A love dream.

I dreamed an epic dream of love last night.  The kind of love that comes in soft silky curls of goodness. The kind of love that you can take a bath in and cleanse everything ugly that ever happened away. The kind of love that makes your insides feel thick and slow and so full of everything you are feeling that it drips out your pores and fills the air with the scent of peacefulness and contentment . This is the beginning of every true love story and the sad and beautiful part of it all is when love becomes family and houses burn down and brothers sleep on couches and everything gets all mixed up and cluttered and there is no way to get back to the very beginning because it was always meant to be exactly this way. There was just a room at first and then another and another until we built a blue house and the rooms started filling up and our lives started closing in around us and we hung sheets over the windows to keep out the light and stay warm and safe and protected and so many people came and babies were born and we tried to find our own little room and the house burned down but we still had everything and the cat and the dog and the baby were not lost and we curled up together in that warm place and tried to remember the beginning but it was so far away and we just touched each others hair and felt the softness slipping away. It was exactly everything.

Rock bottom, or perhaps it was was the top.

They'll say it was selfish.

They'll say it was weak. 

When I try to put the story together it sounds cheap and ugly but when I close my eyes I still see the glowing arch of our last goodbye. 

The stupid cheesed up love story that never even was.

A flame? 

Hot like fire? 

Lit like a candle? 

Standing as tall as a mountain 

Sinking like a rock. 

Damn, see... It comes out all wrong. 

A buzz, a metallic taste on my tongue, a firm, strong hand pushing.

That's all that's left of it anymore.

There are these tiny love stories that happen.

They might not even be real.

The more you remember the less real it becomes.

Sometimes you just have to let it wash over you and suck back into the sea. 

You can't ever find that grain of sand again, even if it's made of everything inside you. 

And then

I'm pretty sure this is my chance to finally, publicly, lose my virginity. I mean the deed has already been done but nobody knows, not even Kristen. She's like the best friend in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, egging me on adjustignmy clothes to show more skin and giving me tips on how to give blowjobs.  She is beyond floored that I haven't done it yet. She's even kissed me on the mouth a few times to be sure I'm doing it right and not freaking guys out or anything. I'm 15 and despite the assumptions made because of my huge breasts and the way I try to act all slutty, lounging around not giving a damn if my legs are crossed or if my pants are ripped just under my ass cheeks, I've only had sex with one person so far and I can't even tell anyone about it because it's a big gross secret. It's the worst. When Kristen introduced me to her older ( I think he's like 23) dark haired skinny new boyfriend a couple of months ago I just about ripped my clothes off right there in her livingroom. I think my mouth actually may have hung open and I might have for real drooled. Clearly we were meant to have sex, immediately, like today. And we did. It was totally gross and awful and I can't stop hating myself even still.  We drove around in his black '84 mustang GT drinking out of a flask and breathing in thick clouds of pot smoke and the entire time I stared at him from the backseat, waiting. It was almost 2 am before finally he said "alright ladies, I need my beauty sleep, time to go home". He took the long way around and headed towards Kristin's house first, casually explaining that he'd drop me off on the way out of the neighborhood. She's too wasted to smell the rat as he walks her to the door and kisses her goodnight. The minute I slid into the front seat as we turned the corner off her street kicking gravel up behind us, his hand was squeezing my crotch and he was leaning over with his toungue hanging out of the corner of his mouth trying to kiss me and drive at the same time. 

A little more

     I met him officially at Kristin's house. Her dad worked long hours in the city and when he got home he always poured himself a glass of cheap brown liquor and lit a smoke and went straight to his bedroom. Kristin was adopted and when she was pretty young her mom ran of with her dad's best friend. The shitty part is they didn't run very far. Kristin's mom and her dad's ex best friend were now happily married and living in a big house at the front of the  neighborhood so Mr. C had to drive by every day on his way home from work. Kristin's house was kind of the neighborhood hang out because we could get away with just about anything and her dad gave us money for food and didn't care too much  when we pilfered his smokes. Winston's, yuck. 

