Driving Miss Crazy

I’m not a bad driver. Really. I’m not. But when my husband gets in the car with me, I swear, it’s like I morph into a 15 year old in a Driver’s Ed class. He makes me so nervous. My white knuckled grip on the steering wheel amuses him. He’s a total antagonist. You would think after 9 years with him, I’d have learned to not let him see how he gets to me. But I suppose my thin skin is part of my charm. I guess it would be to an antagonist.

Here’s how a 10 minute drive to the mall goes with Jeremy in the car:

“Babe. Seriously. You’re a late breaker.”

“HOLY--!!! BABE. You almost hit that car.”

“Babe, why didn’t you just turn there?!”

“Speed up, speed up, put your blinker on! GO! BABE! Honestly, if I wasn’t here you’d still be waiting to get over.”

“You totally just missed like five parking spaces. I guess we’ll be walking.”

Don’t even get me started on parallel parking. I don’t even try it anymore. I just get out, hand the keys to him, and wait. It’s not like I can’t do it. I parallel park in front of my house all the time. But never with him in the car.

So yesterday, after the above comments, I got out of the car. I walked on the opposite side of the parking lot from him. And when I heard him tell Chloe, “We’re walking this far because Mommy missed five parking spaces”, I threw the keys at his feet and said,

“HERE. DRIVE.”

I’m never, ever, driving Miss Crazy again. I won’t be responsible for my actions if it comes to that. Who knows? Maybe a convenient side swipe on the passenger’s side? Perhaps an accidental finger crush in the automatic window. Or he likes adventurous car movies. I can pull a Fast and the Beyond Furious move on him, and toss him out on the highway. Maybe he’ll find a good driver to take him home.

If you read this, BABE, you know I love you. And from now on, I’d just really love for you to drive.

Mama's Girl

My mom is moving to Florida. Like, right now. As I write this.

In a way, it's like losing her all over again. Part of me feels like that 18 year old girl, striving to walk the tenuous tightrope between resentment and understanding. I’ve fallen off on both sides.

I’ve had a lot of practice being brave. Especially lately. But right now, I can’t be brave. I don’t want to be brave. I want my mama.

Leap

I haven’t posted anything for awhile. The truth is, I haven’t really known what to say; how to follow my last blog. A lot of things seem a little trivial in the aftermath. Real life kind of comes up and kicks you in the face, whether you’re ready for it or not. So, like real life, I’m just going to dive right into some things I’ve been thinking about the past few weeks, things I’ve been pondering.

Jeremy and I have finally started attending a church (BIG deal here, people, but one I won’t go into right now). A few weeks ago, the pastor asked us if we could allow God to put our entire year, 2011, into one word, what would that word be? What would our goal be? What would the sum of all our endeavors come to? This is the word I heard:

Leap.

That’s it. That’s my 2011 word.

Here’s the thing:

I’m not much a leaper.

There are a few cliches surrounding the word “leap”:

Leap of faith.

Leap into action.

Look before you leap.

I’m much better at that last one. Trouble is, I spend so much time looking that the chance to leap passes me by. I’ve never had a problem with that. Like I said, no leaping here.

I told my friend recently that I can’t run or jump because I have weak ankles. We kind of made a joke of it, laughing at me pitching forward, almost falling on my face. It’s so nerdy, having weak ankles. Like I should be on a track trailing after a bunch of cheerleaders, wearing my glasses and a royal blue sweatband.

That’s my image of myself. I can’t leap. I have weak ankles.

But I’m determined. I’m tired of sitting opportunities out. I have a few ideas of the things I’m supposed to be leaping towards. So if, in the next couple of months, you see me doing things that might not seem to make sense in the real world, things that seem a little out of character for me, here’s a head’s up:

I’m not crazy. I’m just leaping.

Wordless

For the past five minutes I’ve sat and watched my cursor blink at me. My brain has been on overdrive. My heart has been numb. And my spirit has been weeping.

What do you say when tragedy strikes? That’s the question that has been passed around these past three days, when a dear friend lost her precious baby girl after only six days on this earth. “I don’t know what to say”, is what I’ve heard, and said myself, at least fifty times in 72 hours. I finally answered myself yesterday.

It’s not that I don’t know what to say. It’s that there are no words.

None.

Just a speechless keening in my spirit; a wailing, a grieving that can’t be expressed. There is no sorry big enough in the world.

Then, last night, during one of my many wide awake moments, with tears coursing down my cheeks, words came. They came tumbling one over the other, like salt water through a crumbling dam. Words like:

                  Angry.

Rage.

