Costumed

My mother sewed a hula hoop into one of her old prom dresses from the dress-up box. (We had the lottery of all dress-ups: my mom has four sisters, and thus bridesmaids dresses from their 70s weddings.)

The dress was brown and foofy, and, with the hoop, I was convinced it was positively Civil War.

I declared myself Beth from Little Women. I don't think I had ever made it farther than halfway through Little Women, so I didn't know Beth's fate ... just that she was quiet, peaceful, loving. Of course I wanted to be bold, confident Jo, who would chop her hair off and was a self-anointed author. But still buried in shyness, I couldn't even costume my desire. Beth was safe.

I didn't foresee the issue of waddling up neighbors' porches in a hula-hooped prom dress. I tripped. I bumped. I was embarrassed. I had to tell everyone who I was, and got quizzical looks in response.

Obviously not the Halloween costume, but around the same time.

 It's troubling to me how often I view myself as the clumsy, chubby, bucktoothed, bespectacled child I see in my mind's eye there. (Thankfully, braces got rid of the buck teeth.) I may still be clumsy, chubby, and bespectacled. But I like to think I've gained confidence despite - and because of - those things!

I am not an 8-year-old in a new school, frightened. I am not a 12-year old, dreaming of thin while being mocked in the cold hallways. I am not sweet 16 and never kissed; I am not 18 and unsure what college will bring and if relationships will break or boomerang.

I am a 29-year-old woman, a wife, a mother of two precious children. I am a homemaker, a cook, a writer, an editor, a reader. I am a lover and pursuer of Jesus. I am what I always wanted to do and be.

So why do I - do we? - live in these awkward memories instead of forging ahead?

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31 Days of Reading Well: Day 24

Revisiting the Past

Perhaps it's just the writer in me, but certain words or phrases can trigger a memory so sharp I can practically feel it pierce the top layer of my skin.

Two years ago or so, I reread The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote, many, many years after reading it for a middle-school class. It almost seemed that some of the phrases were printed in bold, so familiar they seemed as they jumped off the page and started playing hopscotch in my brain.

Just a flash, I am in eighth-grade English with Mrs. Long and her gigantic bun atop her gray head. She wears housecoats and talks so slowly I can barely make it through the class. Compared to my seventh-grade English teacher, one of my top-three teachers of all time, she might as well be the Wicked Witch of the West. And she certainly doesn't appreciate my writing enough.

I think I am clever for using the computer thesaurus to come up with the alliterative title "Polish Palaver" for a persuasive essay. I write about how girls shouldn't venture so far from pinks and reds ... and then find myself wearing dark purple nail polish quite often the next school year.

But oh, my essay on The Thanksgiving Visitor. It comes back with wild red circles and things crossed out. I didn't put the right words in quotes. I wrote about Capote's comparison of lions and chrysanthemums, but all the "roars" and "lions" were not quoted correctly. In her opinion.

I still don't care for overused quotation marks.

What's amazing to me is how much of the tale I could remember with all of those years in between readings. Capote captures his childhood eloquently with details that breathe. Those lions ... Capote's "friend" ... his wild family ... they are true enough and forceful enough to be carved into my mind, despite the baby brain and schedules and mania of adult life.

You won't regret taking an hour to read this short story. Let me know what you think about it.

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A Wave, A Cask, A Bubble of Insanity

I remember turning into the aisle at Wal-Mart just to recall that I had forgotten the diaper bag.

It was the first time I had ever left the house alone with my tiny baby girl. I quickly found that a carseat takes up most of the space in a shopping cart.

My heart pounded just trying to get the fragile girl into the carseat, outfitted properly, in and out of the car. Would her feet be cold? Would she catch germs at Wal-Mart? Each inch of her precious body, so newly out of mine. I trembled from fear and the new bite of November.

It's a flash in my mind: that moment when I realized I had everything — my purse, the baby, a shopping list — except that vital brown-and-pink bag with her toilette.

I've never scurried through a store quite so quickly, praying that nothing would be expelled from a tiny bottom.

Nothing did, and I was safe. But it didn't take long to ride the wave of insecurity about my capability as a parent.

_________

She screams and fights and stomps one foot outside the door when I say, "... if you come out of that room." The child who is praised as polite and sweet as sugar is nothing like the one I face alone in our home.

I hate tantrums.

I look inside, trying to squeeze out the place in my heart that is to blame for all of this. Why oh why? What did I do to make her like this, so vehemently anti-sleep? What could we change?

