And so it goes....

So - a few weeks ago, I attended my high school reunion. A reunion after 20 years seemed awkward at first, yet so comforting at the same time - like the old pair of Doc Martens collecting dust in the back of my closet. Exchanging smiles and hugs with people who knew you before you knew yourself. The "you" before the adult took over and went into battle! But for me anyway I couldn't help but wonder, "Am I good enough? Have I done enough with my life? How did people remember me? How do they see me now?" As I walked into the bar (with some of my favorite friends from back in the day, Scottie, ML, Lexy) it was like deja vu. Lindsey Matson was there to greet everyone at the door. I remembered seeing her for the first time during "move up day" in 6th grade and thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. And Kristin Guinta - who I sat next to in 11th grade Law class, what an infectious laugh on that one! Every time I turned my head - there was another face, another memory. It was amazing, wonderful and hilarious. Sure, the same old groups sort of evolved as the night settled in but it didn't feel like it did 20 years ago. It was open and relaxed and kind. To hug Jason Riley - my very first boyfriend from 5th grade but someone I regretfully never spoke with in high school, or Sandown's own - Wayne Britton - those two looked amazing! Elicia, Jessica, Goonie, Jay, Charity, the list goes on and on. I couldn't help but to feel a sense of pride being back together with these amazing people and sharing stories, coloring in the gray of the past 20 years. Knowing nods of times shared but experienced separately. Seeing everyone again felt like getting on stage at the end of a huge performance. Although not every scene back then included everyone at once, we were all there. A wrinkle in time. My reunion sorta felt like that - only better! A curtain call complete with dancing, bathroom chats, a 3 am photo shoot with Dan Lane and lots of beer. Here's to another 20.... but may we all meet sooner than that.

The hardest years

Nobody ever told me marriage would be so hard. The more I talk with my married girl friends, the more I hear the same thing: "things just aren't the same as they were". "Were" meaning: pre-children. When I was pregnant and waddling around buying baby clothes and crying for no reason, Pete and I were close. We'd talk and laugh and sleep in! We'd make time to play, and have fun. Not long after Cooper was born those lazy Sunday mornings turned into us practically drawing straws to see who was going to wake up with Cooper. I don't know how many times one of us would say "I was up yesterday morning... it's your turn". It's not that we didn't love becoming parents - we fell in love with him the moment he was born, but something happened to us. We became tired, cranky and short. I think of some of the negative things I say to Pete that I would never in my wildest dreams say to any other person in my life. And I'm sure he feels the same way. It's like we are each other's sounding board for all the shitty things you can say to another person (before they want to kill you) and although it's wrong and hurtful, we love each other and maybe that's why we feel like we can say anything. I don't know.
I was food shopping the other day and an elderly woman was staring at the freezer filled with OJ. She turned to me and asked "what is pulp?" I explained pulp and told her my husband loves it, but I don't so I buy "some pulp". That made her laugh! She said "Good for you dear for compromising... I was married for 50 years and I think it's from just turn'in my cheek". I knew what she meant. Picking battles, meeting half way, letting go, and making compromises. She swore to me that after her 4 boys (YES, 4) had grown and moved away, she and her husband started travling and playing Bingo. Her story reminded me that life exisits after children. They don't always stay young and the house won't always look like a bomb went off. Loving relationships repair. Ride the storm I guess, together with the unspoken understanding that one day the chaos will end and something new will begin.

Closure on the "first half".

