2012.

Thinking back on the past year, I believe it was incredibly apt that 2012 was supposed to be the year that the world ended. Although taken quite literally and out of context (but you better believe I was looking out my window for those zombies!), in a lot of ways the world as I knew it did end in 2012. I am very much entering 2013 a new person, leaving behind who I was in 2012 and before as a person I don't recognize much.

Entering into 2012, I was a woman who thought she knew who she was and what she wanted. I had the "right" girlfriend, the "right" job, the "right" outlook on life... and leaving 2012 I realize just how wrong I was.

I've cheated, I've lied, I've had all the wrong priorities... and, even worse, I thought that they were all the right ones.

Sitting here at the computer, eating one of my sister's amazing cheesecake brownies and drinking some chai tea (from the new Hawks mug Britt got me!) while the snow falls, I am so much more at peace than I ever have been. Sure, I still worry about money, being a good enough parent, etc., but I am happy knowing that my life is once again moving forward.

Instead of making resolutions, we made a bucket list of things we'd like to do, see, achieve and ways we'd like to grow in 2013. It's gonna be a great year, I can feel it...

Quick sand.

After a wonderful birthday last night, I got into my jammies and crawled into bed next to my beautiful girlfriend. We had done little last night but watch TV, enjoying the rare night off that we get just a few times a month.

I curled up next to her, forming my back against the curve of her front, and relaxed. As she covered the nape of my neck with tiny kisses, I started to cry.

"What's wrong," she asked me, her voice full of concern.

After a few minutes of trying to form my thoughts and emotions into words, it finally came out.

"I feel like a ghost, like I was alive one minute and just a muted, faded version of myself the next. I don't know where I went or what happens but it makes me really sad."

And there is was, all of a sudden. My humor aside, all defense mechanisms laid to rest, I turned 31 and silently lost my mind.

I want to feel like I'm really good at something, like I'm able to put 100% into it. My life is crazy, with so little downtime, that when I'm allowed to be alone and quiet with my thoughts they tend to come up in not so quiet fits of emotion.

What it really comes down to is feeling like a failure. I remember so clearly what I used to be like, really hanging onto and enjoying every minute, and I find myself all of a sudden in the system. I never have enough money, I'm still renting, I have debt and no degree to show for it, my house is a mess, I feel like I half ass my relationship with my girlfriend and my daughter and I feel like I'm not growing in derby because my brain is so discombobulated all the time.

It's a hard place to be in because none of those problems have an easy fix. I can't snap my fingers and feel like a better mom. I can't just suddenly become an "all star" derby player. My house isn't magically going to clean itself. I'm stuck in quick sand and the more I panic, the deeper I sink.

So I'm here, writing (which is another thing that has gotten left in the dust), trying to figure it all out on "paper" instead of letting it continue to lurk in my head. I have no solutions, no quick fixes. I'm just here, human and bare.

Phoenix.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about growth lately - the necessity of the beast, mainly, and how precisely one acknowledges and nurtures the growth within themselves.

Growth, you see, is difficult. It's not meant to be easy or for those faint of heart and conviction. It's meant to be faced down, met eye to eye in a back alley. It's supposed to be terrifying. A good friend once said to me, "If you're not scared, you're not learning anything." I laughed him off at the time, gave him one of my signature eye rolls and changed the subject, afraid that he really did know what he was talking about.

Turns out, he did.

I have had a lot of hurt in the past few years. I've gone through break ups, heart ache, made myself vulnerable and had things (romantic, professional and otherwise) end poorly. I've cried, I've beat myself up thinking about what I could have done differently and I've stayed in bed all day.

Then I got up. I moved forward.

Some people would have me believe that simply moving on, moving forward, is a slap in the face and means I've locked all those emotions in some deep, dark trunk in my brain. That just because I'm not thinking about all my decisions on a regular basis means I'm pretending it didn't happen, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

I've chosen to take those mistakes, those choices (for better and for worse), and use them as the soil that I've rebuilt my life on. No one comes into this world with an easy path, and some of us have it harder than others, but we all share one thing in common... we choose who we are and what we become. We can wallow in misery and focus on the negative or we can be the phoenix and raise ourselves up from the ashes.