And why doesn't anyone else ever talk about their kids doing this?

I feel isolated, alone, in a bubble filled with fake cries, screaming, requests for more water more food more bunnies more blankets.

And heaven help us all if we forget to put on her socks.

I wonder if someday this will all make sense. If I'll ever be able to stand on my own parenting feet without feeling the need to beg advice from anyone who will listen. Does it improve as they age, little casks of spirit ripening to the perfect vintage dose of confidence?

I hope so.


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Class of 2004, Seven Years Later

We were the ones who went to the Cellar and passed around a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, sang karaoke, listened to the band of the guy with the spikey hair.

We spent countless hours in each other's rooms but this weekend had a difficult time remembering the names of roommates and mens' dorms.

We dated each other, loved one another, played so many games of Euchre and Apples to Apples I couldn't ever begin to imagine the numbers. We had 24-hour movie marathons with French onion dip and Fritos, chai tea and out-of-town guests.

We had next-door on-campus apartments, a scary couch of death, Hamburger Helper in the tiny old kitchen, two beach houses, and a body-shaped dent in the wall.

_______

In August, Mr. V and I attended a wedding in Boston for one of our best friends from college. We joined up with my best friend Michelle, her fiance - one of our college gang, and another dear friend (both men lived with Mr. V our senior year, and Michelle and I lived next door).

We hadn't seen the groom in two-and-a-half years, we didn't even know how he met his bride, but it didn't matter. He is our Sam, was one of the groomsmen in our wedding, and we needed to be there.

It's been over seven years since we graduated from college; we've lived in two cities and are moving in our fourth home since that time. Seven years of marriage, death of Michelle's mom, break-ups and get-togethers, several countries and even more states under our respective belts.

Post-college friendships are different. You don't spend as much time together. You aren't all removed from family and all former friends. You don't spend time laying on green astroturf fields, staring at the stars, doing cartwheels, and sharing dreams. You don't sing numerous duets with your best friend to Broadway songs (and always make her be the guy).

These people are etched so deeply in my heart I can't unravel them from the rest of my heart's joys and wants and passions. In an uncharacteristic sappy moment, I hugged the neck of my sweet Michelle, who is moving thousands of miles away, and told her, "My life is better because I met you."

Maybe we do still sing Broadway songs together. Just not in the same way.

Do you have songs, places, foods that define your college experience? I'd love to hear your reminiscing.
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All Shook Up Over You

Source: awesome.good.is via kohpc on Pinterest

I was a senior in college, sitting in a cushy chair in our large school library (and probably drinking a valencia mocha, a vice that may have caused much of my college weight gain) when the ground shook.

It was a decent rumble. Enough that everyone looked at one another in confusion. "Was that an earthquake?" we asked one another. I chalked it up to construction work on campus as one girl loudly declared "I am from California and that was NOT an earthquake, idiots!" (Or something like that with basically the same emphasis.)

It was an earthquake.

There wasn't much to it. It rattled the bookshelves of our on-campus apartment and woke my roommate from a nap. Nothing damaged, nothing to fret over. But it was the first time I'd felt the earth tremble like that.

Today, it took approximately 30 seconds to verify on Twitter that yes, what we felt was an earthquake. I am at my parents' house in central Pennsylvania, and here is how it played out:

Me: Is David under my chair?
Mom: No.
Me: Hm, OK. (as I still feel my heavy armchair shaking somewhat)
(Two minutes later)
Mom: Dad says we just had an earthquake.
Me: (gets on Twitter)

Amusing at it is to watch Twitter get up in arms about who REALLY felt the quake and who didn't and what caused it (the break-up of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith being the obvious answer), I'm glad the largest tremble I've felt could be mistaken for a shaking washing machine. Now we can move on to worrying about Hurricane Irene.

Do you have an earthquake story?
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Ode to Dillard's Lingerie Department

Just slightly over seven years ago, I was trying to find lingerie for my honeymoon. I was virginal in the most literal way; frankly, the thought of anyone - even my soon-to-be-husband - seeing me without my clothes on seemed utterly frightening.

After one short trip, I realized lingerie shopping with my mom was about as comfortable as eating a banana peel (sorry, Mom, you know I love you, but it's true). So I ventured out to Ye Olde Victoria's Secret all by my lonesome.

