Preparing to Travel Again

The Girl and I are headed back to my parents’ house tomorrow. The mountains pretty much all the way through are expecting a large snow storm tonight and tomorrow, which has me a wee bit worried. As well as the fact that the past couple of days every time I mention heading back to Nana and Papa’s, The Girl starts crying. That’s no good. I know it doesn’t really have anything to do with Nana and Papa. It has to do with her missing more school, missing her brother and dad and being away from her own space and stuff. I get it. We’re both starting to feel a little bit like refugees at this point I think. But this weekend is my parents’ wedding anniversary and I promised that we would help them celebrate since it will be their last. And several of our oldest family friends arrived to their house today as well. These are people that I grew up with, absolutely adore and am really looking forward to seeing. But I’m in no way shape or form ready to battle icy and snow packed roads.

So I’ll have to check the weather again in the morning to see what I’m up against. Right now all it says is “ice.” But overnight might change that for the better. And I think that as long as my dad is still doing ok when I get there I think The Girl and I will head home again early next week. I’m grateful for the chance we’ve had to spend so much time with my parents, but at the same time, I’ve got to work towards striking a better balance between them and my home. I don’t want anyone to feel neglected, and I’ve got a responsibility all the way around to be present and take care of the people I love.

Ever the search for balance. It follows me everywhere it seems. Always work ahead of me. Rightfully I suppose. And there is a part of me that is deeply grateful for the continued opportunity to keep learning. But mostly, right now, I’d rather have a cabana boy delivering me umbrella drinks on the beach.

Gin and Friends

Yesterday, there was gin. Lots and lots of gin. And laughing and venting and listening and talking and just about every other verbal utterance you can imagine. There was hugging and me close to tears a couple of times because I was just so happy to be with such dear friends. It was hands-down one of the loveliest days I’ve had in a very long time.

C and I started drinking gin at about 11am and then journeyed to Pete’s Kitchen (my all-time-most-favorite diner in Denver which has the best Greek omelet ever) for lunch after exhausting all of the snack food in her dad’s refrigerator. Going to Pete’s used to be a requirement for me upon my arrival in Denver, but it’s a tradition that’s fallen by the wayside the last several years. So it was good to go back, although the poor cooks have a new tool with which to cut the gyro meat off the spit that causes a really unfortunate case of blow back face. Even with that, it was a tasty meal.

Then we were off to pick up S and rescue him from “The Frozen Pipes Incident” and headed straight for the bar. I haven’t seen S for almost as long as it’s been since I’ve seen C, so for me at least, it was a reunion of sorts and a wonderful one at that.

We met C’s dad at a killer restaurant downtown for dinner, where he graciously treated us to a super yummy seafood dinner (crab cake, Caesar salad, scallops and chocolate mousse oh my!). From there C and I made the executive decision to kidnap S and headed back to the house. Where we stayed up until 2:30am. We adjourned to head to bed then, where I promptly tossed and turned for the next 5 hours or so, then got up, kissed and hugged everyone goodbye and headed home where I kissed and hugged everyone hello and made a beeline for bed. And my toothbrush.

It was a perfect day with amazing people. But damn, I am getting old. I just can’t drink gin all day any more. But it was so very, very worth it.

1/8/10 - Bedtalk

I really love my bed. It’s the best bed I’ve ever slept in. Except for maybe the gigantic king sized bed that my husband and I slept in at The Trump Towers when we spent the night there in Atlantic City. That was also a pretty amazing bed. I remember lying in the middle of it and not being able to reach the sides of the bed with my arms completely outstretched. And there were about a hundred pillows. Our bed is not that big and we don’t have that many pillows, but it’s just so very, very comfy. It’s the kind of bed that you can burrow down into and it just makes you want to go to sleep.

And I am so happy to be back in my bed. And in my own house. With all of our assorted creature comforts.

Although I had to leave our bed too early this morning because I’m heading to Denver to spend the day with C, my college roommate, catching up, drinking gin and just enjoying each other’s company for the first time in years. We’ll probably meet up with S as well for drinks, which I am also really looking forward to. I haven’t seen him in way too long considering that we only live about an hour away from each other. And he’s been such an awesome support for my starting the new fiction writing blog.