I'm about 2 months away from my 20th high school reunion. Timberlane Regional High School "Home of the Owls". Returning to the past, familiar faces, funny stories and years of new adventures since then - June of 1991. Long before ITouch, IPhone, Ipod, GPS, Internet, Map Quest and Snooki. Britney Spears was 10, Michael Jackson was alive and black and Nirvana's "Never Mind" album was just released. Back before the devastation of 9-11 changed life as we know it, and raising children changed us. We have traveled the world - college, military, marriages, divorces... we have lost many people we love. We have done some amazing things with our time and everything has lead us here. Saturday nights at Hampton beach have been transformed into treks to Story Land in the "family car" packed high with juice boxes, anti-bacterial wipes and sunblock. Gone are the days of spending our pay check on ourselves. The kids need new shoes, and it's picture time again. Paying our parents for the phone bill seems like pocket change now - compared to mortgage payments, daycare, insurance, heat, food and gas. Life was so easy back then, and cheap. No midnight worries about babies with high fevers or putting together a 300 piece train set 4 hours before Christmas morning. Santa used to come for us back then, but my how life has changed in 20 years. We have changed. We are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives. I was looking back at our year book the other day, seeing the eyes of young adults ready to conquer the world and some of us did exactly what we said we'd do - like Kerri Downs who wanted to "marry Brian and have a large family" (I heard she's up to 5 kids?) And Charity Reardon who wanted to finally get her license! But for people like me - I didn't have a clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still don't. What I do know is besides the roller derby thing, living in Atlanta, getting married, having kids - I'm pretty much the same person I was. Only stronger, more courageous and older. We were just kids in 1991. I think after everything we have all been through, it's time to let it all go. As excited as I am for this reunion, it's sort of closure for me. Closure on the "first half" of my life.

Meet you in hell, Melvil!

I've only been fired from ONE job ever and I've certainly had some interesting ones over the years; clearing tables, Canobie Lake Park, news producer, promotions assistant, ice cream scooper, cashier, blah, blah, blah. So which job did I lose for simply "not really getting it": THE LIBRARY. Who the hell gets fired from a job where you check in, check out and organize books and periodicals? Let me back up and try to redeem myself for just a moment - I was only 15 years old. Long before bar code scanners, the Internet and electronics did the job for you. Back when the DDC, also called the Dewey Decimal System was really the only source of locating a book - kind of like finding a needle in a haystack only the haystack was a large room that smelled like mothballs and the needle looked like this: BR-0009-87-FA/NON-28. According to WIKIPEDIA, the DDS is a proprietary system of library classification developed by Melvil Dewey (GEEK) in 1876. In a nutshell, the damn system organizes books on library shelves in a specific and repeatable order that makes it easy (no, not really) to find any book and return it to its proper place (lies.... all lies). Why isn't ABC order sufficient and to-the-point enough? Books don't need numbers. That's just crazy and if Melvil was alive today, I'd punch him in the face. I'd blame him and his idiotic, anal-retentive, OCD way of grouping books together - the reason I got fired when I was 15. It's sort of like paying a credit card late once- and it appears on your credit report for 7 years reminding you - you suck. The fact that I got fired from a job that from the outside appears like anyone could manage is demoralizing, embarrassing and plain retarded (no offense). Forward 17 years later - I now work in payroll where everyday I'm faced with all kinds of numbers. Big numbers, little numbers, negatives, calculations, %, and vacation accruals. Sometimes my 15 year old self comes out and I lose my shit (ahem, this past Friday) and wonder if I can really do my job surrounded by all of these numbers that need to make sense somehow. The Melvil's DDS didn't make sense back then, and frankly it still doesn't. Thank god I have a power of voice, and can just ask any of the metro-sexual dudes (at Barnes & Noble) where the "self-help" books are. You know, the books on people with obvious insecurity issues regarding past failures - which usually finds its way into like, now. Yeah, those kind of books.

So Long.

What do you say to someone who has just been given one week left to live? Do you say "see you later" (too casual) "Good luck" (too ridiculous) "See you soon" (your hoping NOT to).
Two weeks ago, I went to see my big cousin David. We called him "Big David" b/c he's not only 12 years older than me - but when he was a kid he was BIG and ultimately grew into a BIG man. But, despite his size, he was a gentle giant. He passed away last week to liver (and several other organs) cancer. The irony was that he smoked like a sailor for decades and just days before his death - his own doctor said his lungs sounded fine. No cancer there.
I went to see him (the same day his doctor finally told him to "go home and get comfortable") with several of my other cousins. Although he was sitting up, eating pizza and laughing - he had the look of death in his eyes. You know the way someone looks when they have cancer and are dying. Once you have seen this - you can recognize it time and time again. The cancer slowly depletes all life force, the skin tone, the drive and in time - the will from a persons eyes. It's a robber of the worst kind.
I don't believe in the white gate, a bearded man greeting you with a staff, the angels singing, the grand reunion of everyone we have ever lost skipping together into everlasting life. I think these myths have been past down and twisted into book and story form, generation after generation as a way to give hope to those of us still living. I believe in reincarnation. When we die, I think our spirit frees itself from it's shell, be it old, sick, or damaged and finds a new place to call home. Maybe a California redwood, or maybe a new baby coming into the world once again. None of us have died and actually come back to tell about heaven of the afterlife but anyway.
I sat in front of David and we talked. We talked about old memories I had of him when we were younger. The time he caught me lighting up a cigarette coming out of the movies at 13 but never told my parents, the camping trips, the holiday parties, growing up on Angle Pond. We laughed, and cried a little. I stayed for about and hour then hugged him one last time and said "I love you very much and I'm proud of you". He knew what I meant. He died one week later, exactly as his doctor predicted.
My father says "death is just another phase of life" and although while you are losing someone - these words seems unbearable, unacceptable and too simple for the great emotion one feels at that very moment and often many weeks or months following, it's true. We are born, we live and then we die. If it were only that easy. Just words and actions with nothing attached. I'm 37 and have lost way too many people to this disease. I'm heartsick from saying So Long even though it's just a part of life.

