Stop This Train

In one of my earliest memories, I'm riding in the car with my dad. I have no idea where we're going or why we are going there, but I remember that it was night time and my dad was listening to the Bruce Springsteen song "Born In The USA" over and over on a cassette tape. There's nothing particularly significant about this memory, save for the fact that it involves someone I have very few memories of and that every time I hear that song, I'm right back in that car. I don't know if the occasion was a happy or sad one, but I always get the same feeling in my stomach I get when I'm on a boat or riding in the middle in the backseat of a car; mild nausea and a sense of anticipation.

This random memory doesn't have much to do with anything except to remind me that it's been a year and a half since my dad passed away and I'm no closer to understanding who he was or why he made the choices that he made. What I have realized is that life isn't a predictable scene in a movie where I dig around in some boxes in an attic for five minutes, find a journal, finally understand everything, and have full and instant closure. The fact is that I may never understand anything about my dad. The trick is learning to be okay with it.

Most days I can convince myself that it's impossible to miss something you never really had. Today was not one of those days.

Today I attended the funeral of a friend's dad. He was a great guy, warm and inviting and so enthusiastic about everything that you could always hear him talking from at least two rooms away. I only saw him a few times a year at summer barbeques and at Josh's fantasy football drafts, but he always greeted me with a big hug, like a long-lost friend that he was thrilled to see. He was one of those people that everyone liked; a person the world could use more, not fewer, of. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he will be greatly missed.

Maybe it was because it was the first funeral I've been to since my dad's, but it ripped the delicately-placed band aid I cover up my grief with right off of me. As selfish as this may sound, I sat in the church unable to stop thinking about my own dad's funeral. I distinctly remember the weather was beautiful that day and I kept seeing all of these people walking around outside, and I couldn't stop thinking that it was just a normal, ordinary day for other people, but I was standing in a stuffy room with my dad's body feeling like the bottom had dropped out of my life. I recognized that same sentiment in the grief-stricken faces I saw today. The only difference between what the family was feeling today and what I felt a year and a half ago is that they were mourning a great man who was always there for them, and I was mourning a fleeting shadow, the fading strains of a Bruce Springsteen song, a person I never really knew and there's nothing I can ever do to fix that.

When I allow myself to really stop and think about it, it's scary that I'm getting to an age where my parents and my friend's parents are beginning to pass away. It seems surreal, and it also seems wrong. Those are the grown-ups, not us. We're all just playing house, but they're the real adults who really know what's going on, what advice to give, and how to make everything right. How are we supposed to carry on in a world without them? I can't imagine life without my mom, mother-in-law, and father-in-law. I hate thinking that it's a reality I'll have to face someday and I don't want any of my parents (birth or in-law) to ever doubt how much I love them. I don't want to make that mistake twice.

So as I stood there today with the snow falling lightly, watching a great man be laid to rest all I could think was this: We all go sometime and no one ever knows when. Don't squander your life. Holding a grudge isn't worth it. If someone wants to apologize to you, or love you, or even just talk to you, let them. Hear them out. You have nothing to lose by accepting people for who they are and not letting your pride get in the way. Take it from someone who turned their back on a person who wanted to offer them nothing more than an apology: It doesn't matter if you feel like it's too little, too late. I didn't hear my dad out and he died, and now I never can. My dad did terrible, hurtful things and I could only focus on that, instead of his regret. And now I'm the one with regret. Don't be me. Turn off your brain and turn on your heart. No one is perfect, stop expecting them to be. Let people love you. Because you might never get another chance. 

The Barely Lucid Thoughts Of A Barely Lucid Human Being

Occasionally I joke that this blog is like my own little online journal, but in my life that exists outside of the confines of the internet, I keep a real journal. You know the deal: Pen and paper, messy thoughts written in even messier (and mostly illegible in my case) handwriting, the occasional sharpie self-portrait. The whole nine yards.

I have kept some form of a journal my whole life. It's great because in a way, every important event in my life from meeting Josh to the birth of my children has been chronicled. The obvious downside is that every moment (and I mean, EVERY moment) of my middle and high school experiences, good and bad (mostly bad) cataloged for the whole world to hopefully never, ever see. Anne Frank may have been eloquent and wise at twelve but me, not so much.

Anyway, I was discussing keeping a journal the today with a reader via my Facebook page and I commented that these days my journal is more like an elephant graveyard for blog ideas that are either too crazy or too incomplete to make a whole blog, rather than a "dear diary" type of journal. The lovely reader encouraged me to share my crazy ideas. I refused, because how narcissistic is it to put every single thought and random idea I have out there and expect anyone to care about it? At which point, said reader pointed out that that's exactly what I'm doing right now, just by writing this blog.

