Sleep. I Hardly Knew Ye.

I love sleep. Yes, I love it so much, I might consider marrying it. It is like a long-lost friend these days--sometimes we have nice long get-togethers, laughing over a warm beverage; most times we are waving hurriedly as we rush past each other in a crowded hallway. No time to stop, no time to chat. Ah, life with a newborn! It has made me remember how truly blissful a full, uninterrupted night of rest can be. I am anxious to see a day or two of good, bone-healing sleep collect into two, three, four--no!--thirty, sixty, one-hundred days of amazing sleep. Perhaps then I will have the energy to find my make-up, put away the mountain of laundry I've been staring at since 2002, unearth my exercise videos (yes, videos! Helllloooo, leg warmers!), and become halfway human again. A girl can dream, can't she?!

And, speaking of dreams... How about we do away with the ones that involve a continuation of us doing what we already do all day long? For example, I vividly recall working as a telephone operator at a few different jobs, wishing people "good morning", "good afternoon", "good evening", and "good riddance", for a full eight hours a day, then coming home and answering dream phones ALL NIGHT LONG. I remember waking up with a pounding head, bloodshot eyes, writer's cramp from taking dream messages, and an absolute spring in my step to go to my actual job to rinse and repeat. Yes, that last little bit was sarcasm, for those of you with less intuitive powers.

Oh, and my personal favorite--the ex-boyfriend dream. Now, I don't share these with other people often, if at all.... and not because my boyfriend dreams are freaky-deaky, because I generally don't dream that way anyway. My hesitation to share my boyfriend dreams is on the off chance that someone will assure me that these dreams are a message about what my heart (or mind) really desires. If that was the case, I could never trust myself again, because I would then be assured without a doubt that my heart (or mind) was stupid. For the life of me, I can't figure out is what my subconscious would think is so attractive about me finally being able to have that nice, open relationship with [insert name of ex here]? I think I have enough to keep me busy in just one relationship without having to add the complications of maintaining another, already-failed, one in my dream world. Nothankyou. I'll pass.

Dreams aren't always the most entertaining part of sleep in my house, though. Sometimes it's the lack of sleep that provides us with more laughs. When my four-year-old son is upset and trying to soothe himself to sleep, we can hear him--through our ceiling, since our room is below his--cooing and rocking on his hands and knees. If we were watching him when this was happening, we'd almost always find him covered head-to-toe in the cocoon of a warm blanket. It is his thing. (It almost makes me smile thinking of him still having to put himself to sleep the same way as an adult.) When sleep is eluding my husband, he lays in bed, staring into the distance, jiggling his foot. And when I say "jiggle", it's more like flopping it so hard the bed shakes. That's Billy's thing. It drives me up-the-wall crazy, but it is contagious. Recently, I've found myself lying on my side, shaking a hip side-to-side sometimes when I am falling asleep. I sure hope that's not my thing. I think this just means we are totally losing our grip on sanity, which I'm sure we've all seen coming for a while now.

As much as I do love sleep, I also love insomnia. I do some of my best work when sleep won't come to me, or when I ignore it altogether. Maybe it is because the house is quiet and relatively peaceful. Trust me when I say it is difficult to focus on or accomplish anything with any variable of my kids awake and fully-functioning. It is next-to-impossible to clean my house unless the boys are away or comatose. That's why bedtime for the boys is, hands-down, my favorite time of the whole entire day, and I generally hate to ruin a good thing by going to bed early myself. Usually when I can't sleep it is because I am busy doing something other than sleeping that I cannot also do easily when the boys are up and at 'em--maybe sewing or exercising or watching t.v. When Billy can't sleep it is usually because he is horribly upset about something and can't turn the power off to his brain... and the boy can stay awake for weeks. I wish I was kidding. While Zombie Billy is certainly a treat, he's not quite the picnic I imagined being married to.

It is hard to remember a time when sleep wasn't a precious commodity in my life, but I guess that just means that we, as adults, are gaining a new, deeper appreciation for it as each day passes and we see little of it. Sleep will return to us soon, I pray, and maybe it will stay longer than just a visit over coffee.... and then maybe I will get to ask for relationship advice for my new ex-boyfriend--in between answering phone calls, that is.