I do feel guilty leaving my husband and children for the entire day not even 12 hours after coming home. But my husband assures me it’s fine, he has all sorts of plans for the children to put them to work. He’s shooing me out the door because he knows I need some time with friends. Some time to just totally decompress and not have to worry about taking care of anyone. So even though that doesn’t completely assuage the guilt, I’m going anyway and I’m going to have a fabulous time with dear friends whom I adore.

Although I’ll probably end up staying in Denver for the night and that means yet another night away from my bed. But it is definitely a small price to pay.

Home Prep

We’re going home tomorrow. It’s just time. My dad has had three back-to-back fantastic days, I miss my husband, my children need to go back to school, I miss my friends and at this point, in the din of my screaming back, I miss my own bed! The Boy goes back to school on Monday anyway and I’m fairly sure if The Girl doesn’t get back into school, or at least regular playdates with her friends, soon, she’s going to drive us both completely batty. I realized today, as I was looking at the calendar, that The Girl and I have been here for more than 6 out of the last 8 weeks. That’s a long time to be away from home.

So I spent today going around my parents’ house gathering up all of my children’s toys, books and various asunder other items they’ve collected and/or brought with them. You’d think the house was actually my children’s little playhouse. That they deigned to allow us all to live here to with them as long as we didn’t muck about with their things too much. Seriously, they have totally taken over the entire property. Whether it’s the myriad of sticks The Boy has strewn around the deck and yard, the constantly fluctuating Star Wars battalion or the collection of books, DVD’s and Leapster cartridges tucked in and around every nook and cranny in my line of sight.

It is going to take a magic trick to cram all of this into my car tomorrow to trek it all home. Although if it doesn’t all fit, that’s fine too, The Girl and I will be back in a couple of weeks. So we can take another load back then I suppose. Although there’s a part of me that fundamentally objects to having to make two (three if you count the car full my husband took home with him on Sunday) trips to take all of my children’s toys home. I mean, that’s just obscene. But they had a year from hell too, so it’s ok for them to get spoiled rotten after that. I just kinda want to know when it’s my turn. Is that wrong?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

My husband and I spent all day today in the car. The roads were crap yesterday, so we decided to wait to leave until this morning, hoping the sun would have time to work on the ice. And other than the fact that my car is in need of an entirely new instrument panel so I had zero idea of how fast I was going, it was a good drive.

We walked through the door and got mobbed by the children, although the first thing out of The Girl’s mouth was “When can we go home?” She’s been here now for more than a month, so I can understand her desire to sleep in her own bed and get reacquainted with her toys and other sundry beloved things that got left behind. I can understand her wanting to go back to school and see her friends. I can understand how the fun vacation at Nana and Papa’s has turned into everyday life, but without all her stuff, away from her friends and living out of a suitcase.

So I think that we’ll stay through this week and then head home for a bit to let both kids get back into school and let my husband and I get this bankruptcy thing moved along (by the way, I’d like to take Bank of America out back and flat out kick their asses).

I am feeling cautiously optimistic about 2010. I started 2009 with loud and triumphant declarations that this was going to be MY year. And it was, just not in any way I ever could have imagined. It was my year to grow and learn, cry and throw temper tantrums, learn some more, grow some more and generally get my life turned upside down.

This year I am demanding 2010 be full of adventure and blessings, preferably in the most calm and boring way possible. I want to continue to love completely, challenge myself thoroughly and dream hugely, just without all the trauma and drama please. I’ll continue to work hard, just stop putting the people I love in danger. I don’t think that’s all that much to ask for, do you?

On the way to dinner

“What did you do in school today?”

“We had a sub.”

“Was Mrs. E sick?”

“No, someone in her family passed away.”

“Do you know what means?”

“No.”

This was a conversation that took place on the way to a splurge dinner out after The Boy’s winter program at school. It was a nearly tortuous event that took entirely too long given the age range and time of evening, but we showered The Boy with praise because I could literally hear him singing in the very back of the gym.

He chose to ride with me on the way to dinner and this was the beginning of our conversation about what it means to die. And as I was coming to fully understand the gravity of the can of worms my innocent questioning had just opened, I realized one of the biggest reasons I’ve been avoiding, this conversation with The Boy. I just wasn’t sure how to answer his questions. I’m not a religious person. I haven’t ever been. I just cannot bring myself to buy wholesale into any one dogma or another, so that leaves me without a religious home if you will. I consider myself a very spiritual person, especially after this past year, but not religious. So I had to kind of make the whole thing up as I went along.