I felt like I tried on everything in the store to no avail. Apparently there just aren't a lot of double D-women shopping there for untrashy lingerie. My chest ranneth over.

I'm thinking all this medieval language is my way of making talking about lingerie shopping not embarassing for myself, by the way.

The tears I fought started to spill until I reached the depths of Dillard's department store. It was like angels started singing as the kindest women I had ever met sought out for me the perfect honeymoon ensembles. I told them the absolute truth and they catered to my every need. I just remember the ache of relief I felt as I left, bags in hand. I could have hugged all of the saleswomen.

Flash forward, oh, seven years and a few weeks. I am once again dealing with My Least Favorite Part of Breastfeeding. For the better part of a year I've been battling bras. I try them on. They don't fit. I order online, which is just about the only place I can find my size. They don't fit.

Yesterday in Kohl's, I started to cry. Is there seriously no one else in America with a large chest who'd like to be able to try on her undergarments before purchasing them? I don't think I'm that much of an anomaly. I mean, really!

Stifling the tears, I saw a mall Dillard's across the road. I decided to make one last stop.

And you know what? Those same tears welled back up as I saw THEY HAD BIG CUP SIZES. Like, more than one style. Many. Not only that, the sweetest saleswoman I've encountered in over seven years came to my side and blessed me with her kind spirit and helpful hands.

I guess this is all to say, thank you Dillard's. Thank you for stocking items you might not sell all the time just for women like me. I hereby pledge allegiance to your lingerie department. You rock.

And you should give Elayne at the Valley Hills Mall a raise.

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Hallelujah, What a Savior

The most significant time of worship in my life didn't happen in a church—I expect that might be true for many people. It wasn't singing "More Precious Than Silver" at Vespers in the woods at GA camp, although that might be a close second. It wasn't the missions service in 4th grade where I felt a strong call to the mission field. It wasn't performing "Worlds Apart" during my time as a summer missionary after my freshman year of college, although that was indeed intense and powerful.

For me, that time of worship took place in VanNess Auditorium at LifeWay Christian Resources, where I had the privilege of working for five years.

I didn't usually sing in the LifeWay choir, but they assembled a special choir to perform some pieces from 3:16 The Musical, based on Max Lucado's book 3:16 and the accompanying Bible study we were putting together. For several weeks, I attended practices during lunchtime, adding my little second soprano to their normal mix. I'm not very good at reading music, but I love singing and I found these selections especially moving.

The morning dawned ... icily. I think I was supposed to be at work for practice at 6:45, and I wasn't even sure I would be able to get through the ice to my car. I recall frantically scraping and dousing with water. (We Tennesseans don't handle snow and ice gracefully.)

But I made it. And so did a couple hundred other LifeWay employees. A much higher percentage than usual chapel attendance, perhaps influenced by the fact that the music was led by Travis Cottrell and the narration was done by Max Lucado himself.

There is a movement in one of the pieces incorporating "Man of Sorrows" (it starts about 3:37 in this video of the song). Something about the lyrics and instrumentation choked me up every time we practiced, and the day of the chapel service, tears poured down my face as I tried to sing.

Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Hallelujah, what a Friend!

I just listened to that YouTube video and it had the same effect.

When the song was over, every person in the auditorium was on their feet clapping. For Jesus. It was the closest to heaven I have ever felt on earth.

I am sure the teeny, tiny baby that was in my belly jumped for joy as she felt the Spirit move. Even I didn't know she was there yet. I had waited for her for a long time, and God brought her at the perfect time for us.

Hallelujah, what a Savior. What a friend.

Added to Remarkable Faith: Worship at Giving Up on Perfect. If you missed it, here is my post for last week's theme of funeral. 

Share your Sunday best:


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Remarkable Faith: A Funeral

I was just shy of 18 when one of my friends died in a car accident.

I'd been to very few funerals up to that point: a great-grandfather when I was very small; my best friend's mother when I was 12.

I remember the day of her funeral vividly, in slow-motion. Setting up. Hearing the song "Tears in Heaven" practiced what seemed like a hundred times. Crying so much someone from the family section handed me tissues. The urn. The multitude of faces, people she had touched in one way or another.

I felt broken, sitting there, staring at the urn, the senior picture, the mother who never expected to bury a daughter.

My faith was a little broken at that point, too. That summer after my senior year may be the low point of my faith, despite the fact that I was entering college as a Virginia Baptist Scholar. God felt far. Freedom felt close as a new 18-year-old with a job, a boyfriend, independence looming.