      I had seen the guy with the Indian tattoo around before, at parties in the corn fields and sitting on picnic tables at the big beach passing bags of weed and flashing his tanned arms and brown front tooth. There were two beaches in te neighborhood. The big beach with permanent year round piers and a musty old clubhouse that could be rented out for parties and neighborhood meetings, and the little beach with just one small seasonal pier that was removed at the end of summertime. Lake Catherine is in northern Illinois and is part of the Chain 'o lakes that is made up of like seven different bodies of water connected by these little channels. The big beach was where kids (and a select few creepy adults) hung out on warm summer nights and drank beer bought at Jack's country store  and made plans and talked shit. Jack's used to be a little  crumbly shack with narrow isles and little baskets of penny candy. Now it's a real deal convenience store with big shiny glass cooler doors and a counter with a hot dog roller machine. Eventually we would make a plan to rob the place with guns and a get away bike and a secret trail but I'll tell you more about that later.  Let's get back to the summer of love, or should I say the summer of stupid fucked up trouble that turned into almost a whole year of bad decisions that ended up affecting the course of the rest of my entire life. 

     I walked into Kristin's room and he was siting there on the floor with a leather covered 3 ring binder that looked like one of those mom style day planners except that instead of plans there were thick sheets of pastel paper inside with perfect little perforations making little 1/2 inch squares and in the little pouch on the inside front cover a stack of teeny tiny plastic ziplock bags. 

Part of the middle.

I was 15. He was 22. I started it and he just couldn't resist. We hid out for awhile in his room at his dad's house, and in the back of his blue van with airbrush painted dolphins and brown shag carpet taped to the walls inside. Once I turned 16 in August he introduced me to a few of his friends. It seemed less shitty I suppose. Banging a hot 16 year old with huge tits and a bad attitude seems mildly more socially acceptable than creeping around with a 15 year old in a molester van. 

     That was pretty much the norm though. Back then all the girls were young and stupid and all the guys were older and dealing drugs. At least that's the way all the people I knew were. 

     I never actually went on a date except for once when this nice kid I used to hang out with who went to catholic school but still smoked pot showed up at my door all dressed up and asked me to go see a movie with him. He had borrowed his parents car and put on way too much of his dad's Old Spice aftershave and I didn't even realize we were on a date until we pulled into the Olive Garden parking lot. I had just smoked a joint and he asked if I was hungry. I figured fuck it, I'm not turning down free pasta. That is until he tried to sit on my side of the table with me and pet my hand. I stood up and said "hey, I need to pee". I went to the bathroom and put on some Wet and Wild dark burgundy #508 lipstick and walked out the front door.  

     I made it a point to never lead anyone on like that again. 

      The one with the van was twisted. He had, well, I assume he still has, a tattoo of a native American in full headdress on his shoulder. He used to talk some shit about being part Cherokee but who knows what the truth was. His mom lived in Hawaii and he lived with his dad who seemed really old like a grandpa or something. He had brown skin all over, thick greasy black hair and a front tooth damaged by a hockey puck. Supposedly he had been a big deal high school jock and had played football and had gone to some famous hockey camp up in Canada. By the time I met him he wasn't good at anything other than pulling up my shirt and selling drugs.  

secrets

     As I walked last evening, I wore the neon yellow reflective belt for safety, slung low across my soft belly, just below the sharp curve of my waist. The hour glass curve, the coveted shape that would become so intense and clear if only I wore the right clothing or lost a little weight. I thought about hiking it up a little, just above the sagging naval and just below the ribs. The part that seems impossibly small in contrast to the wide square hips that spread smoothly across tiny bistro chairs and airline seats and flow just over the edge. It's all in betweens now a days. In between fat and curvy. In between being old enough to smile knowing smiles and still having plenty to learn. Heavy strong legs. A blessing and a curse. Lumbering slow legs, powerful and strong enough to move mountains, well, maybe not mountains but heavy furniture surely. In between letting gray roots and curls do their own wild things and the desire to tame and smooth and press it all down and keep it a secret. With these breasts, these hips, these thighs, this waist, nothing is a secret. I walk on busy well lit roads and wear that blazing yellow belt to be safe and to be seen because nothing, absolutely nothing,  is a secret.

Kickin' ass and takin' names.

I'm kind of a hard person to be friends with. I pretty much hate everything. Okay so maybe not eeeeeverything, and maybe its not hate, but it is in my nature to question everything. So heres a little bit about me that might give some insight into why and how I learned to ask so many questions, see things from every angle, question every rule and authority and speak my mind whenever I damn well feel like it.

