day 18 of giving thanks. for ben, on his birthday.

on the eighteenth day of this thanks-filled month i am thankful for you, benjamin. so-very-glad-i-listened-to-molly-five-months-ago-thankful.

for your name. ben. it's warm and wholesome. just like its owner. 

for coming into my life and shaking everything up. and for helping me feel true peace at the same time.

for letting me be a part of all the parts of your life.  

for introducing me to your sweet and beautiful daughter. for showing me what it's like to love someone with every breath. for letting me be witness to what a strong and kind father you are. 

for making me laugh until i can't breathe. for giving me butterflies when we went to that lovely italian restaurant two weeks ago. it felt like our first date and i loved that. for making me shake when you kiss me. still. for always reaching for my hand, especially when i need it. for knowing when not to say anything and just hold me. for knowing the words when i don't. for knowing. for morning snuggles with eva. for reminding me to breathe. for eating the insides of my egg rolls. for your eddie vedder voice. for letting me pick the driving music. for setting parks and recreation to record as a series; i never even asked you to do that. for having a jogging stroller and letting me take eva for runs with it. i love that stroller. for being "doers" as my friends call us, and for all the memories we've made.

for being as hungry for life as i am. 

for always asking how you can help and for understanding how hard it sometimes is for me to let you. 

thank you for helping me feel protected and loved and adored. and appreciated. 

thank you for being my partner and my friend.

i feel like i've known you my whole life. and i'm incredibly thankful for that. i don't know how i got so lucky.

ben, i wish for you the happiest of birthdays. i love you.

on repeat all weekend.

on crying in cabs. and minor apartment fires.

i cried in the back of a cab last night. 

the driver asked me how i was and i started to cry. i'd already been crying on the corner of state and madison while waiting for a bus that didn't want to show up. for twenty minutes it didn't want to show up.  

i was tired of waiting (so many times lately that sentence has echoed in my head). so i got in a cab.
  
"what's wrong?" he asked with a very heavy eastern european accent. "you coming from work?"

"no, class. i had work and then an important meeting after work. it's just been a long day."  

more tears. 

i kept looking at the blinking red seat belt symbol because he wasn't wearing his.  

"things happen for a reason." he said with all the confidence in the world.

i laughed and nodded. the nodding only served to shake the tears loose.  

before the cab, after the work and the meeting and the class i went to target to get a few things. while the cashier scanned my items i looked at the reese's peanut butter cup on the belt, at the end of my items. i stared at it.

i thought about what i said just a few hours before this: "this just in: chocolate doesn't solve problems." 

i thought about the four reese's peanut butter cups i had over the weekend while running errands. 

i thought about how fucking good a reese's peanut butter cup tastes. but better than the taste of that is not wanting the taste of it. not if it means ignoring other feelings. there's nothing wrong with chocolate. but there is something wrong if the desire is rooted in fear and anxiety.

i thought about the fact that i know, i know i didn't want it.

it won't fix anything. 

numbing doesn't fix anything.

i put it back. 

i got home and did the only thing i could think of to feel better in that moment.

i called my mom.

"what's wrong, honey?" 

those words, just the sound of her voice saying those words.  

i sat at the foot of my bed and cried.

"it's hard to convince yourself that you're good enough when you can't seem to convince other people. i'm so tired, mom."

"something good is going to happen. it is." she said. 

faith. 

i stopped feeling sorry for myself. i got off the phone and sat down at my desk to wrap ben's birthday present. the pine forest candle i'd just bought made contact with the tissue paper. i distinguished it immediately.

a fitting end to the day. i did laugh, though. thank God i laughed.

but i'm moving. i'm doing. and good things are happening. i'm making things happen. 

i said a prayer and fell into my bed. 

like being found.

❝

I got lost in him, and it was the kind of lost that’s exactly like being found.

— Claire LaZebnik  

how we become ourselves.

on my bus ride home the other night i listened to this and read this. over and over. the combination caused me to write a lot. a whole lot in those sixty minutes. the margins on that piece of paper got real full real quick. 

i read the essay again on my way home last night. 

if you've never read anything by anne lamott please start. 

how do we become the person we're supposed to be?

the person we're supposed to become. the person we will become. 

i take comfort in these words, that it's possible. this becoming and growing will happen. this is how life works. 

you don't think your way into becoming yourself.

i am revealing myself to myself all the time. what am i learning about who i am? a lot. and the list keeps growing. 

i'm thankful for this.

the love and good and the wild and the peace and creation that are you will reveal themselves, but it is harder when they have to catch up to you in roadrunner mode. 

i am someone who is very impatient. i am this way because i wasted so much time. i squandered time. i robbed myself of a life before i realized what a beautiful one i wanted for myself. and right now i have so many pieces of the life i imagined. but i cheated myself. it's the truth. i robbed myself of years. years. and it's a constant task/struggle to get to a place of forgiving myself for it. when i first started with jim he looked at me and said, "you're making up for lost time." (hence the roadrunner speed.) he was right. of course he was right. 