Busted.

So in the spirit of narcissism and because I will give the kind people who regularly read this blog pretty much anything they ask for, the following are word-for-word excerpts from my journals. No wording or grammar has been changed from the original version. The only changes were automatically corrected spelling mistakes, of which I had many. Nothing is in any kind of order and I chose each entry by closing my eyes and flipping through the pages with a pointed finger, because I am nothing if not scientific.

So here we go.

• I worry that I'll always be the person scribbling furiously into a beat-up notebook while muttering under my breath, as curious passerby's alternate between sneaking glances and covering up their children's eyes as they hurry by. This doesn't make me cool. This doesn't mean that I'm a "creative writer". It means that I will continue to live life in a purgatory of awkward that I clearly have no hope of ever growing out of.

• I know there's arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and agoraphobia (fear of people/being out in public) but what's it called when you have a crippling, deep-rooted fear of the dentist accidentally sneezing in your mouth? 

• The other day a friend told me that I'm "exactly where I should be" in my life. I have no idea why, but it was one of the best compliments ever to be bestowed upon me. 

•  Last night I had an incredibly vivid dream that I discovered the key to my purpose in life. I woke up at 3 am and, on the inside cover of my library book (oops) wrote "Funnel Cake Measuring Tape". What. The. Hell. 

• This semester sucks. I'm finally realizing that my British Lit class serves only to remind me how much I hate--no--DETEST poetry. To me, talking about poetry is exactly like talking about wine. Everyone's always like "Oh yes, the fruity nuances and the undertones of sandalwood make it robust and charming" and I'm like "Yep. Tastes like wine to me!". I'm the same way with poetry. I don't seem to see the same deep hidden messages and meanings as everyone else. I just see that if it doesn't rhyme or involve the trials and tribulations of a man from Nantucket, I just don't get it. More importantly, I don't want to get it.

• I have finally pinpointed my addiction to social media. I love that I can write, rewrite, edit, critique and polish every sentence into verbal perfection before anyone else sees it. I magically have the ability to be funny, intelligent, or thoughtful depending on the situation. It takes the awkward right out of me. If only talking to an actual human being was as simple.  

• I feel so stupid lately and I hate feeling stupid. Josh says that I'm not stupid, I'm just bored and that there's a big difference. In that case, I hate feeling bored. 

• I have a library book that I checked out from the public library in High School (ten plus years ago, minimum) that I never returned. I feel like I should confess this just in case I die randomly. While I'm atoning, I should also admit that if there was a button I could push that would eject Will.I.Am into the deepest regions of space, never to be seen or heard from again, I would totally do it. Without hesitation.

• Ending a sentence by hastily adding "That's totally a thing!" does not, in fact, make it totally a thing. It just makes me sound like a real douche bag. 

• I can't put Layla or Ben in time-out without worrying I'm inadvertently doing some serious psychological damage somehow. This is going to make me a pushover parent, I just know it. 

• Layla knows every word to Katy Perry's "Firework". I have officially failed as a parent. 

• Sometimes it's frustrating how easy-going Josh is. He's like "Hey, who cares if we lose to our friends at a game of Scrabble? What matters is that we have fun!" and I'm like "Yeeeeah...If we lose this game of Scrabble, you are walking home". 

• The fastest way to despise myself is to look at other blogs. I am instantly riddled with self-doubt and crippled by blog envy. Especially when a blog as a million followers and it's not very good. What are they doing that I'm not doing? Why am I doing this at all?

• Today Layla's friend's older sister told me that I'm "Stylish, for an older lady". I refrained from slapping her, but just barely. Seriously. Barely. 

•  I am twenty-nine years old. I am the mother of two children. I should not yell "Sucks to be you!" when I win at something. I should be better than that. Too bad I'm not.

• My kids love to watch The Lawrence Welk show when it randomly comes on on Saturday afternoons. It's very old-timey and sweet, but all I can think about when I watch is how everyone on it is totally long dead by now. What kind of person thinks that? What's wrong with me?? Actually...scratch that. My kids like to watch The Lawrence Freaking Welk show. What's wrong with THEM??        

• When times get tough, I try to remember to be thankful for little things, like the fact that I married someone who finds my numerous quirks cute and amusing. Because honestly? Deep down, I'm not all adorable quirky a la Zooey Deshannel, I'm more like "What kind of mental illnesses does that girl have and are they contagious?" quirky.

So that's a peek inside my head. You're welcome or I'm sorry, depending on how terrifying an experience that was for you. I will be out of my journal and back to rallying against the injustice of the world from the safety of my computer soon. Until then...