God slowly worked at my heart as I entered college, and I discovered a new passion for service. It was nearly two years after the funeral that I was doing a Disciple Now weekend, trying to lead and counsel a group of middle-school girls. (Have I mentioned how much middle-schoolers scare me?) I knew the church felt familiar, but it wasn't until I stepped into the sanctuary for our closing service that it hit me.

This was the church where we had my friend's funeral.

I panicked and ran out. My then-boyfriend, Mr. V, came with me to the playground of the church as I cried, unable to fathom reentering the holy place, a sanctuary's carpet that held my tears.

As he sat there with me and tried to make me smile by telling me his favorite "math love poem," I think I realized that he was the one. Broken by death, healed by love.

But I still have a very violent reaction to "Tears in Heaven."

Thanks, Mary, for the inspiration to write about a funeral that affected my faith. This is part of her Remarkable Faith series at Giving Up on Perfect. 

I'm sharing my Sunday Best at Feels Like Home. 

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Haunted Places of the Mind

(source)

It's a sign of my ongoing struggle with body image that I can still see the magazine layout in my head.

A pair of teenage girls roller-bladed in bathing suits in some now-defunct young teen magazine (because I was way too young for my mother to let me read Seventeen). (I think it was, in fact, Teen magazine.)

I couldn't have been much older than 7th grade. I stared at that page mercilessly, willing myself to be small enough to wear a two-piece bathing suit. When I did get skinny, I would buy the exact one on the right of the spread: still modest, a coral-colored two piece with a unique, off-the-shoulder top. I'm not sure what deluded me to think if I were thinner I would suddenly have the body of a 17-year-old, but I was sure I would look just like the girl in that spread.

I've never worn a two-piece. Not even as a child, that I can remember. 

The reason I remember that issue of the magazine so vividly is because it laid out a diet. One that WORKED! Of course! I carried the issue around, dog-eared, for weeks or even months. Trying, trying. Coral in mind.

I didn't drop weight, not even with all the tuna and frozen peas and white-meat chicken.

Somewhere around eighth grade, I hit a growth spurt and thinned out a little. Not two-piece thin. But that magazine was during the lowest point, the hidden years, the year I was bullied and it makes me want to throw up to even think about. Until I had someone call after me the slogan of a popular weight-loss commercial, every day, for an entire school year, I'm not sure I even realized I was truly overweight.

I'm fairly certain not a day's gone by since seventh grade when I thought of my body in a positive manner.

To remember my solidary focus on one coral-clad model makes me sick. But I still want that now grossly out-of-date bathing suit.

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Five Minutes

I told a friend last night that the day I graduated high school was one of the happiest days of my life. And thinking over it again, I wasn't kidding.

I know nearly everyone is awkward at one point in time, but I feel like I was socially inadept to the point where it was painful. I had friends, although going to a magnet school many of them lived an hour or even more away from me. My dearest refrigerator friend, Jen, is the only one I've really hung onto since high school. My other friends were all from church. They all went to local high schools. Even there, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

I never knew the right way to do things. I am, and always was, a bit of an old soul. I got along better with adults than with my peers.

I remember being in the room under the Landmark Theater, where my high-school graduation was held. I hugged nearly everyone in my class of 120 graduates. And I breathed a sigh of relief that many of them I would only have to see sparingly in the future.

In college, I found my confidence. I found friends who adored me and that boosted me up. I found my voice through poetry and English essays.

I've always thought maybe there are high-school people and college people. Those who hit their stride in high school may not remember their college experience as fondly. And for those of us who can't think of high school without shuddering a little, college was blissful.

What do you think?

_____

Rather than go back and clarify everything I'd like to, I will leave it at that. This is part of The Gypsy Mama's What Can You Write in 5 Minutes? experiment. Let me know if you join in!

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Two Lines. Sort of.

Did I ever tell y'all how I found out I was pregnant with this baby?

With Libbie, we tried for months. I knew I was exactly 14 days past ovulation and I got up and peed on the stick right away on a Sunday morning. It was a bright pink, two lined, resounding YES.

With David, I wasn't really expecting to be pregnant.

We had only sort-of-been-trying for three months. I had been temping that month, but only because the previous cycle I thought I might have miscarried. I never had a positive test, but my period came on day 28 ... and with a history of PCOS, that has NEVER happened to me. I also stopped temping while we were away for Easter, so I really had no idea what was going on with my cycle.

