There is a story we tell ourselves about ourselves.  The story of “I” that dictates the picture of us, our past, our present, and our future.

Some of it is made up of our past, actual events that happened. The time your mother slapped you for swearing, or the time you saw a stranger getting teased mercilessly.

It is also just as importantly made up of things that both did not happen to you, and things you chose to forget.  Your friends not doing drugs in front of you and one of them dying, a friend not winning the lottery, being molested but forcing yourself to forget, or just forgetting a family trip where you lost the dog.

And, some of it is made up of how you choose to remember it.  The macaroni & cheese your dad made that was the BEST FOOD YOU EVER TASTED, without the inclusion that it was because you hadn’t eaten all day.  Your favorite movie being Beauty and the Beast, but not remembering being thrown up on after seeing it for the first time because your little brother ate too much popcorn.

But of course, it’s not just a story of events, or the lack thereof.  It is also all the internal monologue, the painting you make of yourself.  Sure, the tangible attributes of a small chest or big tummy or little toes or brown hair paint your mental picture of yourself, the self you think others see when they look at you (though they probably don’t – they probably only see you the way you see you after years of knowing you), they all feel important.  They are important for your explanation of how the world interacts with you (“he only talks to me because of my chest, but he’ll be caught by my beautiful eyes”)… but it is far more interesting to see the underlying picture.

What I love most is the story you tell yourself about why and how.  These two things explain your future.

When I was young,  my family and I went for a bike ride through the center of the city.  At an old abandoned warehouse, we all stopped, and looked at the dilapidated building, with a few glass panes still full, and they all threw rocks at the windows, feeling their power and hurting no one.  I could not.  It was not my window, and I had no right to break it.  It was not right, and I didn’t know it’s effect, so I refused to throw rocks, I refused to break the glass, I refused to break the rules.  This is the story I tell of myself, that I am someone that does not take an action outside of the acceptable rules unless I am sure it will hurt no one.  I base my daily subconscious decisions on this, knowing I am not a person that would ever willingly hurt someone or something for no reason.  This is who I am, as the story I tell myself.  This paints the inside picture of me.  I take my responsibilities very seriously, straining very hard to never be less than I must to fulfill my responsibility, once I have decided that it is mine.

If you could see the entire story I tell of me, you could see every choice I will make in the future.  I will never abandon my daughter or husband, or the story of I will have to change.  I will live a mostly normal life, and take pride in little things.  I will make most of my choices based on those I am responsible for, and when two roads are given to me, if you saw the full picture of me, it would be easy to predict which I will choose.

But it is difficult to see someone’s full picture.  Because this is my story, I often have to color my responsibilities with streaks of being a victim, but blaming myself for it.  And so, I am scared to go out, and I am scared of people that could hurt me unintentionally.  I hide inside and trust only a very few.

I could begin telling myself a different story, and on occasion I do.  “I am a person that enjoys being thanked, and so I will be the person that thanks other people.”  Sometimes things like that work, and a am a beautiful, fuller shade for it.

Sometimes, stories like “I only need to eat until I am full, and I am satisfied with lighter meals because I am a smaller person” only work for a short period of time, and then the story of “When I was young, I at ice cream at parties, and I enjoyed having my friends around at those parties, and I was happy, and so ice cream makes me happy” pokes it’s head through, along with my favorite place to be shouting out with “I love laying by the pool, soaking up sun, drinking Dr. Pepper and eating peanut butter M&Ms and Cheeto’s!” and before I know it, I’ve surrounded myself with foods I associate with love and sun and happiness, without actually having love, sun, or happiness.

One new story is sticking.  My husband believes I am beautiful, and that because I am beautiful, then every part of me is beautiful.  And my story of him is that he would never hurt anyone in the entire world intentionally, and so he will forever paint the picture of me with me – both  a terrifying and exciting thing, to entrust your story of you, in any part, to someone else.  It makes you feel both translucent when they are away, and full when they are near.

In fact, I wonder if that’s what they mean when they say “Your other half”…  and yet another reason you have to be so careful when you choose a mate… they really do become a part of you.

NPR has a feature called “3-minute-fiction”. The difficulty was it had to start with “They said the house was haunted” and end with “nothing was ever the same after that.”

They had 5000 entries, and only posted 10.
This was my first entry, where I found 600 words REALLY limits you.. as I had written 600 words and was originally only 1/4 the way into the story.
Anyway, this is what I submitted. Maybe one day I will go back through & write the story as I really saw it.

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Some people swore that the house was haunted. I knew it was. Once every summer it sucked me in and wouldn’t release me until 5pm, when mom could come get me.

“Hi Great-Grandma. I’m here. Going to get a drink, ‘kay?” She glanced at me for a moment before smiling and nodding, then going back to a glittering Mr. Barker. She seemed big in the tiny room, holding a loveseat, her chair, and the other lazy-boy, still holding grooves as if it was still occupied, instead of empty for years.