                         Trust.


      Confused.

       Comfort.

Betrayed.

                       Heartbreak.

    Hope.

     Weary.

  Bitter.

Faith.

           Resentment.

Sorrow.

                             Mercy.

      Lost.

                        Peace.


If you expected me to wrap all this up in a neat, anecdotal package, I’m sorry to disappoint you. There’s nothing neat about this. I don’t understand. I don’t have answers.

The only thing I know is that He’s big enough to handle any word I can throw at Him.

Deep Breath

I had planned on complaining today. I had a hectic morning. My house is in shambles, my kids didn’t want to get out of bed (not that I can blame them- I didn’t want to get out of bed either). Ashton spent 30 minutes sitting in front of our gas heater instead of getting dressed. Atleigh screamed at me for pacis, apples, juice cup (or, as she says it, shewscup). And in the midst of this, I was packing lunch, signing homework papers, rushing out to warm up the car, finding shoes and coats and blankies.

I spent the 10 minute drive to the school compiling a list of the things I hate the most about today: the cold, the stalling kids, my itchy left eye, the everyday drudgery of my life.

Then my sister texted me about a song she had been listening to, one we had discussed a few nights ago. I had the CD in my car, so I turned it to track 13. After repeating it three or four times, I felt a little better. I little like a martyr, suffering for the sake of a higher calling, but better.

When I got home, I took the girls' coats from them, threw some waffles in the toaster for breakfast, fed the kitten, all with a sense of patient disappointment in my fate. Suffering for a cause.

Then I opened my fridge, and saw the gallon juice jug my 7 year old son had wrestled onto the top shelf all by himself. Don’t ask me what it was about a gallon of juice that turned my attitude around. But it made me stop rolling my eyes and actually use them to look around me.

I saw the dollhouse my girls have been “cleaning” with baby wipes, pretending to be little grown-ups.

I saw the pictures that Jeremy and Chloe colored of each other: Chloe’s of Daddy picking flowers (for her), and Jeremy’s of Chloe dressed as a Princess, riding a horse to a faraway castle.

I saw all the groceries I just bought yesterday, the ones that Ashton helped me put away, so proud to be useful.

I heard Atleigh tell me “Thank you” so sweetly when I gave her her breakfast.

I saw all of Ashton’s little Star Wars figures perfectly arranged in a battle scene, good clearly aligned against evil.

I saw Jeremy’s three guitars scattered here and there, tokens of the wonderful, tender-hearted psalmist I married. And I remembered that one of those guitars was a gift from the mother of Jeremy’s best friend, and one he would give anything to be able to give back to that friend.

And I took a deep breath- another gift I’ve been given.

Weary of Wary

Being hurt sucks. Being mistrustful because of that hurt is so much worse. Innocent people that I view with suspicion, wondering what their “angle” is... what’s your motive? When is the other shoe going to drop?

I hate this part of me. I hate that these wounds can’t heal, a cesspool that gets stirred up every time it seems to have been cleansed. I hate feeling despised, patronized, a charity case. Where is human dignity? Where is human decency? What makes you better than me? Please, by all means, let me know, so I can somehow obtain your perfection. What is the magic formula that gives you the right to judge me?

A beaten dog will always flinch. I’m so tired of flinching.

Late Night Indulgence

I'm not much of a TV watcher. If I do turn it on, it's usually as background noise while I read after the kids are in bed. What can I say? My whole life has been noisy. Silence makes me nervous.

But I'm not going to lie. When I was flipping through channels a week or so ago, looking for suitable white noise, and I inadvertently landed on The Nanny, a squeal bubbled in my throat from the region of my estrogen laced brain. Don't judge me. I. LOVE. The Nanny. I watched it every Monday night from the ages of 10-16 (ish). And when I found it on Lifetime when Ashton was about a year old, I watched it twice a day, every weekday (along with Dawson's Creek, but we won't get into that...).

So now, instead of going to bed at a decent hour, I rush Jeremy to bed by 11 so I can stay up until midnight to watch my show. The other night, he asked me to scratch his back so he could fall asleep. At 10:52. I gave him 8 minutes exactly. So wrong. So depraved. But I couldn't help myself.

On top of that I've gotten sucked into Three's Company because it comes on right after The Nanny, with no commercial break. And once it starts I can't turn it off. Stupid charming John Ritter. Stupid Three's Company song getting stuck in my head for 4 days.

And even though I know I'll regret it every morning when I have to wake up, I convince myself every night that it's worth it.

Well? It is. Even though I might not think so when my alarm goes off in six hours.