Thank You for the Memories

It is with much dragging of all my proverbial feet that I must write this post.

It's time for me to stop posting publicly about my family on this blog.  It's time for me to retire One-Sided Momma.  For serious political reasons we all hear about on the news lately and other privacy matters, I must discontinue One-Sided Momma.

Thank you for coming here to read what I've had to say for almost six years.  This blog has been a lifeboat for me more than I can ever express.  And you have all been my buoys of light throughout some of my darkest days, happiest moments, and memorable turning points.  Knowing you're out there cheering me on gives me fuel to keep writing.

We've been through a lot on here.  For that reason, I'd hate to lose anyone who is still interested in following our journey.

Please send me a personal email if you'd like to follow our anonymous adventure on an already established anonymous blog that I will not be linking to here.  If you've been a reader (and even if you've never commented) and you feel like you know us then I will extend that invitation to my new writing place to you personally.

Please leave me a comment on this post or maybe on the FB site with an email to reach you if you're interested in the new blog.  I would hate to leave anyone behind who is invested in our little happy world.  You are a big reason why I kept showing up here on One-Sided Momma when it would've been easier just to eat chocolate chip cookie dough.  My gawd do I love chocolate chip cookie dough.

Thank you for the memories, my friends.  Please join me somewhere new if you are missing OSMA.  I know I already am.

Love always and two weeks after that,

OSMA

*********************

I am leaving this message up for a few days.  After that, I will remove One-Sided Momma blog from the internet and cry a small river of sadness for this chapter of my beautiful life to close.

Thank you for being a monumental part of that.

xoxoxo

Still in There

Entering this new phase of life is disorienting but really fun.

Kids need me but only between the crushing hours of early morning and after 4pm.  Dogs and kitten want things with their eyes every thirty minutes in between.  Husband is all newly flirty, sweetly romantic, and retirement-planning.

I knew this time would come but I must've been changing the garbage bags because I didn't see it arrive. 

Ten years in family-rearing trenches never felt so rewarding and so completely bereft of self.  I'm sure I was there because two small children call me Mommy but sometimes I wonder. Do you, too?  Do you wonder where you went and why you had to go all these years?  Do you miss yourself?

Where did that student go who finally earned a respectable GPA by her last year of grad school?

What about that new teacher who smiled at everybody except the principal?

Who did away with the girl in the band they called Dove because she was the only white girl in the entire studio?

Why didn't that writing thing take off?

Didn't she try photography for a while, too?

Well, here's what happened:

The student is resting.  She studied her eyes out for like 28 years, she's tired and taking an eternal break from putting pressure on herself to do better all the time.  

The teacher is still teaching.  Her class is much smaller now, more manageable for her.  Sometimes her students get mouthy and she still tells them to drop and give her 20.  The big one enjoys PT but the little one doesn't.  She prefers to answer everything in song.  

The girl in the band still gigs.  She has a regular show every night at around 8:15 when one of her students is scared to be in bed alone.  It's an intimate setting in a dark venue - a rocking chair with the lights on low.  The set list has been on repeat for about four years.  Time to work in a little O.A.R. and Juice Newton.  Man, I really loved Juice Newton.

That writing thing really did take off.  She authors her life story for her children to read someday when she can no longer recall the details of their beautifully busy days. 

She did try photography for a while but has decided to step away from a lens that is one more distraction during the day.  She'll bring it back when the time is right. 

Moms and dads, don't worry.  I know by the time you get to where I am - 40something and experiencing a shift of seismic proportions - you're going to wonder where you went, too.

You're still in there. 

Watch, I'll prove it. 

Did you sing in the shower this morning?  Yes, humming counts.

Do you daydream at work and linger at the water cooler so you can hang out with your friends?

Are you secretly DVRing that Roosevelt special on the History channel because you always thought Eleanor was Teddy's wife?

Do you feel resentful that you are expected to stand by and take pictures with your phone like a parent of all things during a really cool birthday roller skating party for your son's friend?  Instead of strapping on those skates to let your 16 year old legs - because that's how old your body still is in your mind - fly around the rink?

Yes?  Well, there ya go.  You are still in there.  Never left, actually.  Simply a change of focus on other people who needed you to focus on them for a few years instead of your impressive small turning radius on wheels.  