“What happens when you die?”

“Well, when a person dies it means that your body stops working. But the part of you that makes you, you, your laugh, your ability to love, all the things you’re good at and all the good you’ve done goes back to the universe. To the stars and sky; it goes back to where it came from when you were born. It goes back to the beginning.”

We talked quite a bit about how your body can stop working and what parts of you go back to the stars.

“Will my toys go to the stars with me?”

“No, baby. Those stay here with your body. But remember how you gave your sister that pink bear you won tonight because you saw she was sad and wanted her to feel better? That will go with you.”

11/22/09 - The Drive

There are no words to tell you how good The Girl was on the drive down to New Mexico. She is three and a half and she sat in her car seat for the entire 6 hours that we were in the car, listened to music and played with whatever toys she could reach and didn’t ask until we were about 20 minutes out when we were going to be there. She was amazing.

I can see how people could get lulled into the whole only child thing. One kid at a time is just so much easier than more than one. They get your full attention, so they are more easily pacified. They don’t have to share the spotlight so they are more willing to entertain themselves rather than needing someone or something else to constantly keep them engaged.

And if it weren’t for those amazing times when The Boy is teaching his sister something or The Girl is looking at her big brother with those adoring little sister eyes, I might find myself lulled by these moments of relative peace as well. But I’ve always wanted a big, raucous family and for the most part, I love the chaos. Except when we are in the car, so that brings me back to how unbelievably good The Girl was on the drive down to my parents’ house. It was an easy drive. Not too much traffic given that it is a Sunday. We stopped in Chama (our traditional get out of the car, walk around and get treats to last us all through the last 90 minutes of the drive stop) to get my all time most favorite beef jerky ever, which is only sold at this one specific gas station in Chama, and to get The Girl her stop gap gummy bears.

The only bad part of the whole drive was having to drive into the setting sun for the last hour or so. That gave me a headache, but all in all it was a lovely and painless drive.

And I got to hug my dad. He’s still here. He’s whole, smiling and happy to see us. And I didn’t even cry.

8/5/09 - Prep

At this point I’m so tired of thinking about this interview that I can hardly stand it. I’ve spent the last week freaking out with nerves and suffering a massive lack of confidence. Today however, I’ve hit a wall. I’m almost as irritated with myself for ripping the confidence rug out from under my feet as I’m sure all of my friends are. I mean, seriously. How silly can I be? I’m done thinking and obsessing about it. I’m done wondering why I deserve this opportunity. I’m done trying to convince myself that I’m not really qualified for this position. I’m done questioning my abilities.

In fact, I’m so done with it all that I’m just not going to think about it at all until the day of the interview. All done. I’m cutting myself off from my currently preferred method of self-torture.

Instead I’m focusing on the drive there and getting together with all my friends after the interview. I usually listen to music while I’m driving, but I think this time I’ll get a couple of books on CD. The summer before I started college a couple of girlfriends and I road tripped to Michigan and listened to Anne Rice vampire books most of the way there and it was awesome. So I think I’ll find some good brain candy books to listen to on the 8+ hour drive back to my college. Maybe that dragon series that was written by that kid a while back that always intrigued me but I just never picked up. Or if I can find them maybe the Sonya Blue vampire books or the Sookie Stackhouse books. I’ll take The Girl to the library today to see what we can find. Wish me luck on getting her out of there again.

And I’m pulling together a big group of our old friends who still live around our college town for a bit potluck, drink a bunch of beer, get together the night after my interview. I’m so excited to see everyone I can hardly stand it! It’s been years since I’ve seen them all.

See? Full of excitement and reason. Isn’t that a nice change of pace?

Teaching Love and Jack

Today was a jam packed day. I really thought I would just be driving to meet my mom to pick up the kids, have a picnic and drive home. But then I remembered that tonight was the meet and greet with The Boy’s teacher at his new school. So we barreled home through the rain and hail to have enough time to unload the car of luggage and toys and reload it with all of his school supplies and off we went. We met his teacher and she is wonderful. I talked to her about how he is a kinesthetic learner through and through and because of that, he has a hard time with words and reading. She took it all in stride and started brainstorming with me on the spot different ways to help him learn and different ways to adapt her teaching style to his learning style. I loved her immediately.

