Spring Fever

     It's the second to last day of February. There's a foot of snow on the ground and temps have been hovering near 20 degrees for what feels like weeks. I'm done with Winter. Done with bleak and cold and gray. I'm tired of being warm only immediately before the dogs have to go out or the alarm goes off.  I'm praying for the green of Springtime and a place to sit in the warm sun. I close my eyes and see myself on Scott's boat on the river, with a cold drink and the hot sun, and kicking myself for not appreciating it more. "Next summer", I say to myself, "I won't take it for granted. I'll soak in the sun and heat and hold it deep in my soul like a savings account for next winter." But I know that I won't.  I don't imagine I'm any different than any other person in the region, but as endless as the Winter seems, it's brought some joy with it.
     I'm sitting in my office, newly decorated and organized. Finally got my own room, after many, many years of joking. I'm typing on a computer that was a Christmas gift, with my favorite things all around me and candles burning behind me, with a blue topaz crystal (the Writer's Stone) hanging in above my monitor. This is my space now. This is my sanctuary from the desolate and ceaseless winter. And I love it desperately.
     The problem, for me, with having my own territory, where I can write and write and write, is that I have to write. And there's nothing scarier than a blank page. My blog page has seven unpublished drafts. I wrote things that scared me, and I wrote things that made me sob, but they aren't ready yet. They've got to sit on the shelf awhile longer until the brave parts of me are ready to push the Publish button and let them free. So, until I can, let's have an update, shall we?
     As of this moment, we are three in the house. (Well, five, including the dogz.) And so, in our three bedroom house, the third bedroom evolved into the very office that I write to you from. Three is so quiet, sometimes. But three can also be very loud, especially while discussing Zoe's Freshman schedule for next year. A Freshman. And to think, that just yesterday I dropped her off at preschool three days a week and watched the two hours drag by. We are well, but everyday we creep closer to empty nesting and WOW, it's strange to be on this side of the parenting hill. I find that I wish I could go back and do it all again, do it all better, be more and appreciate more and laugh more. I suppose that's what grandchildren are for? We are anxiously anticipating number nine in early May. Another reason to hope for Spring.
     We moved last May. We have neighbors again. Neighbors that have watched me drag my reluctant dogs into the cold yard to do their business while dressed as what I can only imagine scientists in the Antarctic dress like. It was a surprisingly easy adjustment, moving back to civilization. It's not as though we moved to a booming metropolis, you could fit the whole town in a regular size envelope and mail it for less than a dollar, but I did think I would miss the peace of the country. Turns out, I thoroughly enjoy paved streets that get plowed and the diner that's a half a block away. (Try the cauliflower and cheese! Or the pork tenderloin sandwich, hand breaded! Or the gyro! Or.....)
     There's more. So much more. It will have to wait. Today I'm feeling a little braver than I did yesterday. Today I wrote this, so that tomorrow I can write something else. Something braver, something deeper. I don't know what the Something is yet. But it will come. It's not too far away, I know. Like Spring.

