This One Crazy Summer…

There are moments in life that unequivocally change everything, whether by fate, or God, or a conscious decision made, after that minute passes, your life has changed so completely you will never be the same because of it. My most significant moment happened so long ago, it seems like it was a past life. But as these moments go, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the summer of my 21^st year, I was terrifically reckless and hopelessly in love with life. I lived in my parents’ vacation home at the beach, I barely worked and college had become a distant memory. I had an awesome group of friends to spend the lazy days and wild nights with, and we partied like we were the last rock stars on Earth. My place was a revolving door of roommates, party crashers and couch-surfers. It was an amazing, magical and crazy fun time.

And then I got pregnant.

I had been dating the guy on and off for a few months, though I had invited
him to move in the night I met him. It wasn’t serious, he was a drummer in a band, I loved musicians, and we had a lot of fun together, but he would never be “the one”. And through some stupid twist of fate (and maybe one tequila shot too many) I was pregnant with his kid. Clearly that was just not going to be something that would work for us.

I had the intention to go back to school someday, I had hopes and dreams for my future that could never come to be if I had a baby then. And in case I haven’t already painted clear enough of a picture, I was far from responsible. There was no way in hell I was equipped to raise a child at that age, it just couldn’t happen. Even on the nights when I lay in bed with my doubts and what-ifs, wondering about the possibilities, I still couldn’t see how it could work. I was angry at myself for being so heartbreakingly irresponsible, and already feeling guilt like I had never known before, but ultimately I saw no other way out.

I made the appointment when I was just shy of 12 weeks. The closest abortion clinic was a 45 minute tear filled drive away, the longest journey and shortest 45 minutes of my life. We walked past the picketers, the guy was with me, he held my hand, he tried to be supportive, but I know all that he felt was a greater sense of relief with each step we took. I left him in the full waiting room, I was quickly taken away, through doors and down halls.

They spoke to me, they asked me questions, they gave me a gown and I put it on. I felt like I was in a very bad dream and I was trying to keep track of the labyrinth of doors they took me through so I would know how to get back out. They brought me to a waiting room full of girls, laughing and chatting, comparing notes on how many times they had met Mr. Hoover. For real. I would imagine they were trying to comfort themselves, making it less important, less of a big deal, less bad, but I found no comfort in their indiscreet chatter. As I sat there in my gown, trying not to cry but failing miserably, I looked down at the desk next to me and saw the ultrasound of someone who had gone before, through the last door. In that moment, looking at this picture of a baby that would never be, I realized that the noise I was hearing was no longer the girls and their mindless quips. It was crying, but it wasn’t my own, it was coming from somewhere very deep inside of me.

And that was my moment, the one where I made the most important choice of my life. I got up and walked out. Through the doors and down the halls. I was going to have this baby. Holy. Crap. I found my clothes and dressed. I was going to be a Mom. They tried to stop me, to talk to me, they wanted to help me think things through, but it was too late. I was keeping the baby. I made my way out, back into the waiting room. I found the dad, he looked confused, I grabbed his hand and I didn’t speak until we were out of there. The crying from inside me had gone, and seemed to have been replaced with a seed of hope, the hum of strength, a sort of peace that could only come from the absolute certainty I was doing the right thing. I was going to have this baby. I didn’t care if I had to do it on my own. I didn’t care about the fact that I was choosing the much harder path. I didn’t care that this was not a part of the plan. This is what was meant to be.

My son is 17 now, and I have been thankful every single day of his life for that moment, the one that held the best decision that ever almost didn’t happen.

Smiles

So the beautiful and magnificent Mama Kat asked, what makes me smile? Aside from my kid, my boyfriend, pets, coffee and wine, that is… I would also have to add writing to this list of my obvious favorite things, as I would probably not have started a blog if I didn’t love to write, right? So excluding the obvious smiles, what else does it for me?

Photography. It’s the one thing that needs to be included amongst the others that make me smile, it completes me. You can get the scoop on all that I have going on and where photography fits in here. It’s true, it is what keeps me sane. And sanity makes me smile. If a few days go by without any sort of creativity, I begin to feel like I can’t breathe. If the writing is blocked, then I focus on the photos. If I don’t have photos to edit, I grab my camera and go take some. And that moment, when you realize that you just captured pure magic, whether it’s through words or a photo, is just absolutely priceless. And that shit makes me smile A-whole-LOT!

I started getting into photography when my son was born, back in the days of film. I took so many photos of that child! It seemed the more I took, the better I got at it, and when digital came on the scene I got really dangerous. That was when I discovered I could sit there for hours with a child (mine was becoming less willing, so I began to offer up my services to friends and family), waiting to capture that magic. I would wait them out, playing with them and taking photo after photo, until I got what I was looking for.