And then one night in April, I took a test, just so I could know for my peace of mind that I wasn't preggo. I didn't want to worry about having miscarried again. There were no high-quality First Response tests this time around--I had one Target test in the medicine cabinet.

And it was negative.

At least, I thought it was. I realized I had never seen a pregnancy test that showed the result like this one did. There was only one line in the box, and then another line in a second box, which I assumed was the control box.

No plus sign. No two lines in one box. I started to throw it away. And then, on a whim, I picked up the cardboard box the test came in.

Oh, Target. Why must you be so confusing and unlike all other tests?

I was pregnant.

I wasn't even sure I believed it until I took a second test in the morning. I went in to my husband and said, "If I am reading this thing right, we're going to have another baby." I think he was slightly shell-shocked.

That's been over five months ago. Hard to believe now! Every day I feel like I've gained 20 pounds and surely my belly cannot get any bigger.

And it all started with me almost throwing that test in the trash can.

________

While I tried to get pregnant and into my first trimester, I was a part of the Right from the Start study from Vanderbilt. If you are trying to get pregnant and live in a metro area of Tennessee, you're eligible to participate! I got a $5 gift card for each week I filled out (very short) daily surveys, a very early ultrasound, and $10 for answering a phone interview. I don't get any referral credit or anything, but if you do fit the qualifications and could use some extra Target cash, I say go for it! I had a very good experience with them. And it was nice to see that little beating heart when I was only 6 weeks pregnant.


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I Miss Back Then (?)

Do you remember back when you could sleep as long as you wanted on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon?

When you could eat breakfast without little hands grabbing for it, even though they've just eaten everything else in the refrigerator? Back when I was pregnant with Libbie, I never would have imagined not fueling up for the rest of the day. I was hungry, therefore I ate. Now, sometimes it's too much trouble to take three bites of a granola bar.

When you could fit two or even three people in the backseat of your car, you didn't have to pack diapers to leave the house, and cutting through the living room did not involve wading through a sea of Little People, blankets, puzzle pieces, and baby dolls?

Laundry day was once a week, you wore clean clothes and high heels to the office, and the words pacifier weaning (or blankie weaning) had never crossed your mind.

You were never embarrassed because your child was trying to climb on the table at a Mexican restaurant while wailing at the top of her lungs (not that it's ever happened to us ... yesterday).

And yet

And yet ....

There were no sloppy wet kisses on the lips, or after-bath bear hugs, or tiny toes to tickle.

You didn't spend half the day laughing at a toddler learning to talk and her hilarious combination of words into sentences.

You and your spouse didn't look at each other with amazed smiles, thinking, "THIS is a combination of our DNAs. We sort-of MADE this little, laughing, wriggly thing."

What did we laugh about as we fell asleep? Whose shoes were we constantly searching for? And why, on God's green earth, wasn't my house clean?

Some days, the Old Life seems peachy-keen. But I'll take this side any day. There's a lot more laughing, a lot more love, and a lot more pink.

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Nine Years, New News

In September 2001, I was 19 years old.

Not a child anymore. But very much still a child.

I was in my dorm room, sleeping through my first class with my throat on fire, dreaming of hot tea and honey, when my roommate roused me to come watch the TV.

I just wanted my daddy. Through the next tear-filled weeks, I wanted protection. Love. How he always made everything better.

Sixteen months earlier, we stayed at the World Trade Center Marriott. We ate dinner at Windows on the World. We celebrated my 18th birthday, taking advantage of a landmark that we had no idea would not exist in less than two years. A place that would commemorate pain, terrorism, and a nation that held itself together by clinging to one another, hope, and God.

My sister and me, at the Les Mis theater in NYC, 2000

I sat and watched the MSNBC special that showed their news coverage "as it happened" nine years ago. While it happened, I didn't really see the pieces come together. They didn't cancel our college classes, so I went to class. I don't really remember much at all of September 11, 2001, except my Chinese class. My teacher was oblivious to what was occurring outside the classroom, and we had a very painful class as she proceeded as normal.

To watch the news as it occurred for the very first time ... it broke me in new places.

Not surprisingly, Ree is right. Sometimes we just have to remember. Especially remember not to forget.


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Music, Our Wedding, Thanksmas, and My Secret Desire to Play the French Horn

I come from a family of musicians, mostly on my dad's side. As long as I can remember we've gathered  after the "Thanksmas" meal and sang Christmas carols. (We've been known to sing in five part harmony: soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and Grandpa.)

