant,
A Jacob for a Rachel,
Who offered all he could to her
And lifted her chin to the heavens.
She turned to you and asked,
Can my Lord love me more than this?
So she bowed and sang
In fields of fiery silk.
God bless.
And with your palette and brush,
You set that field ablaze.
She drives past.
For her you sculpted a body;
The purest pearl as a home for her soul
With dark wisps for eyelashes.
She beats and neglects it.
For her you took your fingertips
And gently lifted the sun
Into the glory of morning.
She turns on her mattress.
For her you created sound waves
That she might joy to hear and to sing
And perhaps return your affections thus.
She would rather weep.
For her you brought yourself to shame
By being slaughtered like cattle,
Letting your blood and tears intermingle.
She forgets to thank you.
Your tortured longing,
Your screams for her
To notice and accept your love
Go ignored.
But you found a servant,
A Jacob for a Rachel,
Who offered all he could to her
And lifted her chin to the heavens.
She turned to you and asked,
Can my Lord love me more than this?
So she bowed and sang
In fields of fiery silk.
God bless.
Overwhelmed
I had a thought this "morning." (I put "morning" in quotation mark because since starting night shift, it would seem that my mornings have become everyone else's afternoons). Anyway, this "morning" I had a thought. I suppose I will tell you what it was:
I recognize that I am young and hopefully have much life to live yet. However, I am slowly getting older and one of the things I find fascinating about getting older is that the more I live, the more pain I see, but also the more beauty I see.
Pain and beauty have been here all along, but in my experiences of them thus far, not only am I more exposed to both of them quantitatively as my life passes through time, I feel the weight of them more strongly.
After having this thought, it came to life in a song called "Mad World," originally by Tears for Fears, but Pandora decided to give me the Jasmine Thompson version. Although this song speaks of almost unspeakable pain, I found it to be profoundly beautiful.
A significant part of my life is devoted to music, but it's not every day I am overwhelmed by it, when I don't feel that I can bear the beauty of it. That was one of those aching moments. The beauty wasn't in the pain of the lyrics; the beauty was in the music in spite of the lyrics. Not that the two do not complement each other extraordinarily.
Anyway. This isn't much of a blog post and I don't really know how to end it. I wish I had the skills to put my thoughts to poetry in this instance but at the moment I find myself incapable. I feel that to put to poetry something that I found to be absolutely overwhelming, my poetry must also be overwhelming, and I'm afraid my writing skills aren't quite there yet. I'm sorry this is all you get. But still, can you relate to my sentiments?
God bless.
I recognize that I am young and hopefully have much life to live yet. However, I am slowly getting older and one of the things I find fascinating about getting older is that the more I live, the more pain I see, but also the more beauty I see.
Pain and beauty have been here all along, but in my experiences of them thus far, not only am I more exposed to both of them quantitatively as my life passes through time, I feel the weight of them more strongly.
After having this thought, it came to life in a song called "Mad World," originally by Tears for Fears, but Pandora decided to give me the Jasmine Thompson version. Although this song speaks of almost unspeakable pain, I found it to be profoundly beautiful.
A significant part of my life is devoted to music, but it's not every day I am overwhelmed by it, when I don't feel that I can bear the beauty of it. That was one of those aching moments. The beauty wasn't in the pain of the lyrics; the beauty was in the music in spite of the lyrics. Not that the two do not complement each other extraordinarily.
Anyway. This isn't much of a blog post and I don't really know how to end it. I wish I had the skills to put my thoughts to poetry in this instance but at the moment I find myself incapable. I feel that to put to poetry something that I found to be absolutely overwhelming, my poetry must also be overwhelming, and I'm afraid my writing skills aren't quite there yet. I'm sorry this is all you get. But still, can you relate to my sentiments?
God bless.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)