Stumbling Towards Perfect

Hey, honey! I've called a couple times but keep getting your voicemail... dinner is ready and waiting, and I was wondering if you wanted to walk with us... Dotter has youth group at church and I thought maybe we could all walk  together to drop her off. We'll be waiting for you! *** 10 minutes later *** [phone rings] Hey! About time! When will you be home? I was wondering ---- (whispering) I can't talk now... I've got to get back before they find out I'm gone.... Umm... what? (still whispering) I've got to get back... Where are you? I can't talk now. I'll explain it all later. Have you been kidnapped by the drug cartel or are you just messing with me? Because I am not calling 9-1-1 unless you're seriously being held hostage. [click] *** 45 minutes later *** (busting through the front door) Thank god I set my alarm or I would've been totally screwed! Ummm.... okay. I'll play along. Yay for alarms! Thank the Lord Al

Once, in high school, I passed out in the locker room after swim class and the gym teacher rescued me which was awful because my swimsuit was half off and there's nothing like waking up from a coma to your male gym teacher pleading someone pull her suit up . As if that wasn't bad enough - and it totally should have been - I was then singled out by the Vice Principal. She thought I had an eating disorder and my punishment for passing out was eating school lunch in the nurse's office every day for a week. I had to sit there for a half hour after I was finished to make sure I didn't purge. I tried to tell them that if they wanted to join me for my daily Big Mac and french fries dipped in mayo lunch down at the local McDonald's they could. Let me tell you, I liked to eat! But somehow I got old. And my body got decrepid. And I feel weak and creaky and ... well, old . Like my body just isn't functioning like it should. Like it used to. And one thing led to another,

Sometimes I post texts I receive from my teen daughter. This is like that, except I'll post the texts I received from my sister, who was with my teen daughter. So, they're texts about my teen, not from my teen. A variation of a theme, if you will. It's actually more of a narrative delivered in text form. Anyway.... here are the texts I received from my sister about my teen: This may require email rather than text... Teen: (standing in kitchen) "I have to pee so bad!" (does not move.) "But I'm not going to go. I'm going to hold it." (confused aunt pause) "You know, just to see how long I can." (more confused expressions from her aunt) "What? Don't you ever do that?" Aunt replies: "I can see that would be appropriate if we were in a Third World Country or if the only option was a nasty porta-potty... but we are in our house." A few minutes later... Teen: "How many glasses of water do you think I can dr

She's gone. That's the text that stopped my breath. I knew it would. I knew it the second I saw it there, waiting. See, G shouldn't have been texting me. Because she's supposed to be spending time with her Mom. Her beautiful, lovely, sweet, tender mother. Her mother, who was supposed to grow old. Much, much older than this. And as long as G was not texting me and not calling me and not able to meet for dinner and drinks then I knew everything was still okay. I knew that they were busy together, laughing, cracking up over old stories. They were busy together holding hands, drinking tea. Looking out the window in silence. They would both still be here. Together. In my heart I knew the next text I would receive from G would be the hardest one she would ever send to me. I was dreading that text. And it crippled my heart to know that she - my dear friend with the heart of a million good deeds, who walks the earth capable of only what is good, and kind, and right - th

I always feel a twinge of sadness for the person who watches a sitcom and says, " whose life is like that in real life anyway ?" because obviously their life is incredibly boring and that's obviously very sad. Because some people's lives really are like a sitcom. For example some people in real life have actual conversations with their siblings that start of like this: So, I was googling how to collect dog semen .... and that just seems entirely normal. What is not entirely normal are the ways the internet suggests to actually collect the dog semen. (I advised contacting the local police department to ensure no lines are accidently crossed.) And some people have real jobs that include working with someone who walks in and announces: So, this guy asked his neighbor for a sledgehammer so he could kill his pig and left the pig entrails in the garden covered up by cabbage leaves and now the neighbors are complaining about the smell . To which any normal person (who ha

There is just something magical about the first awareness of a birthday. "It's my birthday! I going to be three ! I so excited !!" His wishes were simple: new shoes for preschool and a red backpack. Daddy let him pick out his own birthday cake. It had Winnie-the-Pooh on it and sat in our refrigerator for a full 24 hours; being checked on and pointed out every ten minutes. "That's my birthday cake! I so excited !!" He could hardly get to sleep: "Tomorrow's my birthday! I so excited !!" Our prayers included blessing Grammy and Papa and Great Grandma and our birthday cake. He literally jumped out of bed the next morning, arms flung wide: "It's my birthday! I so excited !!" He dressed himself in his big boy underwear, light blue shirt and khaki shorts. "I go church and Sunday School and sing music for my birthday! I so excited !!" He skipped through the park

A couple days ago I posted to my Facebook something along the lines of if you have to tell me how great a parent you are, um, you're probably not . I got a whole lot of ain't that the truth, sister! responses. See, I'm not one of those great parents. In fact, I actually lean more toward the side of Absolute Dysfunction without quite crossing over to Criminally Negligent. (I'll be sure to blog about it when it does happen.) I haven't taken years of schooling or read mountains of parenting books written by experts to ensure I'm scholastically prepared for parenting. Perhaps because I'm just one of those lazy parents who have no right procreating ... or maybe because deep down I wonder what good it does anyway. I just don't believe any single person can be educated for every combination of personality traits and every environmental circumstance beyond our control that could possibly occur. I tend to believe the majority of parenting falls into the catego

Years ago, when I was a young single mother who worked two jobs and still had no money to pay any bills, wasn't receiving a dime in child support, had no other assistance from the father of my child; struggled to figure out child care arrangements so I could work, struggled to pay the medical bills for all  the required vaccinations, struggled to keep the electricity turned on, struggled to maintain my sanity, struggled to maintain my sense of self, struggled to maintain some semblance of normalcy in an otherwise completely un-normal situation, I received a phone call from my happily married cousin: "I just don't know how you do it." I could hear her shaking her head through the phone line. "I just feel so bad for you." Bad? For me? I mean, yeah, I struggled. But so does everybody. Just because you're married doesn't mean struggles suddenly disappear. But bad for me ? What?! Obviously she didn't know the perks of being single. And, so, I e

If you haven't read The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, do it. You'll love it! Or you won't. But either way you'll procrastinate doing the laundry because it's kind of a long book. Personally, I loved it. And not just because it gave me something to do that made me appear calm, cool and completely unaffected when I was otherwise seething at the ridiculousness of our remodeling project discussions, which is now being referred to as well, you're the one who wanted to buy the stupid house in the first place . (Because we're nothing if not mature and respectful during our discussions.) That discussion usually leads to the well, maybe if I'm so stupid, perhaps I don't know how to make dinner and you'll just have to starve to death  discussion. (Because we're nothing if not adult and can separate out our differences without holding irrational grudges.) That usually leads to another discussion, and then to another, and after a few more turns