i pray that when people are gently confronted with things that hurt to hear that they'll take a moment to really hear the words. sometimes words are hard. but the ones surrounded by love are easier to accept. 

i have to force myself to stop. to take a full stop. but i'm surrounded by good people who help with this. spending time with a very calm man and a very active and happy toddler make it easy to feel joy. at constant intervals. 

i am someone who wants a lot. 
i want more.
it's within reach.
i can feel it.

i am an emotional person. thank God for that. it took me twenty-seven years to become one and i'm not about to turn it off or turn it down now. 

dealing with your rage and grief will give you life. it may not look like anger; it may look like compulsive dieting or bingeing or exercising or shopping. but you must find a path and a person to help you deal with that anger.

all of these things are rooted in deep and heavy anger and sadness, often in equal measure. and this is hard to imagine except to those who know. but dealing with things takes a long time. there are steps upon steps that consist of  "dealing with things." grief has to be organized and compartmentalized and attacked. but only when you're ready. and it's the moment when you feel your anger seeping through your bones, when you want to crawl out of your skin and scream. that is when you're ready. that's when i was ready. it may be different for you. 

anger holds us hostage. anger is poison. feeling in general is tiring, but more tiring and poisonous than that is slowly killing yourself. people do this a dozen different ways. none of them are small. 

it takes a long time to put yourself back together, much longer than it takes to completely fall apart. the falling, the dissolving, is a slow death. if you're actively killing yourself then you aren't living. if a person wants their life back, wants a life, they must make that decision with their entire heart and take the first step. and never stop. no one can do it for you. people can help, if you let them. but you must take the big steps on your own. and you must let yourself love yourself. allow yourself that feeling. 

how am i becoming myself? so far, lots of mistakes and wrong decisions and self-doubt. addiction and therapy and poisonous foods and toxic people. letting these things go. lots of crying and yelling. quiet mornings spent in my favorite chair. anne lamott and mary chapin carpenter and the writing that won't stop after spending time with these women. big bouncing happy dogs. the strongest women in my corner and a green chair in the office of a former chicago cop. running and biking and boxing early on saturday mornings. coffee and sarcasm and laughter and patience. and love. 

and finding my voice. 

to love yourself as you are is a miracle, and to seek yourself is to have found yourself, for now. and now is all we have, and love is who we are.

amen.

blocked.

sometimes jim really has some gems. this was from a few months ago.

“do you know about flow?” he asks.

“you mean like a river?” i say while making waves with my hand.

“my wish is for you to feel that in your life,” he said.

i smile. it’s a heavy but happy smile.

"i picture a polluted river full of garbage and a huge tree in the middle blocking everything," i said. "not everyday, but sometimes."

he looks at me with heavy eyes.

today is one of those days. and i'm doing everything in my power to change it.

day three of giving thanks.

i'm thankful for the walk i took this morning. i was lost and couldn't find the newberry library, where i had to go for a class project. i wound up walking up and down dearborn trying to find walton st. i walked and walked. past beautiful houses and windows full of pumpkins. past half a dozen dry cleaner's and mums on front porches. i took the time and just walked. no music. just me and the sounds of the city early on a saturday morning. 

thank you, legs.

(i'm going to post the rest of these on my facebook.)

life, as of late. day two of giving thanks.

 

i'm thankful for these people, this city, these colors and sounds and smells. i'm thankful for these memories.

love list. and day one of giving thanks.

the fact that ben had coffee waiting for me first thing this morning. and leftover chinese all warmed-up. the suit he was wearing didn't hurt. at all. spotting red cups from starbucks all over the city. nashville and its music, especially this song. ghiradelli's milk chocolate and caramel bar and it being the only chocolate i crave. i like holding out for the good stuff. like sharing my english muffins with eva. lemon cupcakes from sweet mandy b's. women with strong voices: mary j. blige, mary chapin carpenter, kathleen edwards, anne lamott. my camera. christmas music becoming more present. christmas decorations at macy's. really good $4.00 sushi, convertible mittens, children dressed as cowgirls and ninjas and farm animals. practical magic and accepting that i'm sally. the man at the trunk-or-treating event we took eva to on sunday with the lobster hat, for telling us about the hot dogs inside and that eva could ring the church bell. allergy medicine and asthma inhalers and the knowledge that one day, hopefully, i'll no longer need them. the head and the heart and what a great name that is for a band. this man. this. which prompted the walk i took at lunch. and
this. which broke my heart in the best possible way.

every day this month i'm going to write about one thing i'm thankful for. give it a try. it feels good.

day 1

my blog.

i'm thankful that i started this blog in the first place, a year ago next month. this blog, my place, my church. a way to keep myself accountable. i need to write everyday. that really is something i should be doing. i'm thankful i've kept it going and people are responding to it, both the good and the ugly parts i share. i'm thankful for my friends who share it with their friends. i'm thankful that both women and men are emailing me in response to my posts. i'm thankful for the amazing support i've gotten and continue to get from the people i love, who love me in spite of and because of the things i share.

thank you, thank you, thank you. it really is its own beautiful prayer.

a new month. a chance to press the "restart" button.

(via)