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth

Long time, no type, Bloggies. (I don't know if that's a thing, but it sounded good.)
I can not come up with an excuse for my long absence. I can only say that I promise to tell you the truth about where I have been since November, when I promised myself I would write often and without care for the dissenting voices in my head.
     I have been in a battle. Truth be told, I do not know when, exactly, it started. It came upon me slowly.     
     I noticed sometime around Christmas that a lot of me was gone. A lot of my hope and most of my joy and a terrifying portion of my personality. It all just POOFed on me. January, and turning (gasp) 40 took a lot out of me, and pretty soon I was facing February mostly from the safety and security of my bed, where I would find myself pretty much every moment of the day that I was not working. Sometime in mid-February, I was driving to work one morning, trying to decide how fast my car would have to be traveling in order to kill me if I intentionally crashed it. Then I caught myself counting pills in a bottle of pain medication prescribed to me last summer for a back injury, and Google-ing what the estimated fatal dose would be. There was a great deal of trouble in River City. It took until mid-March for me to admit, aloud, to another human being, how deeply I was suffering and how far down the rabbit hole I had fallen.
I made an appointment with my doctor. I got a prescription for an anti-depressant and the name of a therapist that I made an appointment with for the following week. I've seen her every week since the third week of March. I have missed very few doses of the medications. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's getting closer every day.
     That's a long winded way of saying that I am being treated for depression and anxiety, and that, at this point, the treatment is working, so I am one of the lucky ones. And I'm grateful. It all seems so simplistic, typed out into a neat paragraph like that, but it's been hard, and complicated, and I am only just now, realizing the impact my mental health has had on me, and my family. The problem with falling down the rabbit hole is that when you climb your way back out again, you have to stand in the light an let your eyes adjust to it.
     A couple of weeks ago, my Facebook feed was jam packed with the news of Kate Spade's suicide. I was sad. That's a sad thing to hear, even though I do not know her, and I have never owned anything she designed. Then, days later, Anthony Bourdain ended his life, and I was even sadder. I was a fan. Something about me is attracted to his brash, unapologetic world view, and there's the added sadness of knowing that even two people who seemingly "have it all" couldn't handle the demons they battled. Days later, I logged into a blog that I have been reading for years. The woman who writes it has inspired me, as a mom, a teacher, and a woman. I have never met this woman, she does not know my name- but I was devastated to learn that she had attempted suicide and had spent two days in ICU and a week in the psych ward of a hospital.
     In March, or even April, this depression seemed insurmountable. I couldn't wish or pray or hope my way out of it. The news of these fellow warriors who lost their battle, and almost lost the battle, have made me nervous. I don't want to go back to that, I'm scared every day that tomorrow I will wake up and feel hopeless and useless again. I worry that I will look in the mirror and only see the woman who failed at so many things.
     I'm grateful that I have a support system that allows me to have a bad day and celebrates my little victories with me, but I can't know if that's going to be enough. I'm happy to have put an end to house hunting and the stress of having to move, but I can't know if that will be enough. I am thrilled to be able to feel the love from my family again, but I can't know if that is enough. The demons are so strong, and so far, I am winning the battle, but I can't know if that's forever, or just for now. I'm a girl who likes a plan, and all of this not knowing is hard to live with, but I am living with it, and I am deeply grateful that I recognized just how dark the world had gotten and that I had to power to ask for help in locating the light switch.
     I'm only now, months into this journey, realizing that it's a marathon, not a sprint, and there are going to be setbacks, but a bad day doesn't mean a bad life. My therapist is helping me learn to ignore the lies that the depression feeds me, and the constant scroll across the screen of my brain that lists my faults and failures. Make no mistake- depression is a liar. The battle to sort out what is truth and what is fiction is exhausting. I don't know what to make of the fact that my own brain sort of turned against me. Or that it isn't the first time it's happened, which is how I recognized the problem to begin with. Depression, and her best pal, Anxiety, are unwelcome house guests who overstay their welcome and eat all the good food from the place. The good news is, I'm done with being a good host to them and I have decided that they should go, the bad news is, it's a process that doesn't happen overnight.
     So, there's my truth. I have depression and anxiety. I'm working on it. I'm doing better than I was last week, and the week before, and the month before that. I'm winning this today. I will wake up and try my hardest to win this tomorrow, as well.