I'm not sure I'll ever be 100% comfortable with who I am and where I am in my life. I'm a writer, a creator, and my natural mindset is to strive towards the unattainable. But what I can tell you is that I have never been more content with that struggle towards knowledge, never been more sure of who I have in my corner and who would try to trip me and hold me down. I've never felt more safe to be me in my life and I've never felt less afraid to give the middle finger to those people who can't be there for me the same way I have always been there for them.

In the end, really, it's their loss.

And I'm a goddamn phoenix rising.

Grey.

This morning, I put priority on my writing.

I woke up early this morning to shower, too tired out by a fast scrimmage practice and a late night birthday party for Caits with my dad to shower last night. When I found myself dressed and ready, the dog walked, by 6:50a, I was excited by the thought of being able to head to Starbucks and grab a salted caramel mocha before work.

I wandered into the bathroom for one last go-through with my straightener and noticed a few grey hairs that have slipped past my hair dye for the past few months.

And then I noticed how little I cared about them. I looked at them, streaking through my bangs, and smiled. I've earned those grey hairs. While they used to scream at me about how old I'm getting, they now grin at me and remind me how far I've come, how grown up and mature I am now.

So, instead of Starbucks, I write. I breathe in the cool, fall air and smile about this upcoming season of change and the amazing place I'm in now, due to all of the events that caused those little grey hairs.

And I feel grateful.

Forgiveness.

I believe very strongly in the power of being able to adjust and control your own attitude.

I, however, have not quite learned the finer art of being able to do that. There are times when my mind plays tricks on me, runs away with tiny, negative thoughts, and my rational brain is unable to rein it back in.

I have always been creative. The downside of that creativity is that I often can create scenarios that are unlikely, if not impossible, to happen. When I was dating my ex-girlfriend Jenny, I was struggling with the feeling that I was still in love with my ex before her, Bridgette. In the shower yesterday (I do some of my best thinking - and singing - in there!), it occurred to me that it was Bridgette's constant reminding me how much she loved me and how much we belonged together that convinced me that it was inevitable.

Now, with the benefit of time and space, I can see how little I was making and influencing my own decisions. Besides being a kind of gross realization, I also feel awful because I ended up hurting a lot of people in my quest to get to my real feelings on the situation.

I've started, recently, trying to forgive myself for my past. I hold myself to a pretty high standard and any deviation from what I view as perfect behavior just totally fucks with my brain. I've hurt people, I've made unpopular decisions and I am a human being. We aren't perfect, we CAN'T be. We can only move forward having learned who we are and what we want out of life... and that's what I'm doing.

I have a wonderful girlfriend who, knowing my past, chooses to love me despite it. If she can, I should be able to.

Writing.

Do you remember that scene where Indiana Jones fell into the pit of snakes? There are big snakes and little snakes and hissing snakes trying to bite and snakes that could care less... and there he is, in the center of all that, trying to figure out how to get out of there.

That's my head these days.

My brain is full of squirmy thoughts that don't necessarily have any negative desires, but become something that I am completely unable to not focus on.

It's tough to live like that.

I've recently had to make the choice to set aside one of the longest relationships in my life, the one with my little sister, while she is figuring her life out. I'm not interested in putting any of this into the public forum, but I am unable and unwilling to have a relationship with someone who is capable of saying such hurtful things to me (especially about something I pride myself on being good at). I know that's vague, and I intend for it to stay that way, but I need to put it out there because it has greatly affected my life recently.

It's also inspired me to write again. I remember being that age, thinking I knew everything and everyone else was wrong, wanting to take on the world... I miss the inspiration that drove out of me. Sitting at Starbucks the other day reminded me that, while I might not always take the time to write, that writer is still inside me dying to get out.

Accountability

162.8#. I actually got on the scale four times this morning to confirm my weight. I knew I had put some on, knew I felt (for lack of a better word) plusher, but I didn't know that it was actually 10#. Technically, almost 25# in 2 years, although some of that was weight loss due to stress after my ex-girlfriend and I broke up.