Dad played the trumpet and piano. My mom, the clarinet. Uncle Tom plays a multitude of instruments, among them the euphonium. My grandmother was a piano teacher. My sister plays the violin (and sings like a true opera diva).

Me? I sing. I have dreams of mastering the French horn; but Mr. V discourages them greatly, saying it's the worst instrument to listen to someone learn to play.

When it came time to decide on music for our wedding, I knew I wanted family members to sing.

My sister and a friend from college sang "The Prayer" in English and Italian. As Mr. V and I knew we would be picking up and moving 600 miles away directly after our honeymoon, we thought the lyrics were especially appropriate:

Let this be our prayer
As we go our way
Lead us to a place
Guide us with Your grace

I also asked my Aunt Jennie, Uncle Tom, cousin Laura, and Uncle Steve--all members of the infamous Thanksmas carolers of my dad's side--to sing "For the Beauty of the Earth." You want to know why, truly?

Because I love the part in Little Women where they sing it at Meg's wedding and are all circled around the gazebo.

Granted, it was in the movie because it IS a classic wedding hymn. As I will still claim is the reason we had it.

What I didn't know when I asked was that my uncle, the euphonium player, would make a new arrangement of the hymn, just for my wedding. It makes me feel like the Queen of Sheba. I can still see the four of them standing in the front of the church, beautiful harmonies melding, as I waited to walk down the aisle.

Nearly six years have passed since our wedding day--six years next Saturday, to be precise. And both of those songs still move me to tears. Which makes me think we made the right choice: in each other, and in our wedding music.

Inspired by Weekly Writing Prompts at Mama Kat's Losin' It.


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29 Percent Isn't Half Bad

In 2007, I decided I wanted to try to do NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month. My fingers were itchy to write, something I hadn't done seriously since college. My brain needed something to distract itself from the intense desire to conceive that was not being fulfilled at that time.

So I went from crocheting like a maniac to writing like a maniac. (I've never gone back to crochet, as much as I love it.) Despite having a rather debilitating car accident on October 30--and not leaving the hospital until Halloween--I had a brand-new laptop with me on the couch on November 1 and started to write my big novel.

I loved pounding out words. I've had stories trapped in my head for as long as I can remember; my mom boasts I wrote my first story around age 5 and she was so proud because it had a beginning, middle, and end.

The first tale I tried to spin, however, was not my own. Try as I might, I could not write the novel stemming from my uncle's dream. The story was fantastic; my point-of-view was not.

So I started again, halfway through the month. I had no qualms that I would actually finish the requisite 50,000 words, but I remember the freeing feeling of sitting in Panera, hacking away on a story that was mine.

My "novel" has about 14,500 words, and I would say 90% of them were written in November 2007. Reading it now, I fear there is too much of me in the main character and too little imagination. Too many real-life people drawn in. I have too little experience being a single adult to write from that perspective (although my sister has lent me a plethora of tales).

I still want to finish it.

Really, I think my true talent is for creative non-fiction: writing what's happened in real life in an interesting (and in my case, somewhat humorous) way. But my heart yearns to finish a novel. Because that is an accomplishment. Because it's what I have wanted to do my entire life.

With as much time as I waste online, I should have 10 novels written by now.

Do you have a childhood dream that can't be stomped? Would you write a book or even try?


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Hurt and Promises

When I was writing my posts on infertility, there was something I wanted to incorporate and couldn't figure out quite how.

As I said, the time that we spent dealing with PCOS and its insanity felt like forever to me. When I found out my cousin Tricia was pregnant (with her first baby, Isaac), I had a little bit of a meltdown.

My cousins Amanda, Trevor, and I had always been very close. My extended family on that side is closer than most; we spent a week every summer camping together, Thanksgiving in cabins at Hueston Woods, and our family was visited in Virginia more times than I could count. When we were in Ohio, Amanda and I had a multitude of sleepovers, sometimes allowing Trevor to hang around, too. We were all within 11 months of age; we got married in a span of 8 months in 2003-2004. (Trevor actually got married two weeks after we did!)

So by the time I found out Tricia was pregnant, I already knew Amanda and Trevor's wife, Julie, were expecting. It broke my heart that I wouldn't share the experience with all of them.

