a short story about a tall boy

so much with the heavy here lately.

and i don't want to look back on this blog in 5 years (if i'll even be able to..i have a habit of starting then deleting these things) and only remember the ugly.

i need to remember the shiny things too.

this is a story. a story that has a happy ending. and i have it on good authority that anyone who reads this will enjoy it more if they're eating something delicious at the same time.

multi-tasking is your best friend, guys.

punctuation, capitalization, and other nonsense is over rated.

this place always smells like teenage boy ass, stale coffee, and cigarette smoke. i contribute the smoke to all the delinquents who crowd outside the door so they can make out with each other and give themselves cancer.

i don't get the point of making out. not that i wouldn't do it if some boy asked me. it's just so weird...tongues on tongues. where's the appeal of tasting someone else's spit or finding out what they had for lunch? 

no, i've never made out with a boy. or girl for that matter. and yes, i'm 19. my mother tells me it's because boys are intimidated by me. i call bullshit. i think it's 60% i'm too fat, and 40% i come off as a bitch because i'm too afraid to talk to them. 

tonight might be different though. see, there's this boy. he found me on aol and i'm supposed to meet him here, since apparently we both like hanging out with weirdos. i don't know much about him, except that we like the same music. and he's supposed to be wearing a philmore shirt. common sense tells me he could be a stalker. or really boring, creepy, or just plain dumb. scout's honor, i don't really care what he looks like. it's so cliche i know, but i've never really cared. 

it's funny how i don't care what he looks like, but care way too much about how i look. but here's the irony: so much care is given to make me look like i don't care. my shoes are old and dirty, my hair brushed in such a way to look like i haven't touched it in weeks. and my make-up is applied the way that aunt becky on "full house" taught me. i look like i'm not wearing any at all. 

but for some reason tonight i feel invincible. because someone has finally noticed me. someone wants to meet me. and talk to me. and maybe even "like" me like me. i feel like i could fly.

i'm not alone, thank god. amy's with me. and we spend the entire night checking all the shirts on the boys in the room. her glass half full attitude is infectious. which may explain why i feel like flying and not crawling into a hole, like my usual self.

i don't know anything about coffee. which is why i order the same thing every single time i come here. some syrup infused cold thing... and truth be told, i don't think the boy behind the counter with blue hair and 17 holes in his head knows jack shit about coffee either. but it always makes me feel less awkward, having something in my hands. 

we make our way into the huge, carpeted room with dark walls where the music is coming from. the smell is by far its worst in here. and everyone is trying so hard...so hard to fit in, by looking like they don't want to fit in. and i so badly want them all to notice me. to like me. 

sometimes the music in here is so loud i'm on the verge of convulsions. seriously. i hate to sound like an old person, but does it have to be so loud? and why do all these boys think screaming at me makes me happy? there's a right way to scream and a wrong way to scream. and these people are all doing it wrong. 

and anyway, it's nearing the end of the night and i haven't seen a single philmore shirt in the crowd. i should've known he wouldn't show when he saw me. i'm so stup.....

"hi, are you vanessa?"

"oh, hi. yea. you're really tall."

"i eat a lot of pizza."

then he smiled. and, well, i had that feeling i'd been waiting 19 years for. it felt like i'd been punched in the stomach and it forced my heart into my throat. suddenly swallowing became just as impossible as saying anything whitty, smart or funny. all i could do was smile. and pretend to enjoy the screaming that was happening on the stage a few feet in front of me. 

he wore the wrong shirt. a shirt that happens to be his favorite he'll later tell me. 

whether or not he's my future, i don't know yet. but i do know the following:

he's adorable
he's adorable
and, well, he's adorable
also...tall. very very tall..

which is good because he makes me feel very very small.

i wonder if he'll talk to me again after seeing me...

the end

or, i'll say it, the beginning

out history started september of 1999.

we would officially start dating in november.

and make out for the first time in december. at which point i would understand why people did it so much. we still do it as often as the short people will let us.

engagement would come in july of 2001.

marriage in may of 2003...

then the rest is a blur of babies, poop, breastmilk, and sleep depravation. 

and i still get that feeling, you guys.

the one where i feel like i'd been punched in the stomach and it forced my heart into my throat.

today's post was brought to you by too many hours of staring at this damn laptop editing pictures, my love being at school or work 24/7, and non-stop fighting from my children.

it was written on the floor or my dark bedroom in front of a whirring box fan and "roseanne" on the tv. 

i am not a writer, i just play one on this blog.

that boy that was supposed to wear the philmore shirt? he's the writer.

and i love him. 

care enough to care

the thing about learning to love yourself is that you have to ignore all outside influences.