I've lived a lot of life in my 37 years and have pretty much made all the mistakes people ever make. All of them.  Once, when I was 16 got in a car with with a bunch of older boys who were drinking. Obviously it ended badly and we were damn lucky nobody died. It's actually kind of a funny story to tell but the reality is that I will forever live with scars, inside and out. I have pretty much screwed up in every way that a human can screw up and I have a million regrets, but..... I also have power.

 I'm gonna make that cute husband of

mine very happy here and quote Spiderman.
 I learned very early on that- "with great power comes great responsibility"

 I had all the power.
 I had all the freedom.
 I did every awesome, silly, stupid, reckless thing a person could do.
Some of it was great. Some of it hurt. There were times I was ignored, discarded and attacked with both fists and words, but the freedom of being a kid with no rules, no adults around who weren't already wrapped up in their own dramas and addictions to set any boundaries, was also kind of amazing.
    
I also had the opportunity to really learn from my mistakes and experience life on my own terms.

Green and purple and every other color  you can think of  hair
short skirts and combat boots
midnight showings of Rocky Horror
standing at podiums reading poetry with clove cigarettes hanging from my lip
sex 

drugs 
skinny dipping
punk rock music
traveling
all the things I ever wanted to do, I did.

I was allowed to form my own opinions about religion and politics and  art and education and  friendships and love and how humans should treat each other and all of the really important things in life 

Despite the fact that nobody ever talked to me about what was happening to my body and my mind I held fast to my own values and formed my own ideas about justice and fairness based on the way I experienced the world around me. I am often reminded of the great responsibility part and try to use all the things I've learned along the way to make a positive impact on my family, on my community and create a legacy of truth and kindness that will live on past my time.  

 So when you think I am speaking up just to be contrary, just to be different, just to stir the pot, it's because I am different. It's because I know what it is to have to fight for my rights and I refuse to just agree and conform to other peoples standards.  I question everything because I've seen almost everything and don't buy any shit about how am supposed to be. When you've lived like I have you understand fairness intimately and insist on it in all things. My freedom planted seeds of doubt about everything but it also taught me to stand up for myself and work hard and appreciate everything. 

I refuse to forget the girl with the bad ass attitude and combat boots. She has come a long way but shes still there, kicking ass and taking names.

Oh coffee

I'd never even had a sip until I was nearly 30 years old. That's more than 8 years ago now. It was my doctor who started it. Just after my son was born, and just 17.5 ( yes the .5 is important) months after the girl baby came along I was facing some very serious medical issues. My doctor reeling with disbelief at the caffeine intake box checked 'no' asked if it was a religious thing. He leaned in close and looked me square in the eyes and said "if you need a little something to keep you going try coffee, trust me".  So, he's a doctor. I trusted him. I was sure I was dying anyways so I might as well start experiencing new things. 

    I was only sort of dying. Slowly and painfully bleeding and having my internal organs crushed over the course of about 14 months. 

*Spoiler alert, I lived*

   
  I was so sick, in so much pain that the awful taste didn't bother me. I just wanted to be able to stay awake long enough to feed the baby and play with the almost toddler and maybe sit outside on the back porch in the biting cold Chicago winter air and breathe. 

     Of course there are a million things that helped me pull through that scary sad time in my life. The surgery didn't go as planned and things got scary. Blood transfusions and visits to the VA hospital and being pushed in wheelchairs and waking up in hospital beds happened more often in those few months than anyone should ever have to experience but the one thing, the simple pleasure that stuck with me is coffee. It's an addiction for sure. Morphine and Oxycontin are pretty addictive too but somehow I managed to wean myself off of those fairly quickly and just coffee remained.

     Just a few months after surgery. The surgery that took away a piece of me I wasn't ready to give up just yet, we moved thousands of miles across the country to a place where coffee rules. It became a huge part of my healing. In the state of Washington coffee is social, it is friendly, it warms hearts and hands and gives people an excuse to venture out under wet gray skies and seek out the electric buzz that some of us need to live. 

       I'm in Hawaii now. Humid mornings and hot coffee don't always mix and my body is perfectly healthy, better than ever in fact, but I don't think I'll ever be whole without a fresh hot cup. 

Notes on Hawaii.