Purple Dress

I hesitated to look in their direction for a long while, curled up in my worn green bathrobe and flannel pajamas. To say it was strained would have been perhaps the largest understatement ever uttered, but we still made the effort to be as normal as we knew how. The tree this year was as large as any we'd ever had, its massive boughs twinkling with colored lights and mementos of happier times. No one spoke much, out of necessity; I was occupying a seat close to the nearest exit, out of necessity. My first box came, and I eagerly pushed aside the pain for a single joyful moment, with the remembered happiness of a child. The colored paper ripped away, the box opened, I brought the tissue-wrapped contents to me, into view.... and stopped, frozen.

The gift shattered me, sent my heart plummeting to the earth, bringing with it a wave of nausea. A tiny purple dress. Velvet with an intricate decorative punched-out trim, snowy white cap sleeves, collar, and lacy petticoat. The first gift for my unborn child. I feigned interest and thankfulness, though I wanted nothing more than to bolt from the room run anywhere I could be alone. I don't remember any other gift under the tree that year, though I am sure there were several more. It is that purple dress I remember most of all, and I am sure its memory will stay with me until the day I breathe my last.

Now, it's not that the purple dress was a horrible gift. On the contrary, it was a considerably gracious gesture from my parents to me, as they were still reeling from the blow that I was unmarried and pregnant with my first child at nineteen. I suppose it should not have surprised me if I should have received nothing, and yet they tried to maintain a tongue-in-cheek normalcy. All I could feel that day was that I'd been delivered a blow to the ribs, heaping insult onto more insult upon my injury. My parents desperately loved me, this I knew, but they did not fully understand how bad off I was.

The months passed, my baby grew. I struggled to celebrate this new life and simultaneously mourned the end of my simplistic existence, all relatively alone. There seemed to be an understanding between my parents and I, but we both knew that our trust in one another was still in healing stages. I had long since asked for forgiveness from God and from my parents, and had contacted most of my friends to tell them where I had gone. Many of my friends left me to my own destruction. Life was quiet, only punctuated by a underlying sadness, a yearning to be a family--as if that would make things right in the world.

His phone call came near the beginning of my second trimester. It was full of unwelcome revelation, and signaled an end to any faint glimmer of hope for a family to be formed. The flame flickering had been snuffed out by a frigid wind. I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief between anguished sobs. I am ripped in two, unsure if I want to continue breathing, but knowing that if I choose to carry on, that at least I know there is no longer a question of his participation. A clean break.

The sun is bright and hot, streaming through the blinds, and I am feeling uncomfortable. I quickly adjust the wide waistband of the white, gauzy maternity shorts set over my ballooned stomach, and sheepishly cut into the cake. A smiling baby grins up at me from the icing, and I close my eyes as a slice cleanly across his face. The room is full of joyful well-wishers, mostly friends and family, those dear souls who have come to support me in my unconventional situation despite their own personal convictions. I am eternally thankful for them being there with me, though I am not enjoying being the center of attention and would rather be merely a face in the crowd. Four family members are noticeably absent, though, wisely, no one asks about them. They have been forbidden to come to the shower, told that their presence would signify that they agreed with my actions and situation. Though it wasn't said, I knew I was being made an example to all of the others. It is painful to be the example, and I am ashamed all over again even on this happy occasion, even though I have made my peace with God.

The hurt remains from such a seemingly minuscule act for years, though I hide it within me, masking the bruises behind careful smiles when they are around. He is on his deathbed, and I do not know how to say good-bye. I am struggling because my heart still aches from the grievance, and yet I love him because he is my blood. Finally, I decide to write a heartfelt note in a "get-well-soon" card, telling him that I forgive him--though perhaps he felt like he didn't need to be forgiven--but he is gone before the card can reach him in the hospital. The apology never falls upon his ears, or is seen by his eyes. The hurt remains now, though I know I've always understood why he felt he needed to hurt me.

