A Letter to My Father, on His 56th Birthday

Today is my dad's birthday.

He turns 56.

I don't know the whole, smooth story of his life from start to finish; I guess because it was a jumbled and sideways journey from the beginning. But I know some things.

I know he was born on an Air Force base in Japan, and he was the third child, out of what would eventually become five children.

The first boy.

I know he had thick, curly, black hair as a baby, and that my Nana used to dress him up in little girl's dresses because she said his thick eyelashes and dimples made him pretty.

I know that he had dog tags from the time he was born that said who he belonged to, that he was Catholic, and his father's rank and his blood type.

I know his family moved back to New York not long after he turned two, and his brother Mark was born there. Mark couldn't say Michael, so he called him Pants. 

A nickname that stuck all the way up until Mark died when I was 14. 

I know that my dad had it hard growing up. They were wealthy, and then they were poor, and then they were wealthy again. His mom was always sick. He was abused. His dad was indifferent.

I know my dad left home when he was eleven years old, and never went back. He ran out the back door, hid in someone's carport behind their '65 Buick Skylark until he saw his mom drive by, on her way to my grandpa's service station to tell him their son had run away, and then he went to the elementary school and told the principal he wasn't going back home.

He lived in foster homes and on the streets and hitch-hiked around after that.

I know he met my brother's mom when he was only 20, and that he met my mother when he was 25, and that he always wanted a lot of kids.

I know he was always sick.

He was moody, sometimes indifferent and often hyper-critical and forever irresponsible.

When I was young he seemed like a rambler. A wheeler and a dealer and someone that would always be able to get by, even if only by the skin of his teeth.

He raised his kids in the backs of cars, in junk yards and occasionally in nice houses.

Nothing with him is permanent.

Nothing with him is stable.

Nothing with him is clear.

I know he probably did the best he could.

I know he's wounded.

After it's all said and done, I know he'll always be the first person I loved, the first person who broke my heart, the first person who taught me to survive. 

He taught me that you can love someone, but not trust them.

Love someone but not be able to get close to them.

Love someone, but never be able to have them in your life.

In his own damaged and imperfect way, I know my father loves me.

A Letter to My Parents

When we're kids we belong to our parents.

We try so hard to be exactly like them.

Then at some point we try so hard to be our own people, who we hope will be nothing like them.

And when we grow up we realize we are equal parts of both.

We are our own, and we are theirs.

I am my mother's smile and her eyes.

I hear her voice when I laugh and when I speak softly.

I am my father's hard headedness and gift for telling a story.

I hear his words come out of my mouth, I find myself telling his tales.

I have the songs they both loved, and the ones I found on my own.

I read the books my dad owned and love the mountains like my mom.

For every second I spend railing against what they did to me, gave to me, taught to me, said to me, there is another moment when I find them somewhere inside myself, mixed in with all the elements of who I am all on my own.

My past beside my future.

Their legacy, my progress.

A Letter For Myself, For When I Was Pregnant For The First Time

Dear Pregnant-for-the-first-time-self,

I look at you through my mind's eye, languishing through the hot summer afternoons on the couch, eating pickles and toaster strudels by the box full, and I wonder why nobody ever told you that's not all going exclusively to your baby belly. Most of it is going to forever reside in your ass. Sorry.

Look at you, writing your birth plan and worrying about things like c-sections and episiotomies and whether or not you're going to poop on the table when you're pushing. You have no idea right now that in the frenzy of pushing you won't care of you crap all over the doctor's face, just so long as he can still get the baby out of you. In fact, you'll want it out so badly that the second you start to tear you're going to scream at the doctor to JUST CUT YOU ALREADY AND LET'S GET THIS OVER WITH.

The nurses will find it funny. You will not.

Here you are at your baby shower, waddling over to the food buffet a sixth time for more potato salad. Enjoy it while you can, because once the baby comes you'll be lucky if you're awake and coherent long enough to eat four stale saltines and half a Sprite before the baby wants back on your boob.

Oh and about boobs: just get over them now. They're going to change, they're going to hurt, they might even blister and bleed and even if no one else notices, you will probably always feel like they're lower or flatter than they used to be. But, there's never been a war without casualties and despite all the pamphlets and books full of inspiring messages and softly lit, flawless photographs, pregnancy is not as much a "beautiful journey", back lit with honey gold lighting, as it is a full-on military invasion, complete with land mines {hemerroids/stretch marks/verricose veins}, trauma {pooping for the first time after deliver when you still have stitches} and casualties {your boobs}.

Just so you know, it's OK to stop listening to other people, especially marketing executives. Babies used to roll around in the back of covered wagons for thousands of miles across the country, so I'm sure yours can most certainly live without 90% of the shit that they say you need. Actually, little do you know right now, you won't even need that fancy crib you just spent six hours and an entire box of Twinkies trying to put together. The baby will end up sleeping with you.

