Let the Storm Rage On

My 2-year-old does not ask to listen to the Frozen soundtrack in the car; much to my delight, she asks to SING FROZEN! A former musical theater actor, I have a particular love for singing in the car. I first bonded with a most precious friend singing Cabbage Patch Kids songs in the car on the way home from college…yes, college.  It makes me incredibly happy singing along with my mini-Idina in the back seat. Like most of America, my daughter’s favorite song is Let It Go, which she sings with absolute abandon. To my surprise, this song continues make me cry every damn time we play it. Something about the idea of

I don’t care
What they’re going to say
Let the storm rage on,
The cold never bothered me anyway.

has me by the heart-strings. It speaks to my life with chronic pain in such a clear, defiant way. A sort of screw-you to the day-to-day struggle to remain normal, to ignore the rejection, to be tougher than this disease I do not control. I know I’m not the only one who has found myself in the lyrics of this anthem. Sometimes you just want to scream

And I’ll rise like the break of dawn
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone.

Ultimately it is the idea of being free that makes it all so right. I never, not for the briefest of moments, feel free of this pain. So if you see me and my kiddos in my car belting with everything we’ve got, please understand: I am standing on my ice castle, hair flying behind me, absolutely free. Can’t keep it in, heaven knows I’ve tried.

Good rain

I’ll take the blame for this absolutely ridiculous blizzard in April weather (sometimes a bit of crazy narcissism is just what the Doctor ordered). I have been waiting, hold-up in my little house, hoping for a seismic change. Old man winter seems to be sympathetic to my plight, dumping slushy misery in solidarity. However, I am forecasting a change in the weather this week. My pain pump implant surgery is Wednesday and it is about time for spring to sprung.

These last couple of weeks, as I’ve been wrapping my brain around this change, a Storyhill song has been rolling though my mind. It has been reminding me of that smell of rain on the hot pavement, when it starts to fall after a steamy summer day.

It was a good rain
The kind that you wait for
And it’s not like it’s been too hot
It’s just that we’ve been waiting
And everything is different
Now that it’s raining

Everything is about to be different. I will soon be taking my girls puddle jumping in the spring rain. I’m going to need all of the finger-crossing goodwill I can get, so please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Much love and so much gratitude.

Hitched for the Holidays

This week, I am the leading lady in a Lifetime movie plot – it would be a Hallmark Hall of Fame, but their characters are a little too naive for this storyline.

Our first daughter was born just before Christmas; during those hazy midnight nursing sessions, my husband and I discovered Fa-la-la-al-Lifetime.  It beats infomercials and Public Television Membership Week hands down.  These movies play 24/7 throughout the 6 weeks before Christmas and we have seen almost every one.  There are 3 plot lines and the best ones feature actors from my teenage years (I never miss anything starring the kids from 90210).

One of my favorite story lines, and the one I am playing in this year, is the one where a beautiful single person (pretending to be undesirable) is tired of hearing their mom complain about their lack of spouse and they hire a companion for the family holiday festivities.  I don’t want to spoil the end for you, so don’t’ read on if you prefer the suspense. They fall in love with their partner-for-hire and kiss under the mistletoe.

So, as you might have guessed, my version is a little different: my blind date for the holidays is a new miracle medication meant to sooth an ailing digestive system (I already have a handsome man friend). Scorned in the past, I was not hopeful. However, the last few good days have me skipping towards the mistletoe.  On my new pancreatic enzymes, I have been eating without regret for the first time in 20 years. Cue make-over montage, I feel like dancing!

These movies (and med trials) usually have a bit of drama after that first longing-look, so I am waiting for the other Louboutin to drop. But I am hopeful, and isn’t that what this cheesy season is all about?

I hope Santa brings you and yours everything you’ve been wishing for, including a made-for-TV happily ever after.

 

My girls are magic

My girls are magic.

I have proof by way of illustration: My pain has decided to double in the last week for no apparent reason (really must figure out who has my voodoo doll).  I came home from work a grumpy mess, extremely self-loathing and unhappy that my husband had to leave for work instantaneously.

Seeing as I’d taken all of the pain pills allowed, I self-medicated with a piece of leftover pumpkin pie – which my sweetly smiling 15-month-old ate most of, who can resist those big blues? She then insisted I sit on the floor with her to play Little People, while her big sis did her practice-spelling test at the kitchen table.  I grabbed a couple of pillows and hit the carpet.  She proceeded to pull all of the plastic animals out of the toy barn and pile them on top of me, while making the appropriate animal sounds.  Then she tried to shove every one of them in my mouth or up my nose. We were both giggling and it broke into an every-girl-for-herself tickle-slash-kiss-every-part-of-her-face fight. For 15 minutes she did what my Doctors cannot, what my meds cannot, what I cannot do myself; she made my pain disappear.

Magic.

The Mitten Monster and other back-to-school magic

 

I was not at home to snap pictures of my daughter heading-off for her first day of first grade today. I was running around taking pictures of your kids. Well, maybe not yours specifically, but the greater you. I was playing photographer for the school district where I work, looking for that perfect Facebook shot. And I have to say, your kids were lookin’ good today, in their shiny new shoes (with room to grow) and their stiff backpacks – ready for a year’s worth of library books. They were very willing to show-off their toothless grins, big smiles paired with that tiny hint of anxiety. I tried to capture the squeals as older kids spotted their friends, taller since they hugged fair-well in the spring. I was feeling that ache that all moms feel when they can’t be there to cheer their kiddos on.

To distract myself, and to keep the weeping at bay, I considered the fun in the fact that I was taking pictures at the school where I started Kindergarten myself, years ago. It was a brand new school and my class was the first to go entirely though it. I don’t remember much from that first year, mostly visiting the nurse (I was one of those dreaded strep carriers) playing house at free time (wish I still loved to iron the way I did then) and losing every mitten I ever wore (to the mitten monster living in our cubby, of course). I do have the vaguest of memories of the girl who would one day become my oldest friend. I wanted to be her friend because I loved her dress, which might be the reason I chose most of my friends. This particular dress reminded me of Laura Ingalls, which meant it was awesome. I was all the more impressed to hear that her mom made it. I had no idea you could make a dress.

My memory of those first days may be a little foggy, but I do know that I managed to make a friend for a lifetime. A relationship which is, I realize now as an adult, as magical as the mitten monster himself. Although I couldn’t be there to hold my daughter’s hand as she walked through that big doorway today, I am wishing her every happiness school can bring. Especially, a friendship to hold her up and carry her through those wondrous childhood days, and beyond.