Giving Thanks

     When my eyes opened at 5:05am today, I thought two things. First, that I had 'slept in', because for the previous two mornings, I woke up for no particular reason whatsoever at 4:30am, like that's just a thing I do now, and Adulting is getting more fun by the minute around here. Second, I realized that I had to go to the grocery store. It's 48 hours before the biggest food holiday of the year, and I have to go brave it alone.
     I showered and said a prayer in front of the mirror, "Please God, let this go smooth. Let me stick to my list, let any impulse buy be chocolate. Let me keep a little faith in humanity. Let my journey be safe and swift and, if it's not too much to ask, let stuff be on sale. Let me find a little joy. Let me always remember that if I die in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart, it is Your Will."
     Spoiler Alert: I didn't die. Am grateful.
     On the quiet, windy drive to the store, I started running through Holiday's Past. Once, the boy ate an entire Thanksgiving dinner and then barfed, prompting everyone to play our favorite holiday game, "Food Poisoning or Stomach Bug?" The boy turned 18 in October. This is the last holiday season that he is legally required to attend.
On a Thanksgiving Eve, years ago, my dearly departed mother-in-law bragged about a garage sale find- a $1 hand mixer. She pulled it out of the box and started mixing something for the next day's dinner, and then the mixer blew up and the roasted turkey smell competed with the smell of burnt plastic.
My dad loved to take a perfectly roasted turkey from the oven and soak up all of the praise for it, even though I have never been sure what exactly he did to it besides put it into the oven and then take it back out again hours later. But, in all of my memories, I see him standing with his electric carving knife smiling.
Holidays are like that, huh?
I wanted to give my kids picture perfect holidays, straight from a Thomas Kinkade painting holidays,  I wanted Thanksgiving with a perfect turkey and a 'tablescape' straight from the pages of a magazine. But, I'm staring down the barrel of 40, and I'm learning, ever so slowly, that those paintings aren't real. They come from a bottle of paint. (I should note that at least a little of my holidays are going to come from a bottle, too. Thanks Winery of Ellicottville!)
On my trek to the grocery store, I was standing in what I thought was a low traffic area, trying to rearrange the items in my cart to make room, when a lady came from behind. She had a cart piled high with all of the usual suspects and I heard her say, "I converted the recipe wrong, so I was short on green beans." And I honestly wanted to say, "Same." Aren't we all just a few beans short of a full casserole?
I made my way to the beverage aisle and there was a tiny old lady trying to reach a 2 liter of Ginger Ale from a too high shelf, so I offered to help. Maybe I can't give my kids the perfect holiday, but I can reach the Ginger Ale for somebody's grandma. Maybe I can't have everyone at the table that I long to sit with, but I can be grateful or the ones that are there, and hope for the best next year.
     If you are reading this, then you play a role in my life, and I am grateful for you. I give thanks that you're reading this. I hope and pray that you have a smooth and tasty holiday. If you're missing someone special from your table, let me say that I am sorry, and I feel you. If you're alone for the holiday, and you don't want to be, call me, we'll figure something out. If you're expecting the perfect holiday, worthy of a canvas, I hope that you aren't disappointed and that you tell me how you did it. If you still have to go to the grocery store to prep for your dinner- the prayer in the first part of this story seemed to work out pretty well for me.
Happy Thanksgiving.

If You Want To Walk

Life got crazy. It's nothing earth shattering, and in the grand scheme of things, it's all minor and will be short lived. But it's hard to remember that when you're in the thick of it, isn't it? It's difficult to keep moving forward when you feel the weight of life bearing down. For me, I keep hearing myself say, "I just want to lie down." Which is usually the best indicator that I should do the exact opposite.
I asked Zoe to go for a walk with me yesterday. I had work and a thousand things to do around the house, she had homework and SnapChat and a thousand other things to do, as well, but we went. Whenever life gets a little crazy, I start to feel guilty because I don't feel like I am giving enough of myself to her, and despite her insistence that she's "FINE, MOM", we set out on the trail to spend at least a little time together without the distractions that pop up on a regular basis these days.
As we were walking past her best friend's house, we decided to stop to see if her friend wanted to walk for awhile. The friend wasn't home. The friend's dog, Bella, was. We patted the dog and headed on our way, but the dog had already accepted the invitation on behalf of her absent young lady, and Bella ran ahead of us on the trail for a mile, stopping to check back with us every so often. We lost sight of her at one point, only to have her pop out of a corn field, and scare a little pee out of at least one of us. (No names.) (It was me.) We got back to Zoe's friend's, but the dog wasn't ready to end the adventure yet. So we walked around Placek Park for another 20 minutes, trying to convince her that my calf muscles have an expiration date. Zoe called her friend, the dog ran out in front of a car and gave us a collective heart attack. The dog ran towards a family, we screamed that she is "SUPER NICE! SHE DOESN'T BITE!" After crossing the street and checking very carefully into some dumpsters, where Zoe and I finally just sat down on the concrete of the walking trail and clapped a lot and called her name, Zoe's friend and her mom came and got the dog, and we gathered our exhausted legs and walked the rest of the way back to my car, where we clocked in with over six thousand steps, two thousand of which we owe solely to Bella the Dog.
To the general public, we looked like a couple of girls who weren't smart enough to put our dog on a leash. To the dog, we looked like easy marks in a game of tag. To my tired, somewhat overwhelmed heart- we looked like exactly what I needed.
We will keep moving forward. When we come across problems, we will put our heads down and clap and look silly to the people standing around us. We may even walk around with the problem for a while, just to see if it resolves itself. We will come out on the other side, tired and sore, but stronger. And then we will wake up tomorrow and do it all again.
"If you want to walk fast- walk alone. If you want to walk far- walk together."- African Proverb