***

The new nursery is nearing completion, with seemingly not a minute to spare. I am sorting through the contents of some boxes that have been hidden in the closet for years, hoping there is something that will fit my fourth son, when I once again unearth the purple dress. I clutch the purple dress to my face, letting tears fill my eyes as I am transported to that Christmas. Despite my proficiency at producing male offspring, and despite the emotional response it evokes each time I see it, I keep that purple dress. Perhaps it is a tangible reminder to me to be gracious and tender-hearted to those around me who are struggling in or out of their difficult circumstances, to never place them on display as a warning to others because I so vividly remember the pain of being there myself. Perhaps the purple dress indirectly reminds me of feeling alienated from someone I loved and having to live with the fact that I was never able to forgive them for making the decision they felt they needed to. The purple dress is a symbol of so much more than a mere piece of clothing. It is love and heartache, all in one.

For me, life is a collection of beauty and pain, purple dresses.

Wishes

I wish there never had to be good-byes. I've never understood growing apart, life going in different directions. Perhaps that is the loyal streak shining out from deep within me, saying once you have become my friend, you will always be considered a friend. Or maybe it is my naive nature that finds it difficult, maybe even impossible, to eternally seal the pages of a relationship even when great harm has been dealt me. I want to extend the gift of second, third, and fourth chances. This care I have--it is my strength, and it is my weakness.

I do not want to lose my loved ones. I want to relish every moment I can with them here on this human soil, then sing with and embrace them on golden paths. The very notion of there being even the briefest pause between the two moments in time makes me heartsick. I hold hands with the grains of sand in the hourglass as they slip and fall, so eager to see what the future will reveal but ever-mindful that each passing moment for some means a moment closer to our looming separation here on earth. In the recesses of my mind, I am terrified that I will be unable to survive this life without my family pillars.

I wish that life was simple, that we didn't have to squander our moments together worrying or arguing about the pettiest of things. I wish that we could even have those moments together, instead of having to slave away for endless hours at jobs with little, if any, reward.

I wish that we didn't know how to fall out of love, and that we could look at each other and forgive. And forget.

I Remember

I strip out of my sweater, feeling as if I've been awake for a thousand years. I am bone weary, my mind is blank. The sadness feels like it may be my constant companion from here on out. They assured me this day would come, but it is six months too soon, and you are gone from me forever. Through my tears, I notice there are strands of your hair on the shoulder of my discarded clothes, a memento of our last (one-sided) embrace, and it hits me like a blow to the stomach. Your feet no longer amble along the grass, your hair lifting gently in the breeze, but your hair is still on my clothing. It is all I have left of you, beyond the memories.

I remember our beginning, being so excited to be with you that you could have had one foot in the grave and I wouldn't have cared just as long as you were mine. You eyed me suspiciously from across a field, hiding behind a bedraggled tree, hoping I wouldn't decide to approach you. You were a sight, a shock of frizzy grey hair standing at a peculiar angle on your thick head and neck, stubborn lower lip protruding to let others know you were wise to the ways of the world.... and what you didn't have in height you definitely made up for in girth. You were solid and strong like a tank. I was in love.

From the moment you were mine, truly mine, you began to color and shape my life in only the way you could have.

I remember the early days, before you and I had an understanding of each other, when we would tag along with my older sister, much to her dismay. Oh, how she and I would yell in frustration at one another when you would decide you'd gone far enough and literally turn tail for home. Thank goodness those days didn't last for long.

I remember the joy you seemed to derive from being difficult. I still swear that you knew you'd stepped square on my foot that once, and as I tried to push you away, you leaned into me further to mash even more of your gigantic mass on my screaming, throbbing toes. Not many believed my story when I went to school two days later on crutches, but I knew the truth, the hoof-print bruise on my foot told the truth, and the transient pain that remains in my foot tells me it definitely was so.

I remember being so frightened to run with you, uncertain I was strong enough to hold on and not fall. It eventually happened when I least expected, of course, and that was the moment I discovered the wind in my hair, the rhythm in my bones, the melody of your feet on the ground, and the butterflies in my stomach. The butterflies return every time I think about you and I racing through the dirt.

I remember hurriedly riding into the barn on a deep summer's night, trying to escape the dark and the creatures of the night, only to have bats come swooping down at us as soon as we thought we had made it to a safe haven. For once in your life, you seemed to understand the reason for my shrieking, and let me take refuge between your legs while you stood solid as a statue. I am not sure I ever thanked you enough for not trampling me.

I remember watching you from a window as you stood in the middle of the field, your enormous belly shaking from side to side as you danced in place. Some kind of tree once-growing in the field had attracted your attention, and you determined it was just the perfect height for a good belly rub. This hilarious show would last for several long minutes each time you needed a good itch, and almost always drew a crowd of amused onlookers.