I won't pretend to know how to resurface after all these years of being subterranean.  But I can tell you it's a bad idea to think you'd make an amazing Roller Derby Girl if you've never actually seen a roller derby scrimmage in person.  

Oh yes, I highly recommend researching thoroughly and no, attending practice doesn't count.  The girls play hard during practice and sometimes there's a pack of ice on someone's ankle but the real bouts are where it really goes down.  Girls become women on a gurney to the ER.  

I had a name picked out and everything.  Many names, truth be told.  Every day the youngin' in me would come up with another bada$$ name to match my bada$$ idea of becoming a roller derby girl.  

Seize Her Milan

Bangers & Smash

Gin 'n Toxic

Queen of Tarts

Picass-Ho

and my all time favorite:  Venus Envy. 

Well, it's not going to happen.  Derby is for ladies who don't mind breaking bones and working through the pain of healing.  I mind all that very much.  Trying to imagine folding laundry and giving Abby a bath with a broken clavicle was all I needed to cure me of signing up.  I'm more of a "Here, let me get you a warm washcloth," and less of a "Hey Pansy, I'm gonna smash you in the throat!!"  

It's good to know your limits. 

Venus Envy was but a dream.

But it's ok because I'm still in there.  Bubbling up more and more every day.  You will. too.  

Enjoy the surprises you have in store for yourself.  See if your body needs plyometrics or a cozy nook in a cafe people watching.  It knows, all you have to do is shower and grab your keys.  Want to work with animals but feel you need experience?  Drive to your local sanctuary or Humane Society and they'll set you right up with a plethora of dogga kisses and kitten head boops.   Need to stop doing for others and instead do for your sassy self now?  I get it.  Peruse aisles of a store and listen for a new style to lure you in.  You've always wanted to try big round earrings?  Do it.  They might go great with your new short hair. 

I'm sorry, I should've warned you.  And yes, it's a little shocking to me, too.  We'll all get used to it.  I've always wanted this hairstyle.  Just on a much younger face.  Ha!

Yes, this might be a disorienting time but an exciting time to rediscover yourself or better yet - redefine yourself!  If not now, then when?  If not you, then who?  Someone else named Venus Envy, that's who.  You cannot let that ho steal your thunder.  Go out and make your own. 

I'll pass you a warm washcloth. 

A Sacred Conversation

When I was very little I prayed to the God I believed granted wishes to give me a ravaging disease instead of to other moms.  My reasoning was that I thought I was strong enough to "handle" it.  I'd seen enough after-school specials to know kids needed to have their moms around for a long time (whomsoever "they" were and let's pretend whomsoever is still in the English rotation).  I was young, ignorant, unattached, and dispensable.

I'm not sure where that particular wish came from or why I had the ego of Kanye West.  Maybe because my mom means so much to me.  And her mom means so much to me.   Maybe because my dearest friend's mom had just died from cancer before she entered high school.  Maybe because I felt impervious and virtuous to ask for such a blow.

Who knows why we do anything as kids.  But now?

Now?

I am taking that request back every day, like a chump.  Please God, please let me me live long enough where my children will be ok without my daily presence.  Andy too.  Nice and old, maybe 80 something.  Dear God, I realize we made a deal but now other people are relying on me and I had no idea WHAT ravaging diseases ravaged.  Dear God, I have saved a lot of Ziploc bags and cut all those plastic rings so turtles and dolphins won't die whenever we buy bottled water.  I'm sorry we buy bottled water.  (When it comes to living, I am not above pointing out how green I am and how much I honor sea life.)

I have no idea if this is how it works.  Because while I've felt a God since I was little, my relationship with religion has been soft and light-hearted.  For me, proof is the point of living.  All the rest feels more like a test I am studying for when I have the time.  Read a little hear, write a little there, all the while hoping to take in what I need to pass the final when the time comes.

When the time comes.

Jimmy told many of us his time would come sooner than later.  He knew he wouldn't live to be an old man.

"But HOW do you know?" I prod him, squinting my eyes at his.
"I just do.  Look at me.  I'm aging in dog years.  I look like a basset hound."
"Shut it.  You look as handsome as ever.  More like a distinguished terrier.  Besides, I don't think I'm going to live that long either.  I made this deal with God a long time ago.  Oh no, it's cool.  We can party together in heaven."

