explanation of doubt.

"i am not embarrassed by my faith, but i'm also not embarrassed by my doubt." - john green

this sort of explains me these days. i mean, i know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is something more than this life. but, being human, with free will, i can't help but doubt that it is what everyone thinks it is. i'm unsure. let me explain (mom).

it's EASY to believe in something when things are going wrong because we NEED something to believe in. it's EASY to believe in something when things are going well because things are fine.
but what about the hum-drum, monotony of human life? where do we forget? where do we remember?
i can't look at my daughter and NOT believe in something big. something that creates a baby from a single cell, perfectly forms a little human out of two parts of bigger humans. i looked at my daughter for the first time and felt incredibly blessed.
i once had this incredible faith in god. not saying that i've jumped ship, and not asking for sympathy or not trying to worry anyone, i'm just saying that it's been a long road. it's been a bumpy road. i'm not saying "poor me, look at what i've been through." this is not a cry for salvation. this is not a holier than thou declaration. it's merely late night thoughts on paper, that i've been pondering for quite some time.
i know there would be (and probably IS) disappointment daily in who i have become. i know there's also pride from some for who i have become.
i hope that someday i make my daughter proud. i hope that someday my daughter can ask me honest questions about faith, about god, about doubt, about life, about death, about life after death, about where we go and what we do and i hope that i don't tell her the wrong thing. i realize that i don't pray like i should, i don't believe like i should, i don't talk like i should, but who sets those bars? a preacher? a teacher? a father? a mother? a grandparent? a higher being?
my heart hurts when i hear something bad is happening to anyone. i don't give the standard "i'll pray for you" when i hear that anymore. i've learned that that isn't what people want to hear. people want something genuine. people want something real and me telling someone i will pray for them would probably scare most of the people i know. why? because i've learned that some people really mean it when they say i'll pray for you, but a lot of people don't. i never know what to say, because, in reality, (and this sounds horrible) i probably won't pray. i might send a thought. i might pause and have some silence and i feel like that is enough. i feel like my creator, who made and knows my heart, knows what my silence speaks, knows my thoughts are sometimes a cry for help but i feel in my heart a breaking when i hear something bad. maybe i'm searching for something more to life, maybe i will forever be trying to figure myself out. to figure this life out. to conquer the world.
i want to conquer the world for my little girl. i want to protect her from every harm, but i also want to teach her. i want her to learn. i want her to experience LIFE. experience is the only way i ever learned. i remember looking at myself in a mirror after escaping to the bathroom at a bible study and i felt a stir. i felt something in my being that scared me. i didn't know how to express it so i cried. i feel like i'd cry all the time if i HAD to decide what exactly i am, who exactly i am. i don't think we ever know. i don't think we are meant to know. i think that whatever we end up as, whether dust or angels or different humans without a clue, i want to learn and know and be able to say that i gave it all i got.
i may be crass and crude and downright rude sometimes, but i feel like that's a part of me that i've tried to suppress in the past and it only comes back tenfold. i may not sugar coat things with a sweet voice or a nice picture, but i try to be honest with everyone i encounter.
so, maybe, maybe this is an apology to everyone i've ever offended. maybe it's a warning to everyone i haven't. but maybe, just maybe, this part of me is the key to who i am, and accepting that is part of accepting me. and it's a part of me accepting people who aren't like me.
there are different people in the world. there are people who look different, think different, walk different, talk different, love different, feel different and i used to be VERY opposed to difference. i have damn near ruined relationships in the past because of this opposition and i have learned that giving that opposition away has done a lot for my heart. if you had told me ten years ago that i would be fully supportive of certain rights and liberties and politics i would have laughed at you. well prayed for you, then laughed at you. but even at my "best" my heart was at its worst. i feel like my heart is finally leveled out. i feel like my heart is finally my own. and that this is my best. my heart is full. my life is more than i ever expected. i have a wonderful family and i have love.
and after all, that's all we need.

hot mess

i read a really great blog at lunch today that one of my friends posted. i nearly peed myself laughing so hard. here's a link. http://tryingtobegood.com/2012/06/02/an-open-letter-to-all-parents-from-a-non-parent-10/?shared=email&msg=fail



that to preface something i've probably needed to write for a long time but needed the appropriate inspiration and wormhole with which to preface my bitching about non parents bitching about parents. we all did it. told parents how to raise their kids before we actually were parents.

