Personally, I Picture My Conscience In Stiletto Heels. The Better To Stab Me With.

I KNOW. Second post on the same day. I make no sense.

But here's the thing: I am sitting here on my prep hour, which comes at the end of the day, which means I get very very very little actually done because I'm pooped, people, pooped.

[Tangent: I now frequently sit at the dinner table with four males--one supposedly an adult, one preteen, one kindergartener, and one preschooler. I am Queen of my domain, people, and thusly have had to ban (1) farting and (2) poop jokes and (3) I'm serious, DramaBoy, NO POOP JOKES at the dinner table. Am I crazy for having so much damn fun?]

Where was I? Oh yes. Pooped on my prep. Anyhow, I decided to read back through that last post and suddenly had an attack of conscience. Yes, that one particular teacher is annoying and frustrating and infuriating on a regular basis. HOWEVER. Once she gets all the griping out of her system, she really does want to do well. Which is, I think, part of her problem: she's terrified that she won't, and the situation is a challenging one, and she is dealing with all sorts of new things, and she's resorting to her default coping mechanisms.

I joked, sort of, about playing Compare Our Lives with her. I said I'd trump her. Then said that didn't really mean I "win."

But really, in my head...that's not true. I DO think I "win." And that's a bunch of bullshit too.

She doesn't know all the details of my life and how much I deal with every day.

I don't know all the details of hers, either. Just because she appears one way doesn't mean that's the truth--or at least, all of it. I should know. I spent years portraying one image while hiding the truth.

So I'm being just as bitchy and nasty (and behind her back, no less) as she seems capable of being.

So here's my next challenge: stop listening to the words she says and listen instead to what she means. Stop assuming I know the woman and resigning myself to "getting through the year with her" and start actually getting to know her a bit.

Maybe she'll turn out to be just as annoying as I've always thought she is.

And maybe I'll find out I'm about as wrong as I can be. I have a niggling feeling that this may very well be the case.

Don't you hate it when your conscience starts whispering? Or, when that doesn't work too well, pricking you vigorously so you'll sit up and pay attention?

Yeah. Me too.

Our Eyes

Last night MTL was teasing me and I was teasing back in a faux-pouty sort of way, when he suddenly pulled back, looked at me askance, and said, Uh, hello there, DramaBoy!

Apparently I was using the exact facial expression, exact words, exact look as the sort that DramaBoy pulls out from time to time.

There's a reason I call him my mini-me. It's not just his physical appearance, though that alone causes commentary everywhere we go. Our temperaments are nearly identical (thus the fulfillment of my mother's curse) (have I apologized lately, Mom and Dad? I AM SO SORRY) and the source of many of our conflicts. Odd how two strong-willed, quick-tempered, ridiculously stubborn people will spark off each other.

I will say this: his eyes are no longer purely mine. They used to be. Now, while they're still hazel, they've become brown-hazel rather than green-grey-hazel. They've become much more like his father's over the last year or so. Still, when I look into his eyes--I see myself.

And it scares the sh*t out of me.

You see, I was broken for so very, very long. I was tormented by my dragons for nearly thirty years, and I lost the battles until I forgot how to fight. And while there were outside forces and trauma that I experienced that I pray God will never be part of DramaBoy's life, still I wonder how much of my life was simply the path I took as the person I am.

And I can't (and won't) "blame" my parents. No parents are perfect, but to this day I place no blame on mine for the broken road I traveled. They were and are amazing people, amazing parents. MTL is already starting to get a certain smile when I reference them, because I do it so very often. We don't agree on everything, my parents and I, but I respect them deeply.

So what does that mean for me? I struggle every day with parenting practice. I feel like I'm trying to catch up from years of being out of touch, correct countless bad habits (both mine and the children's), and piece together the puzzle that is parenting.  MTL helps. He's been doing this longer than I have, including the single parenting gig. But ultimately he can't and won't tell me what decisions I must make for my children.

What if it's too late? What if my son is already heading down a path similar to the one I trod? For all the love and growth and beauty that has come to me at this point in the road, I would never ever wish that journey for my son. I would never desire for him the pain and despair and brokenness I experienced.

I can't live his life for him. I can't protect him from all harm. But I cannot help but feel tremendous fear.

Because when I look into his eyes...

All I can see is that broken road.

Backbone

There are times when silence clogs my throat and I cannot say what needs to be said. I am fixed by uncertainty, frozen by fear. What will be the reaction to my words? Will they be met by scorn, ridicule, disappointment?