Jimmy's countenance changes immediately.  He is not amused.  His face is locked flat, his eyes are sad, and I get the sense he thinks I'm mocking his premonition.

"No," I clarify,  "I just mean I'm not going to be ok without you here."
"You're going to live a very long life, Hon,  AND you're going to be ok," his words still make me cry, "I'm old and you're going to get old, ok?"
"Ok, fine.  If you say so, Jimmy."

And now, getting older every year feels like an extra bonus from him.  A little nod to one of our last conversations together.  Gifted time I get to spend growing grayer, softer, and stronger.

And yes, I'd say even a little basset hound.

Wake Up

Wake Up.

That's what my brother writes in his journal every night, before he goes to sleep.  He summarizes his day in an 1 inch by 1 inch square, highlighting in pen what stands out the most.  An artist of paraphrasing over a miniature scale of time.

"I forgot to wish Paulo a Happy Birthday," he tells me over the phone recently.

"How did you know it was his birthday?  Facebook?"

"My calendar.  I saw it on my calendar from last year."  Ah, what a treasure trove of important events my brother has created for himself, all the recipients of his birthday wishes, and beyond.

"It's been twelve years since you adopted Sadie."  I know, she's almost 13.
"You moved to Pennsylvania nine years ago yesterday."  Nine?  Why does it feel like twenty?
"We visited Dad in Texas in 2001."  Holy sh*t, your calendars go way back, man.

I think about what it means to my brother to write those words in the "tomorrow" box every night.

Wake Up.

Yes, yes, we do wake up.  Every morning.  To this new place again.  When we are lucky.

Lately, I feel so lucky to wake up and find my children small.  Oh good, you're still little as though the heavy hours of my soupy sleep has aged them exponentially.  My dreams are fierce, twisted, barrier crossers and I'm too tired to be in them anymore by morning.

Daylight is fanning through lazy blinds, iCarly is on low volume in the living room, and the coffee pot is hissing from the kitchen.  All this familiar glints beautifully through a bothersome world beneath.  My dreams have no power over me here.  Thickness fades while blinking and oxygen feel like rebirth.

"Goodbye, Daddy, I love you," whisper-shouts my son as Andy gathers his backpack, a piece of half toasted raisin bread most likely in his teeth.

"I love you, too."

I am so grateful to wake up.  To wake up here in a real world filled with delicious sounds of small children, busy husband, happy dogs, and one very naughty kitten.  It is a world filled with daylight and decaf, T-shirts and dishwashers, fundraisers and overcooked chicken, kisses and fights.

It's the world I love to live.  To devour by the hour, staving off the night.

I'm so lucky to wake up.

Hold My Hand, Mama

"Mama?  I thought about it all day.  I want to go to Full House with you tonight and skip gymnastics."

"You sure?"

"Yes, because gymnastics is one day a WEEK and Full House is one day a YEAR.  It's important."

"Sold.  Go get your happy clothes on, little mama, let's roll."

And off we go.  To Abby's Full House or Open House as those administrators like to call it.  We arrive a bit late on purpose to miss the general meeting.  Neither of us are interested in joining the PTA or sitting in cafeteria seats.

Full House is no misnomer as the halls are pulsing with parents in khaki pants, belted dresses, and scrubs.  (I miss wearing scrubs to places where nobody knows if you are just getting home from your residency, the ER, the OR, or the kennel.  Oh, the mystery.)  Immediately, I withdraw from the crowd in front of us.  Abby pulls me onward, her tiny hand in mine.

"Mama, C'MON!  We'll be late!"

Her confident presence fuels me to motor not only into the throng of people, but through it.  We come out the other side a smiling semi-circle, attached at the palms.

As we enter the classroom, Abby's teacher points to her, winks, then kneels down to hug a little boy showing off his herringbone jelly necklace.  She makes a big fuss and all I can see are her eyes, blue as daytime, and her pink painted toes.  She is a magnet for the children.  Before we make it to Abby's desk, I count four kindergartners tugging at the teacher's blouse, excited to see her after-hours and to show them something from their very own home.

Abby's major modus operandi is strictly to stick with the program.  She has an agenda and follow it we must, leaving no cubby unturned and no folded paper house untouched.

Proudly and reverently, she walks me to each corner of her classroom.  "This is where we nap, Mama.  But I don't really nap.  I might close my eyes but I don't really nap, I don't think, please and thank you."

