Posts tagged “peace

Durable Ribbons

Posted on September 19, 2011

Every once in a while I hesitate about a post. I learned a long time ago that some things, even though they are a part of my life, are not mine to tell. Still,  I’m pretty honest here, though there is an increasing awareness of how proprietary some of this is getting as the girls get bigger. Sometimes I write posts and delete them or just save them in draft form, catharsis without life on the internet. Other times I feel like I need to hit publish and put it out there. Discovering that you can’t teach something hurts. All the wonderful intentions I had to mold certain characteristics in our girls have slipped through my fingers like so much sand. Suddenly the time between…

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Empty Box

Posted on August 5, 2011

My 20th high school reunion was last month. Facebook makes things like reunions so different, for our tenth there was some communication, but not the photo-laced threads of remember when and can’t wait until. This time around, there were so many new faces popping up. We’ve aged, or we haven’t. We’ve married people we knew, or didn’t. Some people died, others disappeared and others still took on entirely new attitudes. I didn’t go to either reunion, but this summer something changed. Again, because of Facebook. Acceptance that had been lacking before came to the surface. Friends. Conversation. Common ground. I know it seems silly to 20-years post high school be shocked that people are just people, but I was. I am. I think it…

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Grooves of routine

Posted on September 16, 2010

Making the rounds, waking the girls, adding socks to outfits and tokens to backpacks reminds me of my childhood. I remember special things—Christmas concerts, spring morning field trips, last games of tag at sundown. I can almost smell the damp Eugene soil and hear the laughter of my childhood friends. It is exquisite to revisit the simplicity of meeting each day with awe. And then comes the tug. This was not my summer and this is not my school year. For every moment it feels like the best moments of my childhood, I am reminded that I am but a character in what will be a story very different from my own. The twist of being there to rouse them and then smooth away…

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Fix You*

Posted on August 14, 2010

It hit me shortly after dinner, a fast-moving veil enveloping my head and turning heavy and dark instantly, accompanied by a throbbing that sent piercing daggers of pain to my left ear and behind my right eye. A cold. I was annoyed, but if the last month has taught me anything itis that sometimes giving in from the start is more effective than putting up a fight against the inevitable. I trudged up to bed feeling sorry for myself. The night brought the usual interruptions—a night terror for Briar, trip to the bathroom from Ave and the molar-growing mews that have had Fin in our bed every night this summer. Each time I tapped Sean’s shoulder and pled for him to go. He did,…

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Think we’ll be happy?

Posted on June 27, 2010

We were standing in the backyard, as we readied to spend our first night in our new house. The reality of the road to our new start sobered us. We finally faced something we’d never dared to admit. I’d been pregnant with Ave when we first decided to sell, it sold a few months shy of her 4th birthday. While we had countless beautiful moments in our house in those years, the truth was the moment we decided to sell, we severed ties with the house. It never felt in our hearts that it was where we were supposed to be. We tried to love it, tried to feel settled, but the truth was as hard as we worked it never quite felt like…

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