I was shocked. But, oddly, I didn't feel like crying. I have a plan. I have drive. I'm ready to change my lifestyle. I'm actually kind of excited to eat a banana for breakfast.

Let's do this thing.

Vulnerability

There is something about a thunderstorm that rains down a sense of renewal.

There is something even more poignant about that thunderstorm if it occurs after months of drought.

I feel like I've been that grass recently, dried out and crying for the one thing I need to survive. Begging, arms stretched to the sky, for that sense of relief and purpose.

When the sky broke this afternoon, when the thunder rattled the house and the heavy, thick drops of rain splashed through the screen door and onto my feet and the linoleum, I felt myself break as well. 

I'm not sure why I've been so creatively stifled lately. I used to joke (although, looking back, it was one of those jokes that stem from a truthful place) that I couldn't write when my ex-girlfriend and I were together. I remember once standing naked in front of a large window on the twentieth story of a beautiful high rise hotel in Chicago at dawn, starting down at the sleepy people making their walk to get the paper or grab a breakfast croissant, and wishing more than anything else that I could write. Just pen something, jot down something small but meaningful, but feeling so stuck that I felt broken. 

I never understood writer's block until that moment. I had heard people talk about their inability to write, the feeling they had trying to get something (anything!) out but unable to...creatively constipated. Much like trauma or winning the lottery, I thought that only happened to other people. 

Turns out this whole time I've been feeling the same way and too afraid to admit it.

Writing, especially for me, stems from a place of emotional openness and rawness. When I write, I bleed out all my feelings and hopes and dreams and fears, which leaves me feeling incredibly vulnerable. It also leads to me feeling, well, better. 

My thirtieth year is almost over. In a few short months, I will be turning 31. My life is upside-down, backwards and sideways different than it was when I turned 30, in some of the best ways ever. I have a partner who lives up to that term, someone who is actually there for me and supports me and loves me just how I am. I have a daughter getting ready to turn 11 and enter into her last year of elementary school. I have a job that fulfills me and leaves me feeling like I'm in exactly the right place. I'm contemplating losing weight, going to nursing school, getting my shit together after years and years of just letting the cards fall where they may.

None of that is easy. All of that requires my vulnerability, the understanding that I can and might fail and fall and the drive to get right back up. 

Writing is the same way. I always make excuses for why I can't write - no time, no motivation, nothing to say. But maybe, just maybe, having nothing to say is a cover for being afraid to say it.

Lessons learned.

The last few years of my life have been a whirlwind.

It wasn't a tumbleweed tossing, have to rescue your hair from your lip gloss type of whirlwind. It was more of an F5 tornado, leaving behind it a swath of destruction and mayhem.


But god, how I've learned.


I've been through two relationships, both very different in the lessons I've taken away from them and the pain that was left in their wake. I've learned that, although I might want to, I can't force myself to be someone I'm not. Sometimes, simply loving someone isn't enough. Trust is hard earned and even harder when you have a hard time even trusting yourself. Self esteem can't be faked or fixed in a day, a week or even a year. It's a constant internal battle; sometimes you win and other times you lose.


And, recently, I've learned that there are people out there who just "fit" with you. Usually, those people appear when you least expect it and change your whole life. You can't be looking because the universe likes to work in the most mysterious of ways, no matter how cliche that might seem.


I've gone from a job and a career path that I expected to work in for the rest of my life to another completely different one because of a very adult decision. I've worked two jobs, 60+ hours weekly, barely seeing my daughter. And, let me tell you... choosing to work at the job where you are respected, your opinions welcomed and validated, is worth far more than money. 

Friends will come and go but the true friends stay. And some of the truest friends are the ones you see once every few years and that you can click right back into your friendship with as though no time has passed at all. Others will stab you in the back for no justifiable reason at all and smile in your face. Even in 30 years of life I haven't always been able to figure out which is which.

Just some random musings today.

Unwritten.

I used to think writing was a gift, a small shift in the grey matter of the people chosen to have it, that enabled us to be able to create.

Some days, it seems like writing is a curse. It's the need to get something, anything, out and having the words flit away from you like butterflies in a field.