And my mom got adopted today. We met at a park to let the kids play while we had a picnic. I got there before they did and noticed a stray dog wandering around. I watched him for a while and then lost track of him when the kids arrived. As we were saying our goodbyes, this dog came and laid down right by my mom’s car. He very slyly crept up onto the floor board of the driver’s side of the car. Then sneakily made his way behind her and crawled up on the back seat and went to sleep. As if he had always been there. As if he had been waiting his entire life for her to pull into the parking lot and pick him up. He was utterly and completely at home. My mom shrugged, patted his head, smiled in defeat and drove away. She has named him Jack. I’m going to call him Jumping Jack Flash because he popped their front gate like a friggin’ gazelle when she took him home. She’s in love with him already.

And I have more news to share about my impending interview. I am totally freaking out. Which is fine. I will get over it soon. And I’ll be back tomorrow.

Hole Please

There is only thing that I despise almost the same amount as missing someone. I just really hate feeling embarrassed. It’s one of those emotions that make me want to cry and scream and throw things all at once. I want to crawl into the darkest, dankest hole I can find and stay there until every person I’ve ever known is gone and has long forgotten my very existence. Yeah, it’s really that bad.

I go to extreme lengths to avoid any potential brush with embarrassment. Going on 10 years ago, when my now husband had let on that he was going to propose I threatened to say no if he did it in any kind of public or embarrassing way. I research things within an inch of their lives to make sure I know stuff before I actually talk to anyone about just about anything. When I’m in a room of people I don’t know, I hang back and watch everyone else for a while to figure out where the bathroom is or what the flow of traffic is. I mean it’s a bit on the neurotic side, the extent of my aversion to even remote feelings of embarrassment. And I know it’s inching towards crazy.

This is why I’m now going to tell you about my day. My day that now has me wanting to chain smoke cigarettes and slam cheap beer in my deep, dark and dank hole.

On Friday we found a perfect car for my husband. A great, versatile car that would suit our family and him really well that we could have for a long, long time. I was excited and happy about the purchase.

And then today, we went back in to finish the paperwork and were informed that the dealership couldn’t get us financed. Apparently our credit scores are great, but banks are all fucked up and so we had to give the car back. Who has had to give a car back? Seriously…

And it was awful and they handled it poorly and I handled it really poorly.

I want my hole. I want it right now. Where is a good hole when you need one?

Landscape Therapy

Listening to anything from the Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine album is really dangerous for me while driving.

We drove to Alamosa today to meet my mom to pick up the kids and bring them home. My husband drove there (happily bopping along in his new car of which I am totally jealous as it has a plug in for my iPod Touch) and I drove home. We put the music on shuffle, the kids went to sleep and I just drove. And when NIN came on, I drove entirely too fast. I got flashed by a county sheriff outside of Alamosa actually. So then I slowed down. A little.

But while we were driving there, I got totally absorbed in the clouds and landscape. Southwestern Colorado can be a bit on the drab side. Which is why I have mostly ignored it on the many, many car trips we’ve taken through there on the way to my parents house in New Mexico. But today I just really looked and it’s actually really beautiful. Granted, it’s spring, so everything is super green and starting to bloom. But the rocks and mountains and plains desert is just really gorgeous. Also the sky was amazing today with layers upon layers of fluffy white clouds.

I almost always drive everywhere we go (chalk it up to a major control issue what with my mom losing half her leg as a passenger in her own car), so I hardly ever get to just watch the scenery go by. And it was a lovely opportunity to do that today. It almost felt like a luxury. To just disengage and let my eyes slide over the landscape taking in the colors and textures. Or take voyeuristic peeks inside of the farm and ranch houses as we passed through small towns. Instead of planning how to accomplish my ridiculously long and complicated to-do list. Or obsessing about our finances. Or thinking about my overall lack of patience when it comes to things like waiting for the job people to call me back.

All in all, it was a perfect way to end an extraordinarily busy week. Good music. Beauty. Driving. Perfect.