Taste Your Words

When I was eleven years old, I wrote a poem. I worked for days to perfect it. I searched the thesaurus in the school's library, I read it aloud in front of a mirror. I worked harder than I had ever worked on any assignment. I labored. I shared it with exactly one person. A trusted teacher. I remember the butterflies in my stomach when I left it on his desk and shyly asked him to read it. "I wrote this thing." I said, unwilling to even label it as a poem, because, in my sixth grade mind, poems were for professionals.
Two days went by, I studied his face during every class. He gave no indication that he had any sort of reaction at all, and for little while, I wondered if I had actually left the paper, or if I had somehow dreamed the entire thing.
On the second day, during the last class, during the last minute of the day, he requested that I stay after the bell rang. I spent the next few minutes in a kind of frozen hell. I wanted to throw up, and then run, or run while throwing up.
After the last classmate had left the room, he said that he had liked my poem, that he could tell that I had worked hard on it. My spirit lifted. Then, he said, "Do you know what the word 'plagiarize' means?" I said that I did. Then he went on to detail what happens when a writer steals another writer's work. That passing someone else's work off as one's own is dishonest and hurtful to the person who put their best efforts into whatever they were writing. I got the message. The poem was good, so good, in fact, that my trusted teacher didn't believe that I had written it.
The poem found it's way into the trash can, I faced a long, sad walk home. I hadn't copied anyone's work. The words had been mine alone. I couldn't be angry with him. He had been as kind as an adult could be who was crushing the inspiration of a preteen girl. I am nearly forty years old, and all it takes is a second to remember the shame I felt, needlessly, sitting in that empty classroom. Words matter.
Two days ago, I shared a post about my father's death. A teacher I trusted and adored (and still adore!) in eighth grade commented that I should write more often. Her praise of my words lifted me up and made my feet light for the rest of the day. She had that effect in the eighth grade, as well. Words matter.
I write all the time. I write long, elaborate stories in my head. I write while I am reading and cooking and folding laundry. I write because it's how my brain works. I just don't share because that is also how my brain works. Sometimes I sit at the computer typing for hours. I reread what I wrote, and then I wish for anonymity because writing is a whole different animal from sharing. Sharing doesn't come anywhere near as easily as writing. Every single time I have shared a blog post, I feel like vomiting. Or running. Or running while I vomit. I always, without fail, want to take it all back and shove it back inside my head for another day. But the words matter.
I am happiest when I am putting thought to paper (or screen, as the case may be). So, I just wanted to say, thank you for reading my words. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for your 'likes' on Facebook. Thank you for the texts you sent. Thank you for what you said to me out loud, with all the world around us to hear. Your words? They matter. I carry them around with me, sometimes for YEARS.
There's a great quote, "Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out". This week, all of your words tasted sweet and light- and I am really and truly grateful.