These days, writing is more like a muscle, one that I've let atrophy and waste away until I worry that there is too little left there to develop back into the behemoth it once was.

I used to not be able to go anywhere without jotting something down on scraps of paper, littering my purse like a ticker tape parade. Anything that caught my eye, any random idea that popped into my head, they were all written down and compiled in standard unorganized fashion. I've written an entire novel.

I feel blocked and frustrated.

Hello lovers...

Long time no write! I've been adjusting to the major changes that have occurred in my life over the past few weeks and writing was, for once, the last thing on my mind.

But I'm here now, ready to sing like a songbird in the morning.

I'd like to start by addressing my critics. You may not understand me, you may not like me, but you have no place to judge me. Unless you've walked in my shoes (or skated in my roller skates), you don't know my life. You don't know how I feel, what I've been through and why I do (or have done) what I do. And, conversely, I don't know your life. Please don't think that it's ok to judge me and my choices. And please don't mistake me for the type of person that lets things like that slip. If you have something to say to me and, believe me, I know you do... say it to my face.

A hem.

That said.

I am so happy right now. I am almost unbearably happy, like my happiness might slip out of my pores and puddle on the floor around me. I never have ever thought I could have what I have right now - the movie fairy tale, the love from the books I've read since I was a kid. The person that would dance with me in the kitchen, hold my hand even when no one is looking. I feel constantly lucky to know her and to have her as my girlfriend and even more lucky that she feels that way about me back.

I used to think I knew what love was. I was so silly and so wrong and so so naive.

It isn't about changing yourself to fit into the mold of what you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to want. It's about meeting someone so complimentary that the words that come out of their mouth are the words that come out of yours, whose body fits against yours like a puzzle piece made to be there.

I am astounded and giddy and happy all the time and I refuse to apologize.

She's brought me back to life and I can never thank her enough.

Carpe diem.

Wow, it has been way too long!

Life has been good. No, strike that. Life has been, in a word, stellar. I feel like I've recently ascended in happiness like a phoenix, flying above all the stress and sadness that used to bring me down. It sounds sappy and dramatic but, if you've seen me in the last few weeks, you'll know from my face how true it is.

It's amazing how easy it is to let someone or something bring you down for so long. You sit back and let them question your motives, your self worth, your drive... and smile and nod while they're doing it! Your love for that person or that situation/job seeps somehow into your ability to feel complete, feel whole and, once you're on the other side of it, you see just how much importance you put on someone or something that didn't deserve it.

I am so happy now and, the best part is, I feel like I earned it. Like I deserve it. I refuse to base my self worth on any external forces and have become so cheesy silly happy that I can't imagine living any other way.

If you haven't tried it, I suggest you do. As I have recently been reminded, life is too short to be unhappy or not live your most genuine life RIGHT NOW.

Carpe diem, bitches. It might be the last one you have.

"All the poems you read
And what you really sought
Was the one poem.

And when you found it
... Weren’t you lifted up?
Didn’t you become lighter?

Transparent even, so that
someone looking at you
Could see the world,
Could see the world inside you?"

— Gregory Orr

Sunday Morning Coming Down...

Sitting on the couch this morning, wearing my girlfriend's grey Aero hoodie, I had one of those beautiful, rare moments of clarity.

It surprised me, for a moment, to realize how difficult a time I have had balancing everything recently. I used to put a lot of stock in horoscopes and astrology, although that practice has faded some with time, but I am a Libra. According to all the literature, I am a pretty typical Libra. The symbol of Libra are the scales, the ultimate balancing act. So, naturally, I should have a propensity for balance. 

Normally, I do. Thanks to my natural attention deficit disorder, I often flit around like a hummingbird, going from one task to another and back again, with little effect on my pschye.

But recently, I've felt myself worn down. It shocked me to see a defeatist attitude taking over, a "daily grind" sort of mentality. Drifting around with less joy than I have ever had, going from job to job and home without giving anything more than 25% (on a good day) of my time. My relationships suffered, my home suffered and I suffered.