3/23/09 - Day One

I splurged and got U2’s new album before I left for the retreat. And then I proceeded to listen to it the entire way to The Last Resort in Utah. Keep in mind that it’s a seven hour drive from my parents’ house, so I listened to it back to back about 8 times or so. And I’m totally in love with it. It’s almost as if the entire CD was written for exactly where I am right now. And even if I couldn’t relate to it at all, it’s just such a good album on its own merits.

And now I’m here at the retreat. There is an interesting mix of people here, although it’s not like I have a wealth of experience from which to draw for what “normal” is. There is one other woman who has never done a silent retreat either, so that helps a bit with the nerves. We agreed to figure out together how to ask someone to pass the salt, in silence.

But I am still nervous and feel very strange. I’m sitting right now in my room and I’m so totally grateful that I got a single room. There are only two of them here, the other 4 are shared, double rooms with bunk beds. Which would have posed two problems for me. I’m an only child and typically don’t play well with others in a roommate situation. And if I were the second person to get into my shared room and had to sleep on the top bunk, well given my fear of heights, that would pose a very, very large problem indeed.

The silence will officially start tomorrow morning. We were able to chat this evening over dinner and afterwards so I was able to get to know everyone just a little. It turns out that about half of the people know my mom and have been in retreats with her before. So we mostly talked about her and how she’s doing. Which was a little odd. Almost as if I was starting off the retreat as her daughter instead of just me.

Anyway, I’m just babbling now. Rambling on, my mind just running to run.

Dreams

Over the past year or so, I’ve had four car accident dreams. They are a little unsettling as I’m sure you can imagine.

The first dream was of me and the kids driving into town and suddenly we were going off the road, down a fairly steep hill and the car was beginning to roll. It was at this point in the dream that everything slowed down and I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “Oh my God, this is really happening.” Then I woke up. The spookiest thing about it was that I know exactly where on the road it happened, along the highway that I drive almost every single day.

The second dream was on the same highway, but in town this time, and I watched a huge accident happen in front of me mostly involving construction trucks. They spilled concrete, metal and equipment all over the road. And I knew I had to find a way through it otherwise the other cars behind me would slam me right into it. But I couldn’t figure it out and slam me they did. My car was shoved underneath one of the large trucks. A long metal spike came through the windshield and stopped just a millimeter shy of my throat.

The third I was driving on the Navajo Dam road in New Mexico and was, again, suddenly going off the road and I had to choose between going into the water or going down the very steep and very far down side of the dam. I chose the water because I thought we’d have a better chance of survival with a shorter drop.

The fourth, which was last night, was simply me having a head on collision with a shiny, silver Mercedes. He just wouldn’t move out of the way and I had nowhere else to go. At 55 miles an hour. I woke up when I realized that the air bag had failed.

I don’t know what these dreams mean or why I keep having them. But given my love for driving, I find them a bit disturbing. Or maybe they don’t mean anything and they’re just an extension of my crazy. Any ideas?

Pedal to the Metal

All I wanted to do today was drive. Really fast. Listening to really loud music.

I think it must be a genetic thing as some of my earliest memories are of my mom putting me in the car and us just driving. Sometimes for as short as minutes and sometimes for hours. Up into the mountains, around town, around the neighborhood.

When I got my driver’s license, it was a practice that I picked up almost immediately. The need to drive and drive and drive. To move through the night with my speakers blaring Jane’s Addiction, Ani DiFranco, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and so many others. It seemed the only time that the world was going faster than I was. It was the only time that I could get my heart and mind to slow down.

I remember many nights growing up where I’d be home by my required curfew and then sneak back out just to go driving. Usually on the highway so that I could push the car in rhythm with the music instead of my pace being dictated by stop lights.

I think those have been the two biggest casualties of having kids. I hardly ever just drive anymore and I certainly almost never get to listen to loud music. When I was a kid and my mom and I would go on our long drives, I was always quiet, just content to watch the scenery go by. My children, on the other hand, are much chattier than I’ve ever been, so it makes it hard to do with them, unless they are asleep and then I’m hard pressed to get off at the exit I’m aiming for instead of just continuing on to the nearest border.

I love to drive. I love that I can move fluidly from lane to lane based on my own momentary cadence. I love that I can sing at the top of my lungs without fear or holding back. I love that I can explore based on whim instead of to do list. I love how the world looks as it flies past at any speed. I love the freedom. I just really love to drive.