Abby's nervous "please and thank you" started a few months back.  It's her go-to filler phrase when she doesn't know what else to say.  There are others that have come and gone like, "I think" or "Maybe I just dreamed that" or "I don't know" but "please and thank you" has stuck around the longest.  It's what I will remember when I think back to Little Abby.  That and her love of bubbles.

Moms and Dads are holding Chicka Chicka Boom Boom charts.  Some are pointing to cut-out pictures of their own children on the wall.  Most are making the exaggerated, "Oh my!" face so their children will know their art is not going under-appreciated.  We are all walking slowly.  But I notice something.  The other children are running around the classroom, to each other and to their beloved teacher.

All the children are untethered from their parents except mine.

Worried, I'm holding on too tightly and of course, ruining my daugther's chances at a successful future and marriage, I give slack in our hand and let my Abby go.

"Mama, I have to show you the HALLWAY!!"  She is already moving as she gobbles up my palm in hers once again.  Like a silent wish being answered, it is her doing, not mine.

Again, we weave in and out of people clusters like two coils of one busy DNA.

This tiny hand of hers in mine is everything in the world right now.  I can't make small talk, parent-teacher niceties, bend down to admire a little friend.  My girl has my hand in hers almost on accident  as though it's the most natural thing in the world, to connect herself to me -voluntarily- because she wants to.  Not because she needs to.

It's more than wanting to show me the hallway.  (The HALLWAY.)  It's more than attending her very first Full House.

It's a connection.  A connection that will be paraded through crowds, schools, projects, arguments, boyfriends, girlfriends, sleepovers, dances, graduations, and time.  A connection that will sometimes disconnet, momentarily, but always find its way back again.   A connection that I believed was one-sided:  me holding on to her for dear life.  

All these years, I've been so worried about what happens when I let go.  

Until I did.




*********************************************************************************
Hive Update:  Didn't mean to leave you all hanging about Abby's hives.  After she finished the cocktail of medicine her doctor put her on, she is all better.  No hives, no fever, no more mystery virus that caused them in the first place.  The ER doctor (yes, Dr. McSteamy) warned me that it will come back when I least expect it.  He's a realist, after all, just like an imaginary boyfriend should be.

The Zen of Ducks

Plump, steady, funny clowns
Ripple through their circles
Shifting weight like canoes
with a tipsy Captain

South to crane a tired neck
North to hunt for brighter fish
East, then west on pine needles
A hammock for an hour.



I look to them
when I feel gone
At ducks?
When I feel gone?

They remind me how to be here.

One gray, two black, 

two white, I count
Their feathers curl against the wind
They are made of layers, too

So very much like talking

Is that your smile, Astro Duck?
Is this where you sleep at night?

I'm not here to hurt you.

They trust this moment,
Not the last
Give no credence to
a past

Inside his circle
Wonder filled

I really hope he's smiling.

Doctor, Doctor

When you wake up in the morning, you don't get dressed based on whether or not you're going to be in the ER hours later.  (Or maybe you do.  Do you?  Can we be real life friends, we have so much in common already.)

You get dressed based on what's happening that day.  Walking the dog?  Tank top and Wal-Mart shorts.  Meeting at your kid's school in the afternoon?  Capri pants with that cute tangerine shirt that buttons up the front. 

So on a regular Tuesday, I wake up and pull on my favorite sleeveless peasant dress.  It's blue, kind of oddly tiered in segments like those dresses you find at candle shops.  The ones that reek of frankincense and perhaps a skoshe of myrrh.  

I have errands to run, dogs to walk, and dinner to make.  One too many things in public to get away with neon shorts all day.

By 6pm, I am in the ER with Abby. 

Abby who comes off the bus with hives.  If you have children, you know this is not a rare or special thing.  Kids come down with the craziest symptoms that have you googling with one hand and stirring taco meat with the other.  

My parenting alarm doesn't sound until her upper lip swells up.  She is suddenly and drastically a tiny Marge Simpson.  Yes, it is adorable but logically speaking, I worry it will be her tongue to poof next.  In my way of thinking, we have seconds to get her to a doctor before her airway is completely closed in.  I ask Andy to drive Abby and me to the ER.  Because, you know, I need my hands free to perform CPR or flail wildly at will.  Either, or.