It all came to a head when my shifts were cut at the place I had given my heart for 6 years. I felt angry, worthless, scared. But, thanks to my amazing girlfriend and a little therapy, I've come to understand that I have the world's best support system and I now have weekends. Weekends. I'm going to say that again because it feels foreign to me, like trying to suddenly speak Italian. 

So it's my first Sunday. As I told my girlfriend this morning, I'm going to carpe di-motherfucking-em. I'm writing, making pancakes, cleaning. I have my first roller derby practice in a month tonight. I start a new schedule this week that includes getting off early enough to pick my daughter up twice a week and late enough to drop her off at school once a week. My life seems to have somehow clicked together, as I realized this morning.

I can do it. I don't know why I ever thought I couldn't. 

Spring.

"Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart."

-Victor Hugo

Do you ever have those days when things just feel different somehow? More hopeful, like you're on the cusp of something big?

I walked out to my car this morning, running my obligatory 5 - 10 minutes late and still needing to stop to get coffee, only to discover it was iced over. As I reached for my ice scraper, I realized that I had recently stepped on it as it resided on my driver's side floor board and snapped the scraper from its handle. Instead of causing my grief and unleashing a string of Sunday morning expletives, I calmly picked it up from the floor and scraped my car off with my bare hand and the small piece of plastic.

After debating my diet for the day, I splurged on a delicious caramel macchiato for breakfast and actually got to work on time. I noticed the birds chirping outside and, although the temperature outside read 26 degrees on my car's dashboard, I could almost feel a hint of spring in the air.

It has been a weird winter. We've had very little snow, very few cold days, and my body feels out of whack somehow. It almost feels like winter never really came and now we're almost into spring. But, suddenly, I'm ready for it.

All those projects I've been dying to finish, like cleaning the basement, I want to take on. Weight loss is going great (lost 6# so far!) and I'm motivated to continue on that path. My family is going in a positive direction - we're this beautiful, well-greased unit of awesome. I'm finally standing up for myself in ways I should have a long time ago.

Spring is in the air and in my heart.

Knock knock knock...

Sometimes, when you least expect it, the universe has a way of pointing lessons out to you. If you're lucky, you notice as it gently taps you on the shoulder. If you're not, it knocks harder and harder until you are unable to ignore it.

Yesterday, a patient looked directly at me during an intake exam and told me that I shouldn't let money decide my happiness. When I got home, I talked to one of my boss's who informed me that there were no hours left for me until at least May. Today, a coworker's daughter was involved in a horrible car accident.

Ok. I get it. Money is less important than family and happiness! I would prefer not to have any more of these lessons.

Take it from me, lovely readers, and go home and hug your family. Look at those bills, pay them, and put them out of your mind. Enjoy the weather and your life and what you love to do while you can.

Trust me. The universe WILL knock harder.

Writing.

“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”

- Anne Lamott

If forced to describe myself categorically, I would use all the usual labels... mother, daughter, partner, etc. But, sometimes above all that, I am a writer.

Writing muscles are similar to the muscles I've developed in roller derby. The muscle memory remains the same but, without practice, they atrophy.

But I don't set aside time like I used to, don't jot random, scattered notes on shreds of receipts with ideas for future short stories or blog posts. I sometimes worry that my gift is being squandered. I don't want to waste my talent but I also have an almost paralyzing fear of writer's block. It's cyclical - I stress about writer's block and don't write which makes me worry that I have writer's block even more.

But I've always felt there was so much good inside me, so many things waiting to come out and change the world. That may sound conceited but writing is the one talent I'm sure of, the one thing that I know I'm good at.

So why the fear? Why the self-judgement?

If I let you know I'll figure it out. Maybe that's just something that comes with being a crazy writer, the type of person who always has weird, random thoughts bouncing around in her brain.

They say all writers are a little crazy.

Women.

What a whirlwind of a finale to January! I promised to write about Miss Representation and ended up just abandoning most social networking entirely to make it through the rest of the month!

Now, as I wipe the sweat off my brow, I decided to take a moment, pause, and reflect on the events of the last week or so.