i spent my day cleaning our bedroom, which meant hours of folding laundry, which i usually do with the television as my companion. jenny craig told me multiple times that i needed to eat their food so i could lose 20 pounds. a size 6 actress told me that "big girls wear shapers under everything". fuck you..the only time i wore a shaper was the day i got married, and i hated every second of it.

there's the television, the magazines while i'm waiting to buy my groceries, the billboards on the side of the highway, the people in my life offering to send me to weight watchers.

and all their voices seem so much louder than the one in my head.

i weave in and out of self confidence.

some days i feel untouchable. like nothing can bring me down off this high i've recently found. the high where i love the chub in my armpits, the cellulite on my thighs, and even my belly.

others i avoid looking in the mirror all together. i catch a picture of me that was taken when i didn't know it and am disgusted with what i see. i hate it all, right down to the weight i've gained in my hands and face.

and it's always the same, whether i weigh 160 pounds or 260. i wonder if i'll ever be comfortable in my own body. and why i can't find that place where i love myself enough to care.

and the worst part is that every woman, and probably even most men, who are reading this are nodding their head thinking things like "this is exactly how i feel".

it's like we're trained early on that we're not worth much outside of what other people see when they glance our way. they probably look at me and think "she'd be pretty if she weren't so fat" or "why do fat girls think they can wear short shorts?".

and in doing so they fail to ever know the real me. and if they did they'd know that i happen to be talented, funny at times, have a decent sense of humor, enjoy good music just as much as i enjoy good food, love going for walks, adore the ocean, and a good book..among other things that make me wonderful.

and none of this really even matters because those other voices will always be there. i just need to learn to employ the selective hearing skills being a mother has offered me.

i need to develop my own opinions of myself and quit relying on what others think. and i need to learn to love myself enough to take care of myself.

late night cake eating to drown my sorrows doesn't make me feel better, even if it does give me the brilliant idea of forcing siri to call me "the goddess of cake". nothing feels better than a long walk or maybe even a jog. i've been dying to try yoga but am terrified that i'll fail miserably. i adore hooping but can't force myself to go outside and play.

i'm worth it. we all are. and i want my children to grow up with the confidence to love themselves..know themselves..and know better than to listen to the other voices.

by the way, i realize i've been extremely ego-centric as of late..especially in the self portrait department. there's a good reason, other than me being completely vain. 

i'm taking part in this incredible class with a group of brave, beautiful women and it's causing me to do a lot of searching within myself. it's been challenging, exciting, and terrifying all at the same time. 

list of happy

1. hula hoops. obviously. and the fact that it's impossible to be sad when one's in your hands.

2. boys with banjos.  i've said it before and i'll say it again..these guys will always have my heart. and not just because of their songs, but because of who they are.

3. kittens. and being okay without one.

4. jewelry that makes me smile. and embracing the girly girl inside me with glitter nail polish and red lipstick.

5. lazy, silly mornings.

6. beautiful women who inspire me.

7. tracking this tag on tumblr. and having the confidence to know that i'm beautiful.

8. this beautiful, wonderful man. the way the corners of his eyes wrinkle when he smiles. his love for books. his patience. the way he looks at me. his hands. the way he can't get through a joke without laughing so hard he can't breathe.

9. new

recipes

to

try

and food in general.

10. the love of friends.

crying in the frozen section

while grocery shopping last night..because hi, it's 113 degrees & neither one of our cars have air conditioning... i was thinking about life, and death. mostly death. how unfair it is. and how the only thing i believe in right now is love and friendship. not even family.

then this song came on..

and i'm standing there in front of the frozen chicken breasts, trying to decide if we can afford one bag or two...and i just start crying. in the middle of crest. this is where i'd insert an ode to my long hair..a poem about how much i love it because it enables me to hide my feelings from those around me.

and fuck i'm angry. and sad. and mostly angry. and confused.

i've spent the last two days in a haze.

then i woke up this morning and decided that there are lessons to be learned. every single day bad things happen, and we can choose to drown in them or rise above and swim.

i've never been a very competent swimmer. i suck at it really. but this is me trying to gain my strength.

hope. it's what keeps me going. hope that the children of lost parents will be okay. that my friends will stay safe. that my children will forgive me for being totally incompetent for the last two days. i'm losing faith, but i can hold onto hope.

laughter, adventure, and imagination. these are the thing i'm going to strive for today.
because my boys are currently jumping from couch to couch to table to couch dressed as spiderman, and i'm going to play this until the funk has passed. because it's as annoying and catchy as fuck.

love, laughter, adventure

the last few months have brought friends and acquaintances passing on well before their time. it's caused me to pause and reevaluate life.

forever i will move like the world that turns beneath me
and when i lose my direction i'll look up to the sky
and when the black cloak drags upon the ground
i'll be ready to surrender, and remember
well we're all in this together
if i live the life i'm given, i won't be scared to die

the life i'm given. these children..this man...they're all that matters.
once the semester has started i'll rarely see him.
work, class, study, ready
repeat
and i have to wonder if it's all worth it.

so much time spent apart from each other.
but he works so we can eat.
and it all seems like such a waste.

last night we went swimming in the dark, nearly 2 hours after our normal bed time.
and i don't regret a thing.

love
laughter
adventure
these are the things i believe in

the rest of life is made of all these silly details. details that don't really matter.

mother

Almost daily I need to remind myself that being a parent is a privilege. Any one can get pregnant and be a birth mother, but it takes an incredible amount of patience and love to be a mommy.