My favorite subjects to photograph are beautiful people and special places, children, LOVE in all of its forms, places of legend, and things that have been abandoned (especially old insane asylums, I don’t know why, it’s just one of my things). And of course, I love to take photos of my kid, my boyfriend and my pets too! So, now I’m going to share some of my favorite smiles with you. I hope you enjoy them!

True Love.

A Father’s Love.

A Child’s Light.

Bike Week, South Dakota.

Bryce Canyon, Utah

New York City

City at Night

Cape May, NJ

California Loner.

Outside Bear Lake, Idaho

Coney Island

Coney Island Art

Overbrook Insane Asylum, NJ

Overbrook Insane Asylum, NJ

A Boy and His Beach

My Kid and His Cat

My Man.

I Never Thought I Would Have a Fish Story…

My boyfriend (who from this day forward shall be called Brian) has this stuffed fish, it’s a barracuda that he caught in Florida about 10 years ago. In his old place it hung in the dining room, over the table that was primarily just used for our monthly poker game. I barely noticed this fish, so it really wasn’t even on my radar when we decided to move in together, and not a subject that came up in all of the conversations that followed about where things should go in our new place.

The day of our big move was chaos from the very start. We were exceptionally blessed to have so many super awesome friends volunteer to help us with the move. A bunch of them had gathered at Brian’s house to help him load up the truck, with the plan to then go to my place to load up my things. My son had arranged for a small army of his friends to help us out with the move as well, all of whom were at our place throughout the week helping to move smaller things over to the new place prior to the truck getting there. These kids made me have to seriously re-think a lot of the bitching I have done about teenagers over the past couple years. They STEPPED UP. They were powerhouses of strength and energy, who followed direction, kept the stuff moving, and really never complained about anything. Even my son, who gives me crap about everything.

I drove out to Brian’s house with my son and two of his friends to help move the truck loading along. As it would turn out, there would end up being 2 truckloads necessary to empty Brian’s house, and 1 ½ to empty mine. I don’t know how we ever thought it would ALL fit into one truckload, clearly spatial reasoning is not a strength in our home.

When we got to his house, people were everywhere, emptying the house and loading up the truck as well as their own cars. There were a ton of things sitting on the front lawn, waiting to find out if they would be loaded onto the truck, or left behind on the curb. In the midst of the chaos, one of our friends jokingly asks what don’t I want to make it onto the truck. I looked around at it all, and replied “The Fish”.

Here’s the back story on the fish, because as I’m sure you know, every stuffed fish has a story to go along with it. It was on a business trip in Miami, his team went out deep-sea fishing, and after 2 hours on the boat he caught this 4 ½ ft African barracuda, which took just under an hour to reel in. They asked if he wanted to keep it, and of course he did! They would stuff and mount it for him, and he would have to pay half up front, priced at about $100 ft. Clearly the fishing crew knew they had caught a big one as well. $1000 and 6 months later he finally got his fish and it was hung on his dining room wall. Until moving day.

So the move was chaotic, at best. It may have also been referred to as a cluster fuck of a train wreck, depending on who you asked. At the end of the day we had 3 refrigerators, 3 sets of washers and dryers, too many dressers and dining room tables, an extra bed, and boxes EVERYWHERE. The only thing that wasn’t there was The Fish. This was discovered during the minor meltdown Brian had at the end of this very long day, due to his lack of actual control over every aspect of the move. We looked everywhere, The Fish was definitely missing.

After a bit of investigation, it was discovered that The Fish was put in the back of one of our friends cars, and somehow “forgotten” there when he left that day. Once Brian could finally start to laugh (a little) about the move, I had to come clean. So when the subject of the fish came up again, which did not take very long at all as it had become a bit of an obsession, I mentioned that I had been asked what I didn’t want moved that day, and how I had responded. He was mildly disturbed by this I think, though he understood that it was not said seriously, and I had NEVER expected anyone to honor this request. It had now become my mission to get The Fish back as well.

Three months, 200 text messages, 27 phone calls, and 2 poker games later, The Fish finally made its way home. I feel a little bit bad that I thought it was so funny how obsessed Brian had become with getting The Fish back, though I’m relatively certain that the reason it took so long was because everyone else thought it was rather entertaining as well.

In the end, I was so happy to have The Fish home (and the subject of it no longer being
discussed) that I didn’t care where it got hung. For real. So I had absolutely nothing to do with it being hung in Brian’s walk in closet, he did that completely on his own. Swear. Though in all honesty, The Fish is a scary looking, stuffed, dead animal. Thankfully, my man is smart enough to know that it would best be hung somewhere that I wouldn’t see it very often. Yep, I caught me a keeper!