Freezer pops and sun block

Summer isn't what it used to be. I remember getting off the bus on the last day of school each June and feeling like I had the next "lifetime" off. Now, as an adult - one month simply turns into the next and instead of counting down the days til summer vacation - I'm counting down the months until my full week off. This week, was my week. I should say "our" week. My husband had the week off too. We spent some much needed quality time with the boys (just the 4 of us), took a few fun day trips and enjoyed a few ice cream cones but the joy of summer vacation as an adult doesn't feel the same. When I was a kid - my older cousin Lisa "babysat" my sister and I, and her younger sister Kim - all summer while our parents worked. I say "babysat" very loosely. She was only a few years older than us so we got away with so much more! We'd bribe her for money for the ice cream truck saying "if you don't give us some money, we'll tell that you had boys in the house". She'd fork over a buck for each of us! We were lucky enough to have a pool in the backyard so all of the neighborhood kids would hang out with us from about 9 am until the sun went down. Swimming, climbing trees, eating junk food and riding bikes. I miss that. Not that I miss those days for myself - but I miss them for Cooper & Wyatt. The trust in the neighborhood is gone. The ability to let our children go free and expect them to come back at dinner - is gone. Life was different back then. Life before 80 SPF's, solar swim shirts, bike helmets and bottled water. We survived on eating in the shade, freezer pops and skinned knees. We'd fall, we'd cry - we'd keep playing. And without sounding like an old woman saying "way back when I was your age".... I have to say - there is so much I miss about that life I once knew. It was a life I loved.

I can't help but to laugh

Kids say the funniest things. When I say "funny" - I mean absolutely gut-wrenching hysterical. Around the time I pregnant with my second son - my first son Cooper was three, almost four. He was beginning to read all the signs he saw from the back seat of the car. "McDonald's".... "Pizza Hut"...."Home Depot". One day we passed the sign for "Toys R Us". I said "Cooper - what does that big one say?".... and of course he knew - "Toys R Us". A few minutes later he said "but toys aren't us, they're toys". How smart, and true! Then, there was the time I was soaking in the bathtub (about 8 months pregnant and HUGE) and Cooper barged in like they all do and began staring at my belly and breasts above the water line. He asked me if "those" (meaning the boobs) were where Wyatt's eyes were! Yeah - I guess if I was giving birth to a 50 lb alien. Kids say the funniest things. Now, I've got two boys saying the funniest things. Wyatt insists on wearing underwear on his head referring to himself as the "Underwear Queen" (his father is thrilled) and calls rain clouds "filthy" because they are dark. Sure my home is sticky, loud and unorganized - but so funny. Children offer a constant stream of stand-up comedy and perfectly timed one-liners. The best part is - they don't know it. Today, Wyatt didn't want pizza for dinner - he insisted on a "pickle sandwich". Yes, just pickles followed by a cold bath. The kid is strange. Cooper, now seven and almost too cool - wanted a nighttime snack (basically just prolonging the inevitable; going to bed) When I told him he could have fruit - he had the nerve to ask for a "fruit roll up" because according to him - it's made with 100% juice. You literally can't pay for this kind of humor.