Habit. Years of keeping my tongue still, swallowing my words, saying only what I think will be met with approval. Years of fearing to make my own decisions or suggestions or, God forbid, demands.

When I was a little girl, I was very opinionated. According to my parents, I was the very definition of the Strong Willed Child. My children come by their Attitudes honestly. Well, that and apparently God was listening when my mother cursed me lo, those many years ago.

Somewhere along the way that little girl crawled into a corner of my mind and my backbone went AWOL.

How pitiful is this: when someone asks me what I'd like for dinner or which restaurant I'd prefer or what activity I'd enjoy, I rarely respond with anything other than Oh, I don't know. It doesn't matter to me. I might indicate a few options I would NOT like, but I am far more comfortable with the decision being made for me. That way, you see, I won't chance ridicule or disagreement.

How sad is this: I went up north this last weekend to MTL's parents' place. Saturday morning MTL and I both woke early and, unable to sleep, took our coffee out on the back porch to enjoy the sunrise. The morning air was damp and chilly. When MTL rose to find the off switch for the glaring porch light, I suggested he bring out a sleeping bag to cover our legs. I had been thinking about this for five minutes and had to overcome enormous reluctance to make the suggestion. His response? A big smile and a comment about how smart I am. What I subconsciously expected? A scowl and a comment about it not being THAT cold, and if I was chilled, maybe I should go get the blanket myself. Which, I should mention, is not typical of MTL. That didn't matter. It was still my automatic apprehension.

I started thinking.

Put me in charge of a group of students and I have no problem being Queen and Goddess of the Classroom. Put me in a professional setting with my coworkers and my Voice is Heard.

Put me in a social setting with my peers and I falter. I follow rather than lead, give way rather than stand strong.

Don't get me wrong: if something is suggested with which I strongly disagree, I won't do it. I'm not mindless. But when it comes to anything that is smaller in scope, that doesn't involve moral or legal issues, I'd rather not rock the boat.

I'm better than I used to be. Saturday I overcame my illogical fear and suggested the blanket. And the blanket was fetched. Monday, when asked what I wanted for dinner, I responded, Taco salad. And taco salad we had.

I'm building my backbone. It helps that my dearest friends and loved ones have been responding with encouragement rather than disapproval. It helps that I've had to stand on my own for a year now, that I've had to learn to say

No. 

This is the line I will not cross. 

That won't work for me. 

This is what will work for me.

This is what I need.

This is what I want.

The healing continues. I just keep wondering what happened to the little girl who always had to Have It Her Way and why it's taken so long for her to show up again.

climbing

you climb so high
stretching limb and limb
grasping handholds
slipping a moment
then triumphant
stand tall at the summit

i stand in wonder
memories wisping through my mind
not long ago each eight inch stair
from first floor to second
was too much for your chubby legs
you clutched my hand
strained in determined effort
you could climb
but not alone

now you and your brother
race each other floor to floor
my heart in my mouth i issue warnings
not on the stairs
don't play on the stairs
someone could get hurt

yet here i stand below
this wall of fiberglass and plastic
higher than my head
and watch you clamber vertically
poised to catch you

should you fall

you reach the top every time
small and slim and seraphic
your joy contagious
i feel another string stretch and snap
my hands are empty of all but applause

i watch you turn away
run toward another adventure
and wonder when the next step will come

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It's FlogYoBlog Friday. For those of you who haven't, check out MummyTime and her lovely blog, and check out some other blogs too! And for those of you visiting me, I don't write poetry all the time. Just when the inspiration strikes. Welcome!

chains

trust does not come easy
when it has been misplaced so often
and though i wish
and yearn
to break free of these chains of doubt

my mind and heart cannot quite agree
they battle for dominance
debate my reality
and just when i think the argument done

switch sides
and i am left adrift in the seas of uncertainty

your intuition is strong
said a woman of wisdom
not so long ago
she gazed across the table
into my troubled eyes
you secondguess yourself too much
and must learn to trust that voice
it speaks truth
and when you learn to listen
you will not go astray

but what is intuition
and what is the emotion of the moment?
they are not one and the same
not always
too often i have responded in the moment
with the emotion of the moment
and found myself down a path
i did not wish to tread

so i sit here in this moment
this chain of moments i see as Time
and listen
trying to hear the voice
wondering if
maybe if
this time i can let go

journey

we wander through this life
never knowing
who
or what
will come our way
and change us for all time

i used to fear the unknowing
of what was to come
(truth be told it scares me still)
but am finding adventure
in what lies next
around the bend

tears may have been my yesterdays
and may yet drench my tomorrrows
but today i laugh
and line my soul with delight

for sorrows fade with memory
even pain dulls its edge
when moments of joy become
frequent visitors instead