And when it comes to what you should listen to and what to ignore, remember that some people are mean, some people are annoying, some people like to give trite and over used advice that doesn't apply to any real life situation ever. Some people will throw bible quotes at you, some people have every inspirational quote ever written memorized, some people will just never get over their self righteousness. Very few people will be genuinely helpful, but those that are have probably been where you are before: a mom for the first time, sweaty, awkward, nervous and constantly leaking milk.

So when your first friend is becoming a mom for the first time, remember what it was like and bring her a chicken and do her laundry, because everyone like chicken and clean clothes.

Also, you're going to have stretch marks on the back of your calves by the time this is over. That shit wasn't in the Beautiful Journey pregnancy books either.

A Letter to My Children

Dear Jackson and Lainie, 

I haven't told you about what happened on Friday. 

Partly because it doesn't seem right...you're so young and you're both so sensitive...why scare you? But partly because I don't know how.

I don't know how to explain to you that 20 little kids are never going home. I don't know how to explain to you that I cry for them even though they weren't mine, because I can't picture their parents without picturing the both of you, and how my life would come to a screeching halt if I lost either of you. I don't know how to tell you that I cry for the adults who were killed too, the teachers who died for their students. Children that weren't even theirs, they took bullets for without question. Will they ever know how beautiful that is? How even if their students were still lost, the fact that they tried, that they died trying, to protect them, means so so much? 

And I cry for the mother of the shooter.

I cry because she was a mother too, and I didn't know her, or her son, and I don't know what was wrong with him or what role she played, but I know she was a mother and she was human, and we all make mistakes, but she paid the highest price for hers.

It's the worst of all the Mom Fears.

20 years ago, she was scared out of her mind, holding a new baby and hoping for the best.

I don't know how to explain to you that I worry.

I worry about every choice I make, and I worry every time you leave my sight and I worry every time I see one of you cry and every time I see one of you do something unkind {like all children sometimes do, but still, I worry}

I worry about your tender little hearts and your fragile little bodies, and I just love you both so much I wish I could keep you safely tucked behind my big Mom hips forever.

Wrap my arms around you and pretend the world isn't scary and messed up and confusing.

I don't tell you all of this because I don't want you to be afraid.

I don't want you to weep the way I have been {in secret so you don't wonder why} since Friday. I don't want you to be scared or mad, or lose faith in people.

But I do want you to be aware of danger, and aware of how fragile everyone around you is.

How fragile we all are.

How everyone you meet is hurting from some invisible wound, some ouch that you can't see. They're all fighting some monster that you don't know about, and they could all use a little kindness. A little love.

I don't know exactly how to tell you to love people you don't even know, because you never know how much they might be needing it....but I'm trying to show you, and I hope that you see it.

And with everything I have I am trying to love you both in a way that you can always feel, always trust, and always count on.

Every second of every day, I am loving you, worrying about you, protecting you and trying to show you.

I hope your eyes are open and your ears can hear, and your little hearts always stay tender enough to let in the people who need it the most, even if they seem to deserve it the least.

I love you. 

Bigger than anyone.

Letters to Lucia

Dear Lucia,

How have we known each other almost 8 years? It feels like just yesterday {yet somehow several lifetimes ago at the same time} that we were bonding over hot wings and Wedding Crashers, and starting on our long road of adventures as partners in crime.

When I think of you I think of abandoned houses, Parliament Lights and Dodge Neons. Pick up truck tailgates and the middle of nowhere desert. I think of late nights and endless conversations. My first apartment, our first apartment. Secrets, Vodka, parties and matching t-shirts. Santa Monica, windows down, Josh Franks and too many pictures.

You know my past, you know my secrets and you're such a huge part of my story.

We've lived so many moments in our own little world together, and sometimes it all feels like a dream.

Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that it did happen, we were those people, we lived that life.

All those years ago.

Now we're both moms with careers, trying to be grown ups.

And you're still here.

My wingman, my sister, my friend.

I love you.

Letters To Friends

Dear Friend,

I found one of your pictures the other day. It was completely by accident. I was taking some books off my bookshelf, ones I don't read anymore, to make room for a couple new ones, and then there you were. You slipped out of the covers of an old copy of Madame Bovary and fluttered to the floor, face up, staring at me in a time warp.
It was weird seeing you, since I hadn't in so long. At first I just stared down at your face, pale, how skinny you were then. It must've been winter, you're wearing that god awful brown coat you used to have. Do you still have that? I hope not.
You're standing in my kitchen and smiling. You're asking me why I never have anything in my fridge but green olives. You're inspecting a half eaten bag of Doritos. I'm 17 and I'm standing in my underpants, telling you to fuck off, I can live off green olives if I want to. Giggling like a school girl. Taking your picture.
You turn to me just as I snap the picture and your smile is as wide as a dinner plate. Your teeth are like stars. I loved you then.
But, you know, you changed, I changed, we all fell down.
You came into town a few days after I found your picture and we had dinner.
You put your hand on the small of my back after too many beers.
I kept smoking and felt sad because nothing had changed, but also everything had, and I knew that picture wasn't of you anymore.