Miss Representation, for one, was mind boggling. Caitlin and I arrived a little late (due to my ADD thinking the tickets said 7:30p and not 7:00p!), but were immediately immersed and entranced as soon as we sat down. It really made me think, a lot, about feminism and women's rights and role in the culture.

I used to be a pretty militant feminist. While I don't regard myself quite that seriously anymore, the majority of my beliefs are still the same. After this documentary, though, I think they've amped back up to a level that I had forgotten they could exist at.

The world we live in, the world my daughter is growing up in, hasn't really changed that much. For the most part, women are still looked upon as lesser somehow, as a creature entirely created for baby making, cooking and men's pleasure. I've gotten used to this world, although I absolutely hate it, but thinking of my daughter growing up to be seen as an object makes me nauseated.

So, what do we do? Really! I want to know. I find it so disconcerting sometimes to even thinking of taking on the system, the "man," that I get flustered and lost before I even start?

What I do know is that all of the popular culture, the media - television, radio, movies, books, etc. - are, if not anti-woman, then certainly not pro-women. Just pay attention the next time a commercial is on. A rap song. A movie. Women are in the home, women are "hos," women are being fought for. We're never the protagonist, we're never the hero.

Just think about it. Is that the world you would want your daughter growing up in?

I know my answer.

January 18th.

It's funny, when you really look back, to see just how interconnected things are. Small, minute decisions (deciding to go someplace when you didn't really want to, waking up a half an hour late, etc) can make a huge impact on the course of your life. Some people call it the Butterfly Effect, the idea that a seemingly small thing can create a large reaction (a butterfly fluttering its wings on one side of the world can cause a hurricane on the other). I just tend to call it fate; the universe.

When I first moved back to Bloomington and started embracing my sexuality, I started by reaching out on the Internet. It was a safe haven for me, a place I could really be myself and be saved from a lot of the more obvious judgements on my life. One of the sites I stumbled across (after seeing a sign in the bathroom of the Bistro) was for a bisexual group in Central IL. After perusing, and eventually joining, I met a multitude of interesting, fascinating people. Many of those people I still talk to now and, although I won't "out" them, are still an important part of my life in a variety of different ways.

One of the people I met through my Internet travels was one Miss Amy Lambert. She remains to this day (although we rarely get the chance to interact) a creative powerhouse and one of the people who continues to inspire me so so much to keep writing and getting my voice out there. A few years later, she wrote me an email that would change my life.

That, my friends, is how I met one Jenny Mandel.

It turns out, because of this email, Jenny and I were friends on Facebook for nearly a year without any communication. We saw a year's worth of each other's status messages, of each other's innermost thoughts and feelings, without any back and forth conversation.

Then, one day, the stars lined up in exact perfect formation for that to change. My relationship had just gone down in explicit, flaming fashion and I was reaching out for someone. The person that reached back for me, that fateful day in November, would be the person who would change my life in every possible way.

I am so lucky to be in love with a person who loves me, despite all the hell we went through to get to where we are now. She drove to see me at my first bout as a derby girl, two hours away from where she lived, just to support me (at her own personal emotional cost). She's stuck by me, helped me up when I stumbled, held me when I've cried, dealt with a wealth of emotional bullshit that she didn't deserve... all with grace and tact and dignity.

I am so proud to have been able to love her for a year today. A sometimes tough year, a year of laughter and tears and hugs and a love that I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams.

I am even more lucky that she loves me back.

I've never been one to plan the future. But, looking at her, I see so much. I see marriage, kids, a house with a big backyard. I see laughter and conversation, I see support and strength and unconditional love. I see my soul reflected back in her eyes.

Happy anniversary, Jenny. One down, many more to go.

Priorities.

My life is fast paced. I used to have an odd, obsessive compulsive urge to empty my DVR; to keep it as bare bones as possible. Anything over 10 - 20% full had the possibility of sending me into a panic attack, deleting programs (mostly my girlfriend's, which drives her crazy) until the level gets down to a more manageable amount.

Today, my DVR is about 60% full. I rarely watch TV anymore and, when I do, it's mostly just on live in the background while I try to clean and organize in my rare "downtime."