A table took up the entry room, extended as if all 5 kids could come to dinner at any moment. Her bedroom door sat open, and I averted my eyes as if just peeking in crossed some unknown boundary into the spirit world. I passed instead through a small doorway, into the green-tiled kitchen. Finding a small empty jar in the cabinet, I filled it with yellowed water, the sloshing echoing through the house, an intruder on the houses emptiness. Retreating to the room that held a willing prisoner, I eyed the loveseat, dusty, decaying, and overfilled with handmade doilies. Enraptured by the next Showcase Showdown, lost in her own world, I wondered if she even knew I was there. Crossing the room, I sat tentatively in the grooves, the chair enveloping me. I eyed a strange arm groove, and put my arm in it, across the arm, and the angle causing my fingers to brush her chair.

The moment the connection was made, the air crackled and shifted. I pulled my arm back, but the room was replaced by one with a toddler racing small metal cars around an infant lying on a blanket. I glanced in the chair next to me at a young woman, and we watched a girl bringing her beau into the room, excitedly introducing him. The boy scrutinized the floor as the girl looked above me, then continued to my chest when I stood up. I stepped softly into the main room, into a thanksgiving feast where children and adults sat around the table, eating and laughing as the youngest took a sip of wine. Movement in the bedroom caught my attention, and I watched a couple laughing and playing the dance of lovers, teasing touches and mischievous looks. Right on top of them, the couple entered again, aged ten years, the dance angry, frustrated, and violent. The both men raised their hand, and both women fell to the bed laying over each other. I found myself crying out and turning away, into the kitchen teeming with life and lives, lights twinkled along the walls, everyone danced, shared, laughed, and lived. The family at the dinner table exploded with laughter, and watched the youngest slip down his chair and under the table with a smile.
A break in the crowd and a teenage boy carried a bag from the kitchen, through the crowd around him, and tears fell from every watching eye. When he opened the door, an icy wind whipped through the house; the crowd braced and then washed away – taking with them everything but the dust.
I moved back to my great-grandmother, and my great-grandfather in the empty seat next to her. She looked over, through me, and smiles. “You know, sometimes I think this house is haunted” she said.
Haunted by time, lives, and memories. Within a year, it was haunted by her, and I never saw it again. And with the knowledge that one day I wanted to be haunted, nothing was ever the same again after that.

(the picture is from the Utah Land Management website, I think. I found it years ago, and is actually of a house we once lived in, not the house I wrote the story about. I can’t remember the address of that one…)

One day, I’ll go through all my Gmail Chats & make a great book of all our greatest chats.

And Bash.org will tear it apart.

O:
><
Y:
idkwti
O:
yyd
Y:
nid
O:
iwhlwcktlt
Y:
you lost me at h. its what h..
O:
wigtatq
Y:
wtf. stufo
O:
I wonder how long well can keep talking like this
and
well i guess that answers that question
Y:
rofl
well more snorted
O:
Hehehe

Pardon the format, but my time is so limited lately..

Here is this mornings adventure with me & Eury:

She barked at the cat for 20 minutes. I finally got the squirt gun & shot her in the face
then hid the gun
she blamed the cat first & barked at her
to which she got squirted again

but she was staring at the cat when I got her

so she turns..
and looks at me
in the “Why? WHY would you DO that?”

paces toward me, sees the gun behind the wall, paces back to the cat..

growls under her breath..

looks at me..

looks at the corner at where I am hiding the gun..
and Huffed.
just huffed. LIke “Fine, But the MOMENT you put down that gun..”

to her credit, she did bark again when I went upstairs, but only once
I poked my head out & she was gone

So, I figure I’m save & go into my bathroom to start my hair.
I hear her come upstairs, and then I hear nothing
Then I hear her tromping back downstairs..
and then quiet, then romping.. then quiet..
I poke my head downstairs..
and she is TOSSING MY GIR SLIPPER UP IN THE AIR.
Looks at me up on the stairs, tosses it in the air one more time, catches it, then TAKES OFF around the house.

I tried the “thank you” exercuse to her.. brought her a food piece.. she dropped the slipper for a microsecond, ate the piece, and IMMEDIATELY TOOK OFF WITH THE SLIPPER AGAIN.
Of course, The next thing that usually works is throwing a handful of food at her face, which does work this time, as she needs more than a microsecond to find where all the pieces go.
so I take away the slipper, put it up on the counter.. and in that time, she beats me upstairs to the bedroom.

want to guess what she did next?

Found my other freaking slipper.

*sigh*

She is too smart for me.

NPR stated that it’s Poetry month… so I’m going to try to get back into my Poet skin. It’s always good to exercise… but I will apologize. I’m past my teen angst stage, and on into adult and mommy angst.