And anyone who tells you that they've never questioned their decision to have kids or wonder what their life would be like if they'd chosen a child free path is a fucking liar.

Me? I think I'd be traveling. Seeing all the places I never made it to. Maybe I'd be riding elephants in exotic places with my camera in hand. Maybe I'd be traveling in a bus with a guitar that I learned how to play because my hands weren't busy changing diapers and nursing babies. Maybe I'd be living in a tiny loft in New York while working for pennies in random art galleries because I just love learning about art history. Who knows... and that's part of the beauty.

You always hear people say that you shouldn't look back or dwell on the past. And when I think about my life without my children I just think about how much I would miss them. So I force myself to look ahead. Instead of day dreaming about the exposed brick walls in my tiny loft or the romance of the open road I day dream about the day that Faith will become an adult. What will she be like? Will she fall in love and commit herself to someone? Will she keep her independent streak and make a fabulous life for herself doing something fantastic? And what about Elliott? He's my little sensitive artist. Will that hold through adolescence into adulthood or will growing up squash those qualities that I love so much? And Otto... my little ball of energy... will he forever stay so loving and snuggly or will he change with time? Will my boys get married some day? Will they thrive on being different or feel the pressure to fit in? What will my role be in assuring I raise free thinking, loving children? How the hell am I going to do it?

Raising such children is going to be a challenge in the Bible belt with religious right wing family surrounding us. Just yesterday my Elliott told me that boys kissing boys was gross, and I don't even know where he heard it. Was it from someone at school? Did someone at a church somewhere some time tell him that? Do I need to ban church? Why am I surrounded by such small minded insecure people?

Love. My primary role as a mommy is to love. Even when temper tantrums are being thrown, children are hiding under blankets refusing to speak to me, or jumping up and down in the hotel and I'm having to remind them for the 15,000th time to be kind to the people below us... I will love. I will be patient. I will nurture. I will not shout. I will not shout. I will not fucking shout. I will save the word fuck for frustration towards other people, like my mother.

I am flawed. I curse. I still walk around naked in our house even though it may not be appropriate any more. I shout. Sometimes I even yell. Sometimes I even get the urge to hit aka spank, even though those impulses are always overcome. I crave quiet. I crave peace. I crave alone time. I crave the days when it was just me and my cat in my little apartment..where everything was in its place and my glade plug ins made everything smell like cloves and cinnamon.

My life now consists of sticky things everywhere. I wipe bottoms daily. I clean up spills. I tie shoes. I brush hair. I drive back and forth all day long, every day. The science museum. The zoo. The park. And some days I turn on a movie on in my bedroom and let them fill my bed with crumbs while changing clothes over and over again just so I can sit quietly with a cup of coffee and a book on the couch, hoping that daddy will be home soon and bedtime will come quickly.

Marriage is difficult with children. There are disagreements. There's the delicate balance between letting each of us parent as we sit fit and not undermining each others authority, and knowing when to tell each other to back off and chill the fuck out. Sex is rare...and rushed 99% of the time. Date night is non-existent. And when it does exist it's always over too quickly. Some days we're lucky to be able to get in a 10 minute conversation with each other before passing out. There are weeks that go by without us even sleeping in the same bed together all night. But we've made it this far with more love than we've ever had for each other before, and we've stayed strong through it all.

He's a daddy.
I'm a mommy.
And maybe when they move on I will have such severe empty nest syndrome that I'll stay in bed for weeks on end watching horrid television and eating hostess cupcakes.
But when that phase has passed I'll be ready to travel to distant lands. I'll climb on that elephant with my camera in my hand. We'll buy a magic RV that carries us down Route 66. I'll drive and he'll play his guitar. We'll celebrate freedom and our children will beg us to come home and see them.

I have time. I will grow old peacefully once they have chosen their paths. But right now I'm here to love, hug, and teach important life lessons. Everyone is beautiful. Everyone is lovable. The toilet paper roll goes towards the front, not the back. Flossing is always an option, not a necessity. Sometimes you just need to yell to get your frustration out, and that's okay. You're allowed to get mad at me. You're allowed to cry. I don't care what you believe, as long as you believe it with all of your heart. I don't care what path you choose, as long as you do it with honestly and integrity.

