as evening fell, we cleared the already clean air

Last night I came home so tired. I taught nine classes and then stayed late moving piles of books around. My plan was to come home and pass out, but when I walked  in the door my sweet family breathed new life into me. We celebrated our Friday by going out for hamburgers and ice cream. Ramona showed us how she can ride her bike with the training wheels and then Brian and I sat in the back and watched her pick flowers and talk to a caterpillar.

I put my arms around Brian. "People are getting my blog posts about you wrong. My mom is worried about us. She's worried about me", I fret. 

He said, "I know the difference between you just being yourself and you trying to hurt me. I know you love me." 

And I relaxed. And enjoyed the light and the air and our sweet little girl. Because he trusts my heart. So I can too.

Writing it while it happens opens you up to disaster. This life made of loving people has so many folds to it. I think I don't want to get it wrong, but more than that I want to feel the entire thing with my heart. I don't want to be afraid. Afraid you will get me wrong. 

a love letter, sort of

I had a small wedding and while it was a very nice day, it wasn't the best day of my life. The best might have been the day he discovered my heart was broken and went about fixing it. How often does someone take the time to stop and fall in love with you? To stop in their tracks to fix you?

I will confess that about 30% of the time I could really go for an affair. Sometimes I'd chew off my arm to escape my life. I yearn for the time before I had so much to lose.

How can I keep from bashing him on the head with a bag of oranges? How can we live this sometimes boring, awful, loveless life? How can we do it? How can I make it through my thirties without blaming him for it all? How do lovers remain?

I listen to The Violent Femmes as loud as I can and remember the way he was before I ruined him. Before I piled the house and kids on him. Before I convinced him my happiness was to be chased at all cost. 

Somehow it is not entirely his goodness that keeps me. The way he is an excellent father. The way he comes through when we are broke. The very good man he is. Somehow I know it's something else. It's something else.

wish you were here

I've acquired quite a taste for a well made mistake - Fiona Apple

This morning, as I was driving to school, I had to confront the fact that one of my most tangible memories did not actually happen. I think of it periodically, always during a touch of heartbreak. I crossed the back of the fine art building of my college. You were walking from the street. I see exactly how baggy your clothes were fitting you at the time. You wore a blue hat. We ran to each other, I am not kidding. And it is not exaggeration to say my heart exploded.

This might not have happened. I think I stood there alone. Making you up.

The summer I got married, I re-read all the Little House books. Now, I'm pregnant and while I wait for my baby, I've been reading The Savage Detectives and last week I read Just Kids by Patti Smith. These suit a craving I have, a craving for angst. And a deep craving for the past. Reading about these young poets reminds me of reading On The Road when I was a teenager. Then, just as now, I had no nightlife. No freedom. I can't get over how brief the period of freedom is for a woman. It's such a short time where you have your adulthood, before you become a mother and it's gone. Does it return? Does it even matter when your youth is gone? Countless times in the last few years I've regretted the careful way I manicured my twenties. Accumulated degrees, remained mostly safe, stayed home.

So, I recall the things I read and the boys I loved. I crave these things, the same as I do hamburgers and olives. I admit I dream about old loves nearly constantly. Sometimes I just dream I am walking around my college, and wake up with my broken heart. Do not shake your head at a 31 year old woman mourning her youth. You know as well as I do it is gone.

I crave a mistake. A good mom gone bad. Don't worry, it's not real and it will pass. I was made to do right.