Post Game Analysis- Eclipse Edition

Let's clear this up right off the bat- I wasn't excited about the eclipse until the tenth article I read, WAY too late last night. I didn't get special glasses. I didn't intend to keep the kids home. I was pretty ambivalent about the whole thing until I started reading online articles describing how rare and beautiful of an event it was going to be.
I woke up this morning, I signed the permission slip allowing Zoe to watch the show, I drove her to school, came home and poured my heart out in a blog post that had little to do with the eclipse, but also, everything to do with it. I was exited. I was observant and watchful of the sky, which, in truth, was pretty cloudy in my little corner of the world.
Here are some of my observations.
1. My dogs were acting very strange. From about 10am until 1pm, they paced, and repeatedly went to the door and barked. I don't think it really had much to do with the eclipse, though. They're pretty strange on any given day. Also, they like to go outside and play with the cats. There may have been a leaf blowing in the yard that they were barking at? Maybe I witnessed the effect of the celestial event on their behavior, but I think it was far more likely that I witnessed Just Another Day With The Abramo Dogz.
2. The cats outside could not, and probably would not, have given two craps about what was going on in the heavens. Not that I saw, anyway.
3. As the time approached what was said to be nearest to totality, it gradually got pretty dark. Crickets and the like were chirping. The light around my house was kind of eerie. I went back inside to check on the weirdo dogs and when I came back out, low and behold, John came gunning down the driveway, back from an extended weekend in Buffalo, NY with family. He pulled in two minutes before the maximum moment of totality. He likes to push the envelope.
4. We BOTH stared up at the sun, sans protective eyewear, despite all of the warnings. It should be noted that I did keep the dogs inside to protect THEIR eyes.
5. We didn't see much. It was pretty cloudy.
6. It gradually started to get lighter again.
7. I felt off-centered and jittery. At first I thought I was having some kind of "One with the universe" moment. A psychic/medium, who's page I like on Facebook (don't judge me!) said that if you were to feel anxious before, during or after the eclipse, you should 'ground down'. Literally, go outside and stand on the ground, barefoot. So, I was heading back out to do just that & figured the dogs needed to go potty by this point, and took them out, too. Then I realized that I was standing barefoot in what is my dog's bathroom, so I stepped back up onto the deck and waited for them to finish their business. While waiting, I realized that I had drank a cup of coffee, my first in almost two months, on an empty stomach. So, I went inside and ate some cheese crackers and I felt a lot better.
8. John and I watched part of the latest episode of Game of Thrones, I went and picked up Zo, he fell asleep.
The whole thing was kind of anti-climatic but I checked out Facebook and I saw a lot of very, very cool pictures of other people's eclipse experiences and something occurred to me. While I stood outside (unwisely) staring at the heavens, an awful lot of people were doing the same. A number of my fellow humans were out there, searching the sky for an experience. Waiting for the light to fade, and then shine again. Maybe some of us were frightened of it not shining again. Maybe some of us just wanted a break from the work day. Maybe some of us are fascinated by the fact that we know so much about the universe, and yet so very little. But, we were all out there, looking. Democrats, Republicans. Conservatives and liberals. Black and white and every color in between. Men and women and everyone in between. We were rich, and poor, and middle class, and we were watching.
"No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible." -George Chakiris

Eclipsed

Today at 11:37am, the moon will begin to cover the sun. At 1:03pm, it will reach maximum coverage, and will continue to move across the sun until 2:29pm. For a few minutes the day will become night. The shadows will take over. An event that astronomers say hasn't occurred in the United States, in this capacity, in nearly a hundred years.
But I know better.
Seven years ago today, on a hot afternoon, surrounded by people who love him deeply, my father died. The light hid in the shadows of grief and I couldn't feel the sun shining. I remember the beginning. I remember when the shadows began their journey across my sun, but the details surrounding it grow murkier every day. Because I have learned that it wasn't all about the darkness. Seven years ago on this day, my sun indeed went dark, and it was incredibly painful, and it was hard to navigate in the twilight, but with time, the sun began to shine again, if not quite as bright as before.
In the beginning, I had a difficult time just walking around with that darkness hanging over me. My grief was heavy and weighed down every moment of the day.   My world seemed to constantly exist in a perpetual state of gloom. Inky blackness threatened everything. I couldn't remember anything but the darkness. Seven years later, I chose to remember the moments when the sun shined so brilliantly. I chose to remember, not the moment of maximum totality, but all of the moments before that, when I lived with his laugh and the warmth of his smile.
Last week, I was shopping in a local store. The cashier's phone began to ring from her pocket and from an aisle close to the registers, I heard her say, "Hi Mom", and then she let out a big laugh and said, "Sorry, Dad!" When I put my purchases on the counter, she apologized to me for taking the call. I told her that there was absolutely no need for an apology. When I got to my car, I nearly wept with the knowledge that my phone isn't going to ring. And then, that night, I had a dream about a house on west 10th Street, with my father peeking over the top of a cup of coffee. We didn't speak. It only lasted a moment. But for that moment, the sun was bright.
He was funny and sarcastic and flawed. He cried when his dog died, he smoked like a chimney. He drank his iced tea with no ice. He liked his coffee black and his jokes R-rated. He worked hard to have a beautiful lawn. He was a night owl. He hugged me like no one ever can, or will again. He drove slowly. He listened to country music. He hated potatoes. He shook his head when words escaped him, and you could understand exactly what he was saying. He was stubborn. He could be cold and unmoving. He could be warm and welcoming. He liked socks that reached his knee caps and tee-shirts with pockets and western shirts with pearly buttons. He was lightness, and darkness, and all the shadows in between, and I love him deeply and I miss him the same as the number of stars in the sky.
Seven years ago, when the shadows moved over the sunshine, I could not fathom a moment where I would not feel broken and lost. I have since learned not to fear the shadows of my grief. Shadows exist because there is light nearby.