The Friday Diary: New Music and Old News

Happy Friday everybody.

Soooo....I'm an asshole. I recorded the questions video, I edited it, and.....it won't upload. At least not in any format that doesn't crash like half a second into the video. I've tried everything. I don't know how to fix it. But I promise I'll keep trying. I'm sorry. I am just the worst.
But today, let's resume normal Friday rambling recapping. Exciting right?....RIGHT?

Let's move on.

...

10 Songs for Your Broken Heart:

It doesn't matter why your heart is broken, music will help.

...

Letters:
Dear Fall, Goddamn it, I love you kid.
Dear Jackson, if you keep saying no EVERY SINGLE TIME I tell you to do something, we are going to have problems. And by "we" I mean you, and by "problems" I mean good luck making your own dinner for yourself from now on!
Dear Lainie, you lost your second front tooth and spent the night at a friend's house for the first time, both in the same 24 hours. I cried after you left. I just love you, little one.
Dear Dad, stop it. Just stop it.
Dear Sedona, I miss you.

...

Looking Back:

This time last year...

...

Obsessed:

Season 9 of Grey's Anatomy has started, and only two episodes in I am no less than completely obsessed-again. Time to get back on the emotional roller coaster that is this show, and ride.

...

Read:

Amazon

Sort of a memoir, sort of a series of rants about the differences between Southerners and Yankees. Through and through true and hilarious.
I snorted.

Favorite Quote-
Freak: Oh look, there's Joel! Yoo hoo! Joel! I'm so glad you could make it tonight. And who's your friend? She's absolutely stunning!
Normal Person: Look. There's Joel, that lying sack of shit. Who's the cheap Christmas trash hanging all over him? Wait a minute, I'll just say hello. Hi Joel. Have you told Lil' Kim here that you still wet the bed?

...

Eaten:

Recipe Here

These were delicious. I made 20 of them, and there were NO left overs. Even the kids ate like a bunch of them.
I added black beans and forgot to turn them. Still delicious.

...

And Now, Funny Shit from the Internet:


Happy Friday, everybody.

Go get weird this weekend.

Letters to You

I woke up in the middle of the night because I was cold, and I woke you up too because I was really cold.

Shivering beside you in bed and the sheet on top of us was offering no protection from the near Icelandic temperatures we'd suddenly traveled to in our sleep.

Without being asked you got up, from a dead sleep, and turned the air off, found me a blanket, and then wrapped your very warm body around me, too.

Heat spread all over me, and you let me put my ice cold feet under your legs because they felt like a campfire compared to mine.

And even though I fell back to sleep quickly, before I did I remember mentally noting:

I loved you so very much in that moment.

It's always been the littlest gestures from you, that have warmed my little heart so.

Letters to Jackson

Dear Jackson,

Sometimes I forget how young you are. Maybe because you're so big, or because you're so smart, or because you keep up so well most of the time with your big sister, I forget that you are just four years old. That you practically just came into my life.

I forget sometimes, and remembering always makes my heart ache.

Today when your little pillowy hand reached for mine as I walked into daycare, last night when you said "Mama, I need help", this morning when you were just waking up and your hair was sticking up in every direction and you wanted to stay in bed all day looking at your bunny book.

I remember.

And my heart hurts because I wonder if I've been too hard on you. Expecting you to behave like a child who is the age I sometimes mistake you for. My chest bursts because you still have the features of a baby. Your full cheeks and button nose, your tiny little tear-drop chin. And my heart falls because you won't be this little forever, and even though I'm right here, always watching you, I feel like I'm still missing it. I feel like the sweetness of this age is too much for me to soak in completely no matter how much I want to, and no matter what, it will be something I don't fully appreciate until it's over, and I am watching you move boxes into your first apartment, or bringing your first serious girlfriend to dinner, or reading the bunny book to your first baby.

I don't want you to be little forever, I won't go that far.

There is a lot that's wonderful about growing up.

So many firsts.

So many special friendships along the way that teach you everything.

First loves that become your most poignant memories as you age.

I just wish that I could stop time, here and there, and press those moments between the pages of a book so I can come back and live them again later.

Later, when you're growing up and growing away.

When you still let me call you my little boy, but we both know, you've become a man.



A Letter to No One

I almost feel bad about not writing lately.

Or maybe I would feel bad if the silence didn't feel so good.