I remember one of my favorite outings with you was when we were traveling lazy circles in the hay field on a late evening ride all by ourselves. It was so picturesque, the tall grass rolling in the breeze while the enormous golden harvest moon smiled directly in front of our path. The field is no longer a field, and the grass is no longer tall, but sometimes I wish I could relive that moment.... just once.

I remember you and I following a friend, a cute boy friend, through a whispering corn field in the early winter. Feathery flakes of snow began to float from the sky as we entered the spot we always referred to as "The Pines", a tranquil pond surrounded by a dense grouping of tall pine trees, all seemingly untouched by human hand. As the snow fell down upon us, I remember thinking that it would have been such a romantic time for a first kiss.

I remember learning how to jump obstacles while at a summer camp without you, then coming home to see if you remembered how to do that, too. We must have been fun to watch--you and your bulging sides trying to successfully negotiate a jump made out of plastic flower pots and bamboo poles, and me holding on by a thread because I didn't know better. It was a lot of fun, Pep, and at times I think you were enjoying the return to your youth, too.

I remember the veterinarian saying it was cancer, that you didn't have long, that you couldn't be saved, but we were allowed to play as long as you felt up to it.

And I will always remember that last ride. Your ears uncharacteristically drooped as we turned for home, and your pace never quickened as it usually did. Perhaps you sensed it was the end, as did I. Maybe you wanted our remaining moments to last as long as I did, but you never found the way to tell me so. And it was over, just like that. We never left the farm together again.


So tonight, as I must accept the fact that you will not be waiting for me in the morning, I am holding your grey hair in my hand, rolling it in my fingers. I miss you, my Peppy, and I always will.

Oh, the Irony

The husband is all for me writing, especially if I forsee the writing of a book (i.e., a someday paycheck). As long as I don't write about him. Or my past.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha.

Thank you for staying tuned as I hash out my junk. I was telling Christa that all of this must make me sound like a trainwreck, but in reality it feels really, truly liberating to get it out.... and not only to get it out, but to get to choose the words and the mood the way an artist would chose a particular shade of paint. In some small way, I get to control the things that I never had control over in the first place. Sure, I take a few artistic liberties here and there--for instance, I never did lock eyes with my sister at the end of "First Memory", nor do I recall if she was even in the pool at all--but other than things like that, I've kept the stories as true to life as I could recall.

I am wearing my heart on my sleeve. I hope it not only gives you a picture of where I've been, but also gives you compassion for others in your life who are dealing with similar things.



Everything is possible.

Never Is a Promise

Still editing and likely adding, but you are all welcome to read in the meantime. -JRH

--

He was the boy, mysterious and sullen.
He liked the things the other boys didn't, drummed to his own beat.
He was the boy with the scruffy chin, wearing it proudly before we girls realized we kind of liked that.
He was the boy with the voice that didn't match his face, always surprising to hear.

She was the girl, lonely and yearning.
She had never truly been in love, loved in return.
She was the girl who gave away her soul, asking for nothing but consideration in return.
She was the girl who lost it all to a boy she couldn't change, a heart she could never know.

---

Absentmindedly, I let the door slam behind me as I stepped into the apartment I shared with three others. The lights were dim, a movie playing on the minuscule television screen. One of my roommates, the only one of us engaged to be married, was curled up on our castaway couch, mostly ignoring my presence. Bed of Roses again. That movie made me want to stab myself in the eyeballs. I'd watched it once and only once, and I'd immediately tried to delete it from my memory. The pain I'd felt deep in my stomach, even deeper so in my heart, as I watched made me almost crazy. Never, ever, would I find someone who would care for me in that way. Ever.

He'd called that morning while I was in between classes. I'd instantly recognized his voice when he asked for another of my roommates. My heart sank to my shoes, and probably would have gone lower than that if it were possible. Either he didn't know me well enough to know the sound of my voice or he purposefully was trying not to talk to me. Either way, I was devastated to the very core. How did he not know? Or care? He'd taken so very much, caused me to lose more than I'd ever imagined.

A seemingly endless row of lines and crosses flash and repeat in my mind. Pregnant. My, doesn't that change everything.