It's crucial to let you know I pull back my hair and mop it down reeeeallly well on my head when I'm nervous.  So, by this hour, every oily molecule living near or on my hands is now ground deeply into my skull.  I'm shiny from tip to (pony)tail.  Now I am donning the kind of thing that is neither attractive or particularly successful.  My bangs are dangling in my eyes like spider legs. Something on me smells like tacos.  

We all make it to the door, register, and are seen within minutes.  Nobody's freaking out.  Abby's lip is stable albeit very Aflac like.  Things are going so well, Andy and Grayson take off to make the rest of his baseball practice.  That's when things happen.  And man, it could've been great.  If only I had showered.

Scene 1 - Nurse Enters Room

Nurse:  I'm going to ask you to drink this, Honey.  It will help with the itching and the swelling.

Me:  Steroid?

Nurse:  Yes.

Me:  Are we ok?

Nurse:  The doctor will be in shortly.  Yes, I think so.

Abby:  Can we go now?  We've been here FOREVER.

Me:  Hang on, Baby.  The doctor needs to look at you first.

Scene 2 - Doctor, Doctor

Doctor:  Well, Hello.  Abigail is it, or do you prefer to be called something else?

Inside my Head Me:  Oh No.  You're beautiful.  

Abby:  Abby.  I like. To be called. Abby. 

Inside My Head Me:  Be nice to my future boyfriend, Honey.  He's only trying to get to know you before we ride into the sunset on his yacht.

Doctor:  Then I shall call you Abigail.

Abby: I LIKE TO BE CALLED ABBY!

Real Me, finally making eye contact:  She really doesn't like the name Abigail.  I can't help you there.

Doctor, taking a dramatic stage pause, looking directly at me:  You're not from around here, are you?

Inside my Head Me:  Holy crap.  Is this happening?

Real Me:  No, I'm not.  How could you tell?  My accent?

Abby:  CAN WE GO NOW MOM?

Doctor:  No, it's more like your lack of any accent from anywhere, it's fascinating.  I've never heard anyone with a non-accent like yours.

Inside My Head Me:  He just called me fascinating. - rifling through purse like a drug addict - Where are my cough drops?  Dammit, Grayson ate my last piece of gum, didn't he?  That little...

Doctor:  Where are you from?

Inside My Head Me:  I am from Roma, Italia.  It is the city of love.

Real Me:  Oh, me?  I'm from the suburbs of DC.

Abby:  Mom, seriously.  I'm missing Teen Titans.  

Real Me:  I only let them watch an hour of TV per day, tops.

Inside My Head Me:  I should've said we don't even HAVE a TV.

Doctor:  Them?  You have other children?

Inside My Head Me:  Yes, but I can farm them out.  Would you prefer we just start anew?

Abby: G-R-A-Y-S-O-N

Doctor:  Well, I think you're going to be ok, Abigail.  I have an Abigail too and she's four.  She doesn't like to be called Abigail either.  

Inside My Head Me:  Oh thank you Lord for letting him have children, too.  Now I can keep mine.

Abby:  Does she like Hello Kitty?

Doctor:  Yes.  Very much.  Do you want a Hello Kitty band-aid?  I'll see what I can do.  I'll be right back with your discharge papers.  

Me:  Ok, I'll be waiting.  Umm, WE'll be waiting.  We'll be here.  Ok.  

Scene 3 - The Breakup

Doctor:  So, I couldn't find Miss Abigail a Hello Kitty band-aid but my nurse will be in with a pink one, ok?  You two take good care and come back if anything else comes up.

Inside My Head Me:  I am feeling a little faint.  See you in fifteen.

Abby:  Ok, we can go now?

Doctor:  Yes, you can go after the nurse gives you your prescriptions and your pink band-aid.

Abby:  And a purple one?

Inside My Head Me:  Oh my, I'm wearing flip-flops, this just keeps getting better.

Doctor:  AND a purple one.

Inside My Head:   I will always love you.

Real Me:  Thanks, Doc, take care!

Married Me:  HONEY, you should've SEEN this doctor.  No joke, he was from freaking Grey's Anatomy.  It was so annoying because I am just not in the mood for all of that tonight. 

Andy:  You're just saying that because you're mad at me for being late.

Me:  Heh.  No, I'm really not.  Believe me, I wish none of this happened.  Do I smell like tacos?