Sometimes not saying anything, and just letting all the useless words that don't mean anything, that don't fix anything, that don't change or prevent anything, dry up and die inside you rather than letting them out and allowing them to live in infamy forever, allowing them whatever minor effect they might have on whoever they might have it on, feels better.

I open my email and start a new message at least once a day.

I start to type something, but then I remember it just doesn't matter.

Sometimes all the pretty words in the world don't mean anything.

And then I contridict myself by reading all my favorite books one more time.

I'm halfway through Alice in Wonderland, and this time I think I dislike Alice a little, but the Mad Hatter and I would be good friends.

I'm a quarter of the way into White Oleander.

I'm on the first chapter of Vinegar Hill.

Today I ordered The Lover's Dictionary, but I don't know why.

Maybe it was his definition of Aberrant, and the way it made my heart catch in my throat because it reminded me of everything, and it was the truest thing I'd read in so long, it made me think of the way people must feel when they find God while reading the bible.

Aberrant: adj.

"I don't normally do this kind of thing", you said

"Neither do I" I reassured you.

Later it turned out we both had met people online before, and we both had slept with people on the first date before, and we both had found ourselves falling too fast before. But we comforted ourselves with what we really meant to say, which was:

"I don't normally feel this good about what I'm doing"

Measure the hope of that moment, that feeling.

Everything else will be measured against it.

-The Lover's Dictionary, David Levithan

I guess even when I deny words, and their effect on me, they're still the closest I've ever come to a religion.

An Open Letter to Fall

Alright.

I've said it before.

And yes, I am going to say it again.

Fall, please come. Now.

I am so over summer. 

SO OVER IT.

I think just even one more day might be enough to break me. 

Too bad this is Arizona and there's like another 90 days of unbearable heat left.

Why my parents moved me here, I have no idea.

The Friday Diary: Goodbye, Wonderful Week

So today concludes my birthday week.

And what better way to wrap it up than to be heading out of town with Bill today?

I couldn't think of one if I tried.

...

Letters:

Dear Bill, This week was so lovely. You made my birthday beautiful, and you made me feel so loved and cared for. Thank you for always caring about the little things as much as I do.

Dear Chris, You've most definitely become my best friend at work, and a true friend even outside the office. You're sweet and hilarious and I don't know how I'd get through a Monday without you.  I like you more than hot coffee and pictures of Juanita.

Dear Lainie and Jack, I loved your handmade birthday cards, and I loved the glitter on the floor and scraps of paper all over the house that showed how hard you worked on them.

Thank you for making my birthday that much sweeter.

...

Overheard:

Me: Lainie, how was your first day of third grade?! Tell me everything!

Lainie: It was SO GOOD. 

Me: Why?

Lainie: We had bean burritos for lunch!!!

I wish my life was still this simple.

...

School Days:

Lainie started 3rd grade on Tuesday. Holy crap. I am so cliche, because every year I always say the same thing "She like JUST BORN yesterday."

Jackson was very upset that he wasn't starting big kid school too, as you can see.

All in good time, buddy.

And all too soon.

...

Letters to my father

I came to the library in Scottsdale today on my lunch break, instead of going out to eat with my co-workers.

The same library where you used to take me when I was 12. I loved it then because it was huge, and beautiful. With the big sparkling gray castle in the kids section, complete with a tower and turret for private reading, and the grounds around it were so so green and luscious it was like a small oasis in the middle of the desert we actually live in. Big, gushing fountains and thick shady trees cooling down the silky soft grass...it was my 12 year old paradise.

I like it here now because it's air conditioned, and quiet, and when I bring the kids I have an excuse to ask them to whisper. We're in a library after all. And there are used books we can buy for 50 cents, and the castle is still there. And when it's really hot and nobody is looking, I let the kids run through the fountains. Just like you did for me when I was little.

I like coming here alone now too, because the bathrooms are big and there are so many stalls. Bathroom stalls are a good place for grieving. You can close the door and stay as long as you like. No one rushes you in the bathroom, especially when there are 20 other stalls for them to choose from.

I'm just not sure what it is that I'm grieving. 

You aren't dead yet.

I guess that's what I'm grieving that right there: the yet in that sentence.

Before this there was never a yet on the end of sentences about you dying. 

Up until all of this, I think I believed somewhere in the back of my mind or maybe the bottom of my heart, that you would live forever. 

Not in the unrealistic "death doesn't exist" way, {I've believed death was real ever since my cat Bob died when I was 5 and you made me look at his body and touch his tail so I would understand what death meant} but more in the sense that I never reconciled the idea of losing you someday. 

Of watching you die.

So now I hide in bathrooms among stainless steel and white tile, and try to practice saying it out loud without my voice breaking.

I try make myself say the word cancer without tears filling my eyes.

I try to accept that you are in fact mortal, without the very breath leaving my chest.

So far I haven't made much progress.