The day before me is a blur. The world is stuck in slow-motion, and I move through it, leery, like an ocean vessel through the thickest fog. I am numbly absorbing the places, the people, the experiences I know that will quickly be banished from me. I know I cannot stay, but only God knows how fervently I am not ready to go. Leaving brings reality, that the world is a colder, harder place than I had ever known it to be. Leaving means I must lose it all.

In the evening, I attended the last celebration of my college career. I walked from room to room to room, passing by carousing party-goers engaged in one forbidden substance or another, barely registering that another roommate had just slid her car into the side of my brand new car in the icy driveway. I. Didn't. Care. Not in the slightest. In fact, it made my urgency all that more intense. I was looking for my best friends, my boys. The house could have crashed down around me and I wouldn't have been more surprised or even the slightest bit deterred in my search.

My boys found me as I was heading to the door to make my retreat, my hopes of locating them having waned. Oh, my brothers from different mothers: One with chocolate-colored skin and bright eyes, the other with yellow skin and warm smile. We were the unlikeliest trio, but I had for them the deepest of love. My brothers. Relieved but still broken, I wept into one's shoulder as the other put their arm around me. I was losing my brothers, which was almost more than I could bear in addition to the rest of my troubles.

The following morning, I waited, heart in my throat, stomach churning, for the apartment to clear. Privacy. She answered the phone on the first ring, as if she had been waiting for my call, which I wasn't sure was good or bad.

"Mom..." I croaked, not even able to get through a greeting before tears rendered me speechless. I didn't have to tell her, she already knew. Immediately there was an edge in her voice that I had never heard before, and I knew our relationship had changed forever. I had lost my innocence, in my parents' eyes.

Listening and re-listening to the same song on my CD player, I penned a letter to the baby in my womb. "Daddy loves you, little one. He's just scared right now," it promised. Who was I reassuring? Myself? I had given far too much credit to a guy who lacked the decency and concern to return phone calls, to step up to the plate, to... even recognize my voice on the phone. He had taken what I hadn't given, and then I was telling our unborn child that this was a person capable of loving anyone but himself. I had lost my sense of reason.

Only days later, my life as I had known it was over, packed up into as many boxes and plastic storage tubs as I had access to. I stood by myself in the center of the apartment. This place was no longer my second home and bore little traces that I had ever inhabited it. Self-pity welled inside of me and I wondered how quickly, how easily I would be forgotten from other places, other people here. What hadn't I lost?

At the table in the dining commons, with my parents impatiently waiting in the parking lot, I rested my head on my brother's shoulder, my arms wrapped furiously around his neck. We stayed that way for several long minutes, savoring the bitter-sweetness of it all, so seemingly free and easy for the very last time. Afraid to leave, afraid to stay, terrified to lose more.

First Memory

The water shimmers like millions of diamonds in the noonday sun, and shudders in the summer breeze. You are splashing, kicking, laughing, a mermaid in the sea. There is not a cloud marring the sky, but a storm is surging around us. I am five years old, four years your junior, and not fully grasping the gravity of the situation or the shape it will bring to our futures, not knowing I will remember this breath in time for decades to come. I am too young to take flight, and there is a weathered fence in the way, an elevation that makes it hard to locate you, my comrade-in-arms. There are voices, angry voices. They are exchanging bitterness for anger, and we are on the outskirts of the battlefield. The words they are hurling at one another I don't yet comprehend or I have somehow found the ability to will myself not to understand.

In my mind's eye, I recede, weightless as a specter, away from the scene, through an open door, away to anywhere but here... and, yet, I know that I have not made a retreat, and I am still standing near enough to pull on the leg of his trousers if I had dared to do so. She is nearest to you, up on the raised deck, glowing in the sun and the fire of fury. There is no question that she is wounded, likely blaming him for grievances he probably was guilty of but would never dare admit. Why do grown-ups have to be so loud and so mad at eachother all the time? I always mean to ask that question, but perhaps I am afraid of the answer I will find.

You have stopped swimming, in all of the commotion, and have serenely come to rest your slick, dark head on the edge of the pool. Our eyes finally and frantically find eachother and embrace for a quick second before he spins around to leave, cueing me to follow. You and me in sudden solidarity. This is my first memory.