as i write this, there are two kids and a cat in my bed. goose is "helping" me write, and little miss is watching power puff girls because they are awesome.

 now that i am a parent, i'm a lot more lax with my appearance, my housekeeping pretty much everything i thought i would be awesome at. i was going to be a mom, an employee, look perfect every day, have awesome hair, always look well kept and would never ever let my kid go in public with a dirty shirt, no shoes and crap on her face. i was also going to publish my book, write a few more, keep playing guitar and conquer the world, before dinner, which i would make from scratch every night. i'm lucky these days if i make it out of the house without a fruit snack stuck to my ass. it takes me two months or more to edit a photo shoot that would have taken me a week before.


i thought parenting would be a lot like when i was just a stepparent. little miss was always very well-behaved, clean, and didn't make huge messes. that was the life! once she got a sister and turned four it's like a tornado has been hovering over the household. two girls and we've recently added two dogs and a cat. yes, we are crazy.

now that i'm a parent, i understand why when i was a teenager people didn't take me up on babysitting offers more often. i mean, didn't those boring old people want to get out of the house? now, i know. it's not that they didn't want to get out of the house or that they didn't trust me. (i was certified for crying out loud!) they didn't trust their KIDS! i love my girls, don't get me wrong. but the only way i'd let someone to whom i'm not blood related keep them is if i didn't want them in my life anymore.


goose is super sweet when she wakes up. literally until you pull the plug she's silly and sweet and lovey, but if you pull the plug before she's ready, you better run. you tell her to go to bed one minute before she's ready, get ready for thirty minutes to two hours of wallerin' fightin' kickin' screamin' pain in your ears.

our morning routine usually consists of my alarm going off at six, husband's at 630, and both of us snoozing til around 710. then we wake up, say a collective "ahh shit!" and start rushing around to leave the house by 725. it's 711, he's halfway dressed, i'm looking for a pair of pants that are probably on the couch. if they're folded i don't have to shake them. i then rummage thru the clothes on the couch for something that semi-matches for lucy. it's now 713 and i'm running back into our rooms, pulling my pants up and hopefully zipping them (which, yes, i forgot to do yesterday), head to sink to put in contacts. 717 i find a diaper and attempt to wake the goose. she's not having it. some mornings i find a pullup, some mornings the diaper goes on backward because she will not roll over. i manage to get something over her ass and clothes on her and maybe shoes if there are some on the floor close by. 722, husband goes outside to feed the dogs. goose and i brush teeth and head for the kitchen where i pull out something for lunch or not. 724 husband comes back inside and gets the baby, kisses all around, she's buckled into his truck by 725 and i'm opening the garage door to pull out in my car at 727. this is not a routine. this is chaos.




i'm a hot mess these days. i wore the same pair of jeans all week til last night when goose smeared spaghetti all over them and i was PISSED because i really didn't want to do laundry last night. woke up this morning in a panic because i hadn't remembered to put clothes in dryer last night so i went to find a few towels to throw in the dryer with my wet jeans, praying they would be dry by 720. what i find when i got to the washer? oh yeah, i didn't turn it on last night. so there are my jeans. still in the washer. still covered in spaghetti.

i didn't have it all together when i was single, by any means. when i was just married with no full-time kids, i actually combed my hair in the mornings. some days i don't match, but both the shirt and the pants are semi-clean and not too wrinkly. most days i get matching shoes on my feet. yes, i went to work once with two DIFFERENT shoes on.

that all said, there are some great times. like when goose gives me cuddles. when little miss and i paint a picture. when the three of us have girl time and little miss is insistent that we don't tell daddy we're painting our nails. those are the good times. the smiley times. the times when i'm not pulling my hair out, stressing about the dishes in the sink, the laundry in the floor, or the toys that overtake the house. i'd much rather have those toys and kids to play with them than not. sure, there's a lot of frustration in my house. a LOT. but there's also a lot of joy. squeals of hide and go seek. new words (usually appropriate) and developments and pictures hanging on the fridge that MY baby drew. they may look like nothing, but to me? to me they look like love.

amidst the chaos and screaming and throwing ourselves on the ground, there is always always always LOVE.