The few weeks after finding out about Tricia were the worst of my journey. I was on a high dose of Metformin, which made me insanely sick all the time. Some things had happened with our class at church, causing us to merge back together with another class, which was just a little tumultuous. After finishing a project at work I was very involved in, it was back to routine. Things were just off.

Doing verifications at work one day, I typed in a Scripture wrong. This is what came up:

"He settles the barren woman in her home as the happy mother of children. Praise the LORD." --Psalm 113:9

God spoke to me through a typo. I knew He had not forgotten about me.

What I didn't know was there was already a tiny child nesting in my belly.

Today, I'm excited to share with you that this once-barren woman will be settled in her home as the happy mother of CHILDREN, not just a child.

Praise the LORD! We are due right at Christmas.



Beautiful shirt courtesy of Mint Julep Mongrams.

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Not-So-Very-Walden

Nearly every weekday morning now, Libbie and I go have breakfast with our neighbors. They are in their early 70s, retired, and have blessed our socks off since we moved into the neighborhood. It's an old neighborhood, and they've lived in their house more than 40 years.

It's wonderful for Libbie, who loves being outside, climbing all over their patio furniture, and looking for their cat, Bo. Often we walk up to the garden we've planted together a few houses down.

Mostly, I just let Libbie run around as I sip coffee and watch the plethora of birds that come to their feeders. (Also, I've never seen as many chipmunks as I have since we moved to Chattanooga!) (I ran over one. I've never in 12 years killed a living thing while driving!)

Growing up, we lived in the woods. Ours was a new neighborhood--my parents had our house built--and we had a good lot with woods in the back that led to a small creek. Ashley and I spent enormous amounts of time outside playing "orphan girls": making mud pies, pretending to eat holly berries, climbing a felled tree, crossing the creek.

When we were studying Walden in high school, my English teacher asked us to spend a half-hour observing nature and write down what we saw. I just knew my house was the perfect space from which to do this, as I'd spent my entire life seeing turtles find the backyard, having our dog bark at every squirrel that crossed the lawn, and watching birds flock to the feeders.

I convinced my friend Marcy to make what was a pretty long trip* to my house because I was so sure we'd have all sorts of wildlife to write about.

We sat outside. We did not see ONE. LIVING. CREATURE. We had to make up some blather about the existentialism of not seeing any forest creatures in, well, the middle of the forest.

I wonder if Thoreau had days like that.

Eleven years later, it still makes me laugh. Did you ever have a school assignment turn comical? (Maybe next time I should write about the Julius Caesar puppet show we did freshman year.)

*I went to a magnet high school that drew from areas all over Richmond, so Marcy did live about 45 minutes away. It was kind of a stinker for making friends!

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The Third Most Embarrassing Moment of My Life

In February 2008, in a post where I went on and on about being tired (because I was pregnant with Libbie and didn't know it yet), I promised to tell you about a very ... ahem ... special day in my young life.

Nothing like a two-year wait to build some interest, right?

Me. 8th grade dance. The whiteness is frightening!

It was a day like any other day at Salem Church Middle School. I was 13, majorly self-conscious, and in French class, where I sat in the front row with two friends and got a 100 on everything. (Don't think much of me--when I went to a magnet high school the next year I quickly discovered I learned nothing in that first year of French.)

Sitting with my friends, though, did make me feel a little powerful. One of them was the smartest girl in school. One of them was cool, unlike myself. We flirted mercilessly with the French-learners that sat behind us and answered every question correctly. Our French names were Christine, Marie-Christine, and Marie-Rose.

On this fateful day, however, all semblances of coolness were lost as I lost my lunch into the classroom trashcan. 

IN EIGHTH GRADE.

I still remember the torture of looking-on faces and the red that overtook my own face. The dash to the infirmary. The nurse's insistence that I WASN'T REALLY SICK 'cause I had the nerve to speak to someone else in the office. (Now that I think about it, that might have been another time. But it sounds really good here, right?)

My mom picked me up, toted me home, set me up on the couch, and warned me that there would probably be more puking. My sister had just had the same lovely virus. Patting my forehead with a damp cloth and sticking Jell-o in the refrigerator, she had to head back to work for a short bit while I slept. I see the blue couch where it rested in our Richmond family room; how she always pulled the coffee table close so we could reach our glasses of ginger ale and set a wastebasket by our heads.

Stumbling back and forth to the bathroom, it was that afternoon I discovered that I was "a woman now." Almost 14. Finally. But now?

