Angels around us

I had a crappy night last night. There is no other way to put it except that it was crappy. I had bad news yesterday (someone I love is sick. very sick.) and as a result I didn't sleep well. I was awakened by a wrong number at 3:19 this morning. I was scared and confused (as anyone would be at 3:19 in the morning). I went back to sleep and had an awful dream - one of those where you wake up confused, scared, crying, a whole host of ugly emotions. I woke up today and was short on patience, emotions and sleep, and high on anxiety and stress. I had about a million papers to grade, and somehow got roped into helping my Skippy with a bake sale/hot dog stand in Lodi. I love my Skip, but today I was not loving and I snapped at her on more than one occasion. I was less than pleased with how my day was going when a strange and beautiful thing happened. This bake sale/weenie extravaganza was at a Farmer's Market and Bicentennial kickoff in Lodi. There was a family at the Farmer's Market who had for sale, among other things, bouquets of flowers. Anyone who knows me well knows that one of the things that makes me happiest in the world is having fresh cut flowers in my house. It was towards the end of the day and I was hot, tired, and not even close to pleasant. I was helping tear down the hot dog stand when this beautiful little creature, maybe 6 or 7 years old, appears in front of me with a bouquet of flowers. She was the daughter of the woman running the flower stall, and they had some bouquets that hadn't sold so the mother was letting the daughter give them away to other vendors. This child couldn't see my anger or frustration...or maybe she could. All she could see was someone who needed flowers. She handed me a bouquet of yellow and purple flowers (my favorites!)...and in that moment I just stopped. I thought of all of the anxiety and pain (that's what it is, people, mental pain) that I was in today. I thought of all of the things that I had done as a result of not knowing what to do with that pain. And I saw this little girl in front of me, and all I could do was smile at her and try not to cry. She was the reminder to try to find something beautiful in the pain. She was the reminder that it's not always easy to see one good moment in a hundred bad ones. This little girl and her purple and yellow flowers reminded me of the way one person can change the day of another. She was one of my angels today. Even though I can't see them every day, it's nice to know I had an angel with some flowers today.

one year.

hace un an~o que me fui de la isla. Hace un an~o que te deje, querida mia, con la promesa de que iba a regresar lo mas pronto posible. te prometi que iba a volver a verte, que te iba a sacar de la cama, del nido de la casa. te prometi que ibamos a caminar, tu y yo, por toda santa rosa. te iba a llevar a sears y a ponderosa, que tanto te gustaba. ibamos a irnos a kmart, a amigo. me ibas a hacer el cafe que nunca aprendi a hacer como tu lo hacias. siento que nunca pudimos hacer las miles y miles de cosas que me hubieran gustado compartir contigo, abuela de mis suen~os. hace un an~o que me fui de casa llorando porque sabia que esa iba a ser la ultima vez que te vi en esta vida. un an~o. no me lo puedo creer.

un an~o. te extran~o.

waiting on the world to change.

right now, this very moment (which will, of course, change before i post this) i am 36 minutes from 28. nitpicky, i know. i always get a tiny bit (ok, a lot) nostalgic on my birthday. i was thinking back today while i drove on I-71 about birthdays gone by. something interesting usually happens on my bday, and there are a few in particular that stand out. here's a recap:

1981 - I am born. nothing unusual except that i almost kill my mother in the process.

1985 - my parents divorce is finalized the day before my birthday. happy 4th birthday to me.

1986 - skippy manages to wreck her car about 1 hour prior to my 5th birthday party. my great-grandmother ends up entertaining 5 5-year olds until skip makes it home. grandma is not thrilled. i am.

1989 - i turn 8. i have pneumonia. as in missed 2 entire weeks of school pneumonia. awesome.

1991 - skip manages to fall ill with chronic fatigue syndrome the week prior to my birthday. i participate in a car wash the morning of my 10th birthday (a saturday). i have my party at the roller skating rink.

1994 - i turn 13. i celebrate my first birthday with a broken leg. this will not be my last birthday with a broken leg.

1997 - an exchange student arrives at our house two nights before my bday. i turn 16 on a sunday. i celebrate by going on a bike ride because i am too chicken sh!t to get my driver's license.

1999 - i sprain my ankle in what can only be described as a dancing with the stars type leap in the hallway of my dorm. i go to the emergency room, where they actually call my parents and make them drive 70 miles before they can treat me because i am not yet 18 (this was at about 2 am on the day before the bday).

2001 - i go to dinner with el nene. i get a phone call from my father and spend the rest of the night in the hospital because he thinks my stepmother is going into labor. the next day, i play driver to a bunch of college freshmen on a field trip. i am henceforth christened mrs. robinson. oh, and i turn 20.

2002 - i turn 21. i celebrate by having a hotel party where, miraculously, no one gets hurt.

2003 - i turn 22 while living in boston. i celebrate by driving to maine. miraculously again, no one is injured in said trip.

2006 - i turn 25. we celebrate with a trip to canada, which sounds exotic but is really only about an hour from where i live in michigan. this is also my first trip to a casino. i lose $40 to a penny slot machine called the dam beaver lumberjacks. not kidding.