In the Waiting Line

By mutual agreement and mostly because I am the one with the most time on weekday afternoons to actually get Official Things Done, I was the one who filed for divorce. By a strange concatenation of events, I filed yesterday, on the fourtheenth anniversary of when our relationship began. As if that were not ironic enough, I filed divorce papers approximately five yards from the counter where almost exactly eight years ago I filed the paperwork for our legal marriage ceremony, which took place eight years ago two days from now.

It felt surreal.

I don't quite know how else to explain it. I wasn't quite depressed. I wasn't joyful, either. I was mostly shaky, because now the wheels are set in motion. I watched the clerk stamp the papers and saw that already, just like that, we have been assigned dates for the two major hearings we must attend before the decree can be handed down in six months. I could see the great machinery of government grinding its gears, catching us up in its deceptively ponderous motion. The potential energy of our divorce turned kinetic in a matter of fifteen minutes.

I walked out the door, shaky and a little stunned, and sent a text to about a dozen people. I just walked out of the court house. I have officially filed for divorce, I said, the words stark on the electronic screen. Within moments, the texts started rolling in. A few were congratulatory; most were concerned.

Are you ok?
How do you feel?
Wow. (((hugs)))

I went back to the house and collapsed on the bed after lugging all my stuff inside--it was another "toggle"* day. I talked to a few people on the phone. I tweeted and Facebooked about how weird I felt, and how I had no idea what to make for dinner because I had no money and no energy and no desire to cook. I shored myself up, gradually feeling my head straighten out and my mood lighten.

Then I went and picked up my two little boys, who were very happy to see me and amazingly well-behaved and so polite about asking if they could eat food from "Old MacDonald's" that I succumbed after two seconds and agreed. So we swung through the drive-through to pick up a ten-piece McNugget meal. The boys devoured the chicken and some of the fries; I ate the rest of the fries and drank the Coke. It was a proud mommying moment. It was a very real single-mommying moment. And we snuggled on the couch watching the Backyardigans, which stretched from one episode to two before we went upstairs to get the boys to bed.

I did no grading last night.

This morning the boys were so cooperative that we got out the door only fifty minutes after I woke up. When I arrived at work, my darling mentee S. walked into my room with a bag of mini biscuit pizza makings for the boys and another of fancy pasta makings and French bread for me. Supper is set for tonight. I have friends already working on plans to get together for GNOs in the next few weeks. The love is rolling in.

It still feels surreal. A part of me is grieving the loss of something that was and always will be an enormous part of my life. We will always be tied together by that time and by our children. Another part of me is simply impatient to Get Through It All and Get On With Things. The largest part of me is simply lying quiet, watching warily from a corner, unsure of this new and uncertain future that looms in front of me.

Yeah. November sucks.

******************************
*TOGGLE

Meaning:

Any instruction that works first one way and then the other; it turns something on the first time it is used and then turns it off the next time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("toggle" is a kind of...):

command; instruction; program line; statement ((computer science) a line of code written as part of a computer program)

Use in this context: 

A day in which custody and residence switches between the two parents

If

i will risk it if you do

i will try it if you do

i will step halfway and meet you there
so we don't walk alone

let me say to you
forgive me if i'm cautious
hesitant and fearful
i've been burned
i'm still healing
but growing stronger every day

i will walk beside you
not before
not behind
you balance me and
i will do the same for you
learn from me and
i will learn something too

and maybe
just maybe
we'll both be better in the end
for you knowing me
and me knowing you
and taking the risk
together

the winding road

where the path leads from here
is hazy; the future does not like
to offer more than a glimpse
of Possibility

it branches from choice to choice;
at some, dead ends--
retrace the steps, start again.
others fork and fork again
'til beginning is lost in the mists of memory

twisting and turning
i climb mountains
dip into valleys
sunshine shifts to shade
dark shadows drift across with menace
then vanish as the vista opens once again

sometimes
when i crest a hill
i can gaze
across the expanse
to a far-off place
where joy beckons me onward

i stop a moment,
take a breath:
then step again into the journey
seeking the paths
that lead to where i wish to go

and wonder at the back of my mind
if the vision was true
or a mirage