My house has definitely gone on the back burner in terms of importance. There are dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor and papers on the kitchen table. Although, at times, it does tend to stress me out, I look at it like the physical proof that I'm putting myself and my family first.

I grew up in a clean house. I mean, clean. Spotless. My mother was not the type to put up with messiness and, as a result, I never had to do my own chores. I never vacuumed right, etc. So she did everything herself and ended up making me feel like I couldn't do anything right.

But it is what it is. I'm 30 years old now and blaming my parents for my issues seems less and less cute the older I get. Now, my house is either messy or clean. Neither one has too big of an effect on my self esteem. I'd rather snuggle with my daughter on the couch or cuddle up against my girlfriend in bed before she goes to work than do the dishes or fold the laundry.

Priorities, priorities.

Breathe.

I haven't been writing much lately because I've actually been reading. My life hasn't gotten any less hectic but I've been making time to cuddle up on the couch with my daughter and read.

For Christmas, my mom got me a picture of my little sister and I when we were smaller, snuggled on her lap, reading together. It reminded me of a time when we were all close, when I was young and innocent and the world was my oyster (who says that? Really? Where did that come from?!). Although my life is still busy, I've remembered how important it is to just take a minute out and breathe.

Why does that seem to be so tough? At my day job, one of my coworkers handed out cards with our "theme" for 2012 on them. We chose randomly. Mine said "Sometimes, the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths." Nailed, right? I am so so guilty of just rushing through life, going from one job to the next, one title (mother) to the next (lover), etc.

So do it with me... innnnnnn........ outttt....... Again. Now close your eyes. Feel the breath in your chest. Remember who you are. That you're here. That you're really alive.

We're all lucky to be here, right now, in this moment.

*** Side note, in case you're wondering, the "world is my oyster" quote actually came from Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. Now we're all a little bit smarter!

Parenting or something like it.

I remember vividly the moment my daughter was pressed, pink and tiny, into my arms. The nurses walked away and I remember watching them leave, feeling both love and terror at the same time. Parents always joke with new soon-to-be moms about there not being a manual, but I'm not sure how seriously those pregnant woman really take those words of advice.

Parenting does not come with a manual.

There is no test required to become a parent, no list of things you have to check off before being allowed to conceive. You can be young, old, stupid, a genius... anyone with a sperm and an egg to rub together can procreate.

If you ask me, that's a goddamn shame. But nobody really asked me.

I sit here, 10 years after that shining life change, still wondering what the fuck I'm doing. I'm working two jobs, roller derby, my girlfriend... and I worry that my daughter is the one suffering. How much time is one supposed to spend with their child? In what ways?

On an average day, I see my daughter from the time I get off work at 4:45p to the time she goes to bed at 9p - 9:30p. Then there are derby days, Mondays and Wednesdays, when I'm gone for another 2 hours. And the weekends she's with her dad. All in all, I see my flesh and blood 10 hours a week.

It makes me feel like a failure. It makes me worry that we're going to turn out the same way that my mother and I turned out, barely talking and going weeks and sometimes months between seeing each other.

The thought makes me nauseated. But I'm not sure what else to do. I'm trying to pay off a student loan that is suffocating me. I do roller derby for my sanity, to keep myself active, but even that fills me with guilt sometimes. I often feel so alone with this parenting thing, with this fear and confusion, that I don't know what to do with myself. My partner works nights (that's a whole other blog entry) and she is amazing with my (our?) daughter but I feel like I'm thrusting too much on her as well.

I'm not sure this blog entry has any sort of point other than to vent, but tonight I feel like venting. I just wish I knew how to forgive myself.

Strength.

I meant to write yesterday, to christen 2012 with a shiny, new blog entry, but instead I spent it doing all those things I was so resolute to do less than 24 hours before. I cleaned and organized my living room. I cooked pork chops with sauerkraut and apples. I took a shower with my girlfriend. I enjoyed being in the moment, even starting to clean my daughter's room before she gets home tomorrow. It was a relaxing and productive day.

I don't know what the rest of 2012 is going to bring. But what I do know is that I finally feel strong enough to handle it.