2008 - i turn 27. this is the year i graduate from law school. this is also the birthday i spend hopped up on painkillers, as i have recently made a tumble down an entire flight of stairs. this marks the third time i have spent my birthday in some kind of cast on my leg.

2009 - TBA.

that's it for the trip down memory lane. now for a brief schmoltzfest.

as with many of my more recent birthdays, i have spent the time leading up to 28 reminiscing in a melancholy sort of way. and, being who i am, i have to share this with the blogosphere at large. granted, my blogosphere consists of about 8 people...but still. i'm sharing. to begin with, i am quite unsure as to how i arrived at 28 without noticing. i had big plans for myself by this age - i mean BIG. many of those plans have not been achieved thusfar...but i have to say, i have done a lot of things in my life that i am pretty damn proud of. i graduated from high school, college, law school. i went and lived for a time in another country, and managed to do so with relatively little incident. i have people in my life who love me, unconditionally, without asking too many questions. they are patient with all of my issues, my hangups, my idiosyncracies. god, i hope i spelled that right. i guess where i am going with this is that i am so goddamngrateful to be alive that i don't know how to handle it. there are many things in my life that i would like to see change, but nothing i can't live with (or without). the past 27 years have taught me to enjoy who i am, where i am, and the company that i have on this wild ride - and these people, for the most part, know who they are. thank you for being in my life, for supporting me in just about everything i do, and for never giving up on me, even when i gave up on myself. i know i still have a lot to learn - but so far, it's been an amazing adventure. here's to 28 (on the 28th, no less!) - may this next year be as much fun - or more! - as the others have been.



8 minutes to my birthday. don't forget to send gifts. :-)

Love to those who listen.

waiting.

when i was home for a year and doing community theater, we did a show called i love you, you're perfect, now change. there was a song called waiting...and now that i am doing just that - waiting on the bar results - all i can hear in my head is that song playing over and over. in a word? this sucks. i took the test in july, it's highly annoying that the results don't come out until november. i'm tired of getting the questions, i'm tired of everything being on hold until the results are here.



AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!


i feel better.

sometimes the waiting is the worst

the tension of not knowing and waiting are beginning to take their toll on everyone - at home, not at home, all of us. will this sneeze be her last? what if she goes into a coma again? is she in transition? is hospice necessary? is she going to be with us tomorrow? next week? next month? will she live to see my children? will she live to see the baby grow up, take his first steps, talk, say I love you? is she in pain? is she not in pain? is this it? is this just the beginning? y si esto es el principio del final? Dios, que vamos a hacer sin ella?

ay abuela. una cosa yo la tengo bien clara...yo te extran~are.

nunca.

que quiere decir "no te voy a ver nunca mas?" esa palabra nunca. esas 5 letras son pocas en comparacion a muchas cosas, pero representan un cisma, un vacio que no se puede cubrir. y si la ultima vez que te vi la cara fue de verdad la ultima vez? de verdad no te voy a ver nunca mas? hablando con mami esta noche me di cuenta de que todo esto puede ser un vistazo al futuro para mi. en pocas palabras, no queriendo disminuir la situacion pero no sabiendo que mas decir, mi abuela se esta muriendo. tecnicamente le estan fallando los rin~ones, sufrio un derrame isquemico en el lado izquierdo del cerebro la semana pasada y sufre de la diabetes cronica. se nos esta yendo, poquito a poco. yo se, la vida es una enfermedad terminal, pero escuchar que mi santa abuela se va dentro de la nada me duele. ella ha sido mi conexion con mi madre, la conexion umbilical que nunca tuve porque mi existencia no fue (es) consecuencia de una relacion sino que la consequencia de las ideas y del deseo. mi abuela es (y siempre sera, viva, muerta, con nosotros, con alguien mas) mi Ursula, mi antecedente, mi precursora a lo porvenir. yo he pisado este camino antes pero nunca de esta manera, nunca con un ser que queria tanto sin estar con ella mas de unos cuantos meses en mi vida entera. no se como vivir esta nunca que anda por ahi. no quiero que se acerque. no se.

t-minus.

let's set the record straight before i even begin here. i love this island. love this island. i am distraught over the fact that i actually have to leave...but i know that this is my temporary hiatus. call it what you want, but i'm coming back. period.
at the same time, as much as i love this place, and as much as i love me in this place...te extran~o. me haces una falta terrible. extran~o la casa tuya, tu cara, tu voz. extran~o la manera en que me miras y me dices buenos dias, princesa cuando estoy bajando las escaleras de casa y apenas puedo abrir los ojos porque todavia estoy media dormida. te extran~o tanto que me duele, fisicamente. dammit. i just miss you, period.
i can't wait to see you. 4 weeks seems like an eternity, but it's going to fly. i have to pack up my entire life in those 4 weeks. i have to baptize my godson in those 4 weeks. i have to say goodbye, if temporarily, to all of the people who have helped me and accompanied me in this brief but awesome escapade on la isla bonita. this is my own road of bittersweet.

oh, and i cannot WAIT to see your face when i walk through that door. that's a moment 27 years in the making.

love to those who listen.