In short, I wish I had been my own damn mother, and had my husband for a father.

*Colorado is amazing by the way. The air is so much lighter here, the sun shines brighter without the heat, and we are loved. I'm so grateful for our time here, and will be grateful to get back home to my lover.

(lots more pictures on flickr)

the good, the bad, and no ugly because i'm beautiful

sounds in my house at this very moment:
toys being dumped out onto the living room floor
nickelodeon playing quietly on the television
faith cutting up dried seaweed for them to have as a a snack. they seriously eat them like potato chips
the ceiling fan whirring above my head. it's actually not horrible hot today and i've had the window units off for most of it

things have been..interesting. and challenging.

at this very moment cory is applying for even more jobs. catching a break would be pretty sweet here.

at this moment, when i have 3 months left to fulfill groupon clients, i have mixed feelings about it all. would i do it again? fuck no. do i regret doing it? no, i don't think so.

i've been in a slump in mom land. and it's because most of my days are spent staring at a monitor editing pictures. i've gotten a rhythm down with groupon clients & lightroom that's made the process so much quicker, but it's still sucking my time into a black hole. which leaves my poor children to make their own fun. today was spent with dance parties and swimming, despite the water being titanic like thanks to the massive amount of rain last night.

i find myself wondering lately how people manage to live such glamorous lives. it's almost like much of instagram is "look how awesome i am!" and that's definitely me being bitter and judgmental. I haven't even posted in a few days. what am i gonna post? this is me...sitting on the toilet & peeing for the twentieth time today because my children destroyed my bladder. this is me...drinking yet another diet coke when my brain tells me i should be drinking water. this is me...staring in the mirror, squeezing my belly fat yet again wishing i had christina hendrick's body. this is me...sitting on my ass editing pictures that will never get purchased or seen again. seriously, you guys. i'm considering just giving the last groupon clients all their files so i don't have to order their prints any more or deal with it.

sometimes i consider giving up coffee and trading it for tea. then i remember i would be dead without it.

i noticed a penny stuck on the kitchen floor yesterday. i should mop at some point.

you know how the pioneer woman posts pictures of the trash she sweeps off her floors & claims she's "keepin' it real"? i call bullshit. she should see what i sweep off my floors.

i've come to the realization that i have two sons & a husband. i will never again have a bathroom that doesn't smell like piss 24/7.

i haven't folded laundry in weeks. it's liberating..until i need to find clean clothes. then it's horrible.

is it wrong to be jealous of my 7 year old daughter's skin tone & trim physique?

here's a secret that won't be a secret any more: i'm closer to 300 pounds than 200 now. barely, but i am. this is heartbreaking, depressing, and so discouraging. it also means that every time i see my mother now she has to say something about my weight. my tongue starts bleeding from the excessive biting i end up doing. this was the woman who told me i was fat then fed me more food. and fed me an exclusive diet of take out food and frozen pizzas.

but then i realize that i'm a 31 year old woman dammit. i need to take responsibility for my own bad habits & quit blaming other people. but it's just so much easier to point fingers. it's why we all do it.

31...i'll be 32 in 9 days. i feel like only decades matter now. 30 mattered. 40 will matter. 32 doesn't mean shit. although i have noticed wrinkles around my eyes.

right now you'er experiencing a serious case of verbal diarrhea.

and those were the bads... i should share some goods.

cory is my light, you guys. i won't lie & say that we're always perfect. in fact, we're far from it. our marriage has definitely had it's ups & downs. right now we're climbing upward and it feels so good.

i had my first thai food experience last night and i'm a changed woman. so fucking good.

after 7 1/2 years i'm finally okay with the idea that having happy children means more than having a clean house. some days it's spotless in here. others it's an episode of hoarders minus the dead cats. every day my kids are fed and laughing. that's a win.

i've re-found my photography mojo when it comes to taking things for myself. i need to get back into the habit of doing it every single day, but at least i'm getting back into the groove.

i finally own an epiphane camera bag/purse. i'd been waiting for 2 years for one of those babies. i will never not feel guilty for spending the money on myself, but we agreed it would be my birthday present from everyone in this house..and i'm totally okay with it. and the thing is amazing. seriously.

even though i'm officially fat, i actually feel more comfortable in my own body than i ever have before. it's crazy i realize. and probably just me making an excuse to stay fat & not work to change it...but it feels nice to feel disgusting for once.

every season of buffy is on netflix right now. my soul is dancing.

we've discovered the joys of stacking dominos then knocking them down. hours of entertainment here, and i'm sure they're learning the importance of something really vital..like physics or something.

my children are healthy, tender, perfect

and stupid cute.