Brilliant.

And thus began the lovely cycle of how my period makes my immune system die.

So you know, my French teacher proudly proclaimed in front of the class when I returned that I managed to get a 101 on the quiz we took that day despite all circumstances. Yep, I bet that made everyone think I was awesome.

Now, aren't you glad you waited two years for that story? Please, let the mocking begin!



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I Believe a Change Would Do You Good

The summer of 2004 was perhaps the best and worst of my life.

It's still crazy to think about the rapid succession of events. On May 9, Mr. V and I graduated from The University of Richmond. (And no, our mascot is not Spiderman, as I was asked last night upon sporting my beloved and holey Richmond sweatshirt. It's the Spiders!)

On May 10, we drove to Nashville to try to find an apartment for after our wedding. We knew nothing about Nashville, and I think we visited a grand total of four apartments. We decided on the biggest one we could get for what we had money-wise. Which, of course, was entirely dependent on me actually finding work in Nashville with my English degree.

On May 11, my daddy's best friend, Donnie, died of liver cancer back in Richmond. He had only been diagnosed in November and it really rocked our world. Our family was heartbroken and there I was, stuck 10 hours away. Mr. V and I signed a lease that day and came home the next. (Also, my long-time bad feeling I get when I go into an O'Charley's stems from this summer.)

We went back to Richmond. Mr. V went back to his family in PA. I went to a viewing and a funeral. Then my family went to Myrtle Beach, a pre-planned vacation that gave us time to reflect on the last week. We left straight from the cemetery. Mostly I remember cooking with my sister in the little beach condo we rented.

I spent a month working as a secretary for a bankruptcy lawyer later that summer. What an experience! I quickly learned the difference between chapters 7 and 13 and that I never wanted to have to file either.

The rest of the summer was spent planning my nuptials, obsessing over flower colors and hand-stamping a hundred homemade bulletins while my sister calligraphed our names and the date on them.

On July 31, I married my Mr. V. We left for our honeymoon on August 2, a blissful week at the El Dorado Royale in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. I believe we returned on August 9. On August 10 we went to Busch Gardens with my dad and sister despite the fact that we were both suffering from severe Montezuma's revenge. (Isn't it SO romantic to spend the last night of your honeymoon at a restaurant by yourself while your new husband throws up in the lovely cabana bathroom?) On August 11, we moved to Nashville.

In the next few weeks, Mr. V started grad school, I found work at a day-care, I got a severe UTI that turned into a kidney infection, we discovered our beloved Nashville church, and we learned how to live together. We also almost killed each other during the painting of our living room.

I remember the summer like a giant vat of change, bubbling around together until it created something: our new life. Our marriage. Six years later, some of it seems like a dream. Some of it still hurts. I still miss my mommy.

But I'm glad we went through it together.

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Overdue Grief

I was in sixth grade when my best friend's mother died.

After months and months of treatments and transplants for leukemia, she had gone into remission. The luminescent Cheryl, at whose house I watched Fried Green Tomatoes and learned to play penny poker. Her daughter--also Jessie--was my constant companion from the time we moved to Timbercreek Court. I remember meeting her when one of our homes was still being built. They sat next door to one another, separated only by a large oak tree.

I don't remember too much about Cheryl, except for her willowy blonde hair and calming presence. She was willing to let us try experiments in the kitchen or seclude ourselves in a bedroom with Sonic the Hedgehog.

As I can remember, she played a tune on a recorder infected by a sick someone. The cancer came back upon her weakened body.

I will never forget standing in our kitchen in Richmond. We were in the corner by the microwave. My mom turned to me and barely holding it together, said, "It's time for the big cry. Cheryl's dead."

I had the big cry. And months of feeling lost, of not knowing what to say to my very best friend. I didn't know what it was like to lose my mother.

Gradually, the other Jessie flew away from my life. She moved in with her aunt and uncle in another school district. We visited when she came to stay with her dad, but her house was full of smoke and go-carts and other women now, and it left me smelling disgusting and with a heavy heart.

I was always heart-sick that I didn't know the right words.

When my Michelle's mom died this past May of ovarian cancer, the same feelings washed over me. Why is it that when someone needs you the most you can't seem to eke out any words? I felt like the most useless friend on the planet. I still didn't know what it was like and I had nothing to offer. Not being able to see her in person, I couldn't even share a hug and cry with her.

I am sorry, friends.




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