Nothing particularly new to say here but I figured I'd gather some of my bitchiest crybaby crap thoughts here.

But first...- a quick list of things that are awesome.. Because really there ARE ton of awesome things and I am often reminded in life that looking on the bright side and maintaining a positive attitude is super important in order to be a proper and well adjusted adult human being. Am I right? (Duh I'm always right)

1. Beautiful beauty wrapped in a snug blanket of more super pretty beautifulness with a flipping cherry on top.  Majestic green mountains with waterfalls and palm trees, hibiscus flowers and unreal beaches with white sand and crystal blue water where sea turtles reside and tropical fish of all different magical colors swim. High fives all around for awesome fantastic 

beautifulness 

Sounds great right? I mean it's a magical place that millions of people visit every year. A place of aloha dreams and mahalo Shaka brah, shoots and leis and Dole pineapple whip that folks save for and plan romantic honeymoons to and stuff. 

and yes, that's my whole list jammed into one little paragraph.

Except I kinda hate it a little bit (or a lot, whatever) 

Here is an example of a typical day in my life.

Wake up and cover all exposed skin in loads and loads of sunscreen. 

Take kids to school and try to get in a workout before the blazing hot fireball in the sky starts shooting it's laser beams at me and burning the shit out of me leaving oozing weeping blisters and a tender coating of red inflamed flesh on my entire body. 

Go to my safe air conditioned lonely bedroom to cool down. 

Do some housework and work on my business. 

Realize that it's nearly time to venture out to pick up children and start panicking. 

Get in vehicle and drive past a bazillion brave and acclimated people riding bikes towards the school to pick up their children and wonder how the hell they are not being sizzled into tiny bits of charred flesh and start to feel like some sort of freak for not being able to handle a bike ride outdoors at 2pm without burning and sweating and crying. 

Start crying, avoiding awkward eye contact with all other parents while waiting for kids in fear that if anyone talks to me I'll blurt out "I hate Hawaii please help me escape!" 

people here are so damn nice. So so nice. Inviting me to the beach and to come work out with them in the middle of the day... outside. Um no. I can't. Really. For serious. It's not fun. 

Also, sand is annoying. 

Okay okay I know....

How bout this? I'll make ya a deal. I'll write something happy next time. Maybe.  

So, tell me. Have you ever lived somewhere you didn't like? Why were you there and how did you cope?

Oh yeaaah. This.

I feel like this is something people do-start a blog, promise to keep up and then  totally forget about it. Obviously it's something 'I' do. So here I am again, making promises to try to keep writing. I even thought about starting a whole new blog but figured why bother if this is still floating around out there, I might as well just go with it. Okay, so, done with the explanations and excuses. Most of what I've written about in the past is about being a mom, and a wife and a woman who is just trying to figure shit out as I go. I suppose that's a good place to start. I feel like I have important stuff to say sometimes and nobody to say it to. So this is my solution. I guess I'll just dive right in with some crap- I live in Hawaii now and I don't super love it. I feel guilty and stupid even saying that, which only adds to my misery. Sometimes I want to lay it all out on Facebook but again that just adds to the feeling stupid part. So here's a big long thing I wrote and then decided was too annoying for Facebook but is perfectly okay in a blog (right?)   depression is like living in a deep dark place with no proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel'. But there is another kind of sadness. The kind that is not like living at the bottom of a well. The kind where we CAN see the light but it's really far away and while we might have all the tools and all the support and all the hope and knowledge to know for sure it's going to be alright,  it's still really really hard. Part of it is very specific to being a military spouse. That feeling of instability, of being uprooted, ungrounded. Sometimes it feels so light, so free, so good to know I am capable of just packing up and moving on and making a great life wherever the Navy sends us and making a lasting impression of positivity and love anywhere we go. But there is a dark side. Laying all that love on the line, putting in all the work and positivity and then having to leave it behind is hard. What's even harder is seeing those communities and friendships and things you once were a part of thriving without you. Moving forward and expanding and becoming exactly what you had hoped they would but not being there to partake in the fruits of your labor. I suppose this is what true love is. Looking back and appreciating that you had the opportunity to be a part of it to begin with  and fighting the urge to be hurt by growth in your absence and knowing that you still have a million chances to do other great things.  

Oh and here is a picture of a beautiful butterfly in my yard- it's symbolism or whatever.