For the Hatred of Word Problems

“Numbers and words should never be mixed”
my daughter states
in her fifth grade outrage,
and a part of me cries for all the numbers I’ve loved.

I reminisce with 2 and 4
about all the times we played with pi
the laughter we shared when we created 8.

And I pluck up 6 and 9
and hold them like newborns
listen to them pout that they are not as loved as Bs or Ds.

I tell 3, 5 and 7
that I appreciate their prime reliability
and they salute me and carry on, alone in their duties.

1 cries in the corner
and I tell it that it’s the most important of all.
It doesn’t believe me, but it puts on a brave smile anyway.

Together we dream of hypotheses becoming facts, and backwards creations.
We define circles and build houses, fill in Jell-o molds and change the human body.
We lived ages and deaths, and found answers to it all.

While they will not help me dry the frustrated tears that splash on 5th grade math homework,
I can’t help but wish they could.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looks so innocent, doesn’t she?  At 9 weeks old, Eurydice is everything a Siberian Husky should be: playful, sharp, with paws too big for what she’s used to, and growing by the day; three pounds a week growth, in fact.

Mornings with her, however, are hell.  It’s what I like to call “Good Idea, Bad Idea”.  Take this morning, for instance:

1) Good Idea – letting the puppy lick your daughter awake.
Bad Idea – Letting the puppy out of your sight before it has pooped.
Good Idea – Not letting the puppy out of your sight again.
Bad Idea – Chasing the puppy back into daughters room, resulting in puppy landing big-fat-paws first on daughters head, and daughter crying as her eyes open for the day.
Good Idea – Making puppy lick daughter better
Bad Idea – Screaming at puppy when it doesn’t lick daughter, but begins piercing daughters hand.

2) Bad Idea – letting puppy bite poop-picker-upper bags.
Good Idea – taking puppy outside to play & bite sticks.  Also, puppy poops! Horray, have a potty party!
Bad Idea – using fore-mentioned bitten bag to pick up runny poop.

3) Bad Idea – puppy chewing on nice furniture
Good Idea – spraying Bitter spray on furniture legs to stop puppy biting
Bad Idea – then licking spilled coffee off hand, to find it is in fact Bitter spray.

4) Good Idea – giving puppy dog-specific things to chew on
Bad Idea – realizing that the puppy toys are EXACTLY like daughters prized plush animals in the eyes of a puppy

Every time I look at that picture, it feels like I’m looking ten years into the future.

I see beautiful makeup that she has spent 30 minutes applying, a boredom with the banality of life, knowing that she’ll be going out with her girlfriends soon to dance, to drink, to flirt shamelessly with life.. to beleive in herself and her future and the excitement of the world. To learn about herself, her choices, what is important and what can be sacrificed.

To experience all the things I see when I look back ten years.

I’ve been terrified for that moment, and at the same time unbelievably excited for her.  It’s a hundred times better, and scarier, than when I went through it myself.  It’s knowing that it is coming that makes me talk to her about sex, drugs, maturity, boys.. all the things that turn her red and plug her ears and say “Mooooom”. But I would embarrass myself a million times, make sock puppets, and bring it up every day for the next ten years, if it saves her even an hour of the hardest part of those years that feel like you’ll be young forever.

Everyone says parenting is hard.  They never explain really WHY.

My aunt said it was because you never really remember your life without your kids, once they are there.

My mom shows me her anguish, thinking that her forgetful or brash actions influence my brothers or my choices now.

I say it’s hard because every choice you make, every word you say, is done with them in mind.  And not just them now, but future them.  We bought a house by the best school in the valley  so High School daughter will have the best possible schooling.  I bought a reliable car 6 years ago so that 16 yo daughter will have mine…in 6 more years.  We have a new Husky puppy so 14 yo daughter can stay home alone and know she has a companion that will scare off intruders.  We put away money every month so that the girl in the picture will be in college when her age catches up to that picture. We sent her to theater camp, soccer camp, technology camp, choir camp, art camp, science camp, anything we can, so that 28 year old daughter will know that whatever career she has chosen is the right one for her.

In the end, I want her to somehow surpass how happy I am.

Which is silly, isn’t it?   I was not raised the way I am raising my daughter, and I am happy.  Rob was not raised well by any stretch of the imagination, and he is happy.  Yet I see people out in the world that are not happy, and they were raised with more money, more chances, more friends, more possibilities.

The result?  Oh, I don’t know.   There are books leaking out of every crack in the library saying how to raise children, stories of failures and successes.Nothing in childhood guarantees your success nor failure.  A large part of me knows that.

But you know, I’m still going to give her every chance I can.

I can’t help it.  I’m her mom.  And to me, she is the most beautiful wonderful exceptional fabulous EVERYTHING thing in my entire world, in every sense of the word.