My Broken Funny

This post was supposed to be about a stuffed fish. But then BlogHer ’12 happened, and now the fish has to wait until next week.

BlogHer is the mack daddy of all blogging conferences. I was very fortunate to have it in my own backyard this year in NYC, just me and 4,999 other super awesome, mostly female bloggers. The President (of the freaking USA!) gave the opening address, it’s some pretty serious shit. There are already hundreds of blog posts floating around out there about the experience that was BlogHer ’12. I’ve read some really fabulous ones, like this post by my friend Ado over at The Momalog. Or for a different take on it, this one by Rock & Drool. The conference was simply amazing, I learned a lot, I was INSPIRED, I met an incredible number of really fabulous women, I drank a little too much, and had a blast hanging out in NYC with my sister Erin, who writes over at A Book for My Daughter. And… that’s about as much as I’m going to go into a recap of BlogHer ’12. If you want more than that, you can go on Twitter and search for #BlogHer12 and I promise you will find all of the awesome stories I mentioned.

I do have one very specific thing to tell you though, about something that happened to me at the conference, along with a bit of a back-story to give you some perspective.

The Back-story:
My Funny is  broken. Or maybe just very damaged. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but let’s just chalk it up to LIFE (i.e. pain, heartbreak, loss, fear, etc) I wasn’t actually aware that this tragedy had occurred though, until my boyfriend pointed it out to me. In just that way. Your Funny is broken. And my son completely agrees with him, though I don’t know if he remembers me ever being very funny. Maybe my Funny got broken when being Strong was all I could focus on? I don’t know.

I do have a sense of humor, though it might be a bit on the darker side. I laugh out loud, when something is actually funny. I’m not a big fan of most comedic movies, though I loved The Hangover, and anything with Dane Cook is just AWE-SOME. And intelligent comedy, give me that any day. I stopped watching sitcoms when Friends went off the air, and have only recently found an appreciation for them again through watching The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, which is a part of my boyfriend’s prescribed therapy to fix my Funny. See, he is really funny. And he really likes funny things. And he wants me to be able to appreciate those things with him, almost as much as he wants me to fix and embrace my own Funny.

When it comes to my writing, the stories in my head are funny, at least the tone I try to tell them with is, even if the content is not. Not haha funny, but the darker sort of funny that comes with life’s lessons learned. The kind of funny that comes from just having survived some bullshit or other. But I don’t think it translates very well. I mean from my head to my fingers, I think something gets lost along the way.

So, I’m working on it…

The Incident:
Following the Voices of the Year program at BlogHer ’12, Violence Unsilenced sponsored an Open Mic night called Listen To Your Mother. It was a spectacular idea, to give random bloggers a chance to read one of their own blog posts to an audience of fellow bloggers. There were three topics you could choose from to submit a post for: Life, Funny and Rants. Not that I cared, because I was just there to listen. No way in hell was I going to get up there on stage and read a post. Especially after listening to the women I was with discussing which posts they would submit, because I knew both of their stories and they were awesome! And funny. My stories are not funny like that. You know, the kind of funny that people want to hear after they have had a couple of cocktails and are out for a good time? And… I have this sort of enormous fear of public speaking. So it just was not going to happen.

But then, well, ugh. I realized that I was here, at BlogHer, to promote, celebrate and grow my blog, and I knew for damn sure that if I didn’t go throw my name in the hat I would regret it forever. And then I heard my boyfriend’s voice in my head, encouraging me as he does, in his own very unique way, by refusing to speak to me until I finish writing a post, or whatever it is that I am working on at the time. I imagined him sitting there ignoring me until I went up and submitted my name. And then I thought of my son, and the thought of him not putting himself out there for something he really cared about, because of fear, was just too much for me. So I did it. I felt like I was going to throw up the second the paper was out of my hand. And as I looked around and saw the room REALLY filling up, I mean, all the tables were full and people were sitting on the floor, wall to wall, I realized two things. There were a couple hundred people here maybe? And 15-20 of them would be picked to read, so my odds were really good for not getting picked. And O.M.G., this is a full house, and I saw more than a few members of mommy blogger royalty in the room, I seriously better not get picked!!!

I. Got. Picked.

I walked to the front of the room to wait for my turn. I focused on my breathing so I wouldn’t pass out, wishing that I hadn’t been so late for cocktail hour, and sat there praying that I didn’t have to follow someone really funny. The post I had picked was A Boy Making a Man’s Decision, and needless to say, there wasn’t much humor in it.

As it turned out, it was a solid combination of funny and serious blog posts that were read that night, and the one I followed didn’t cause mine to become a total buzz kill. Somehow I read the words of my post from my mobile phone without throwing up or passing out. I read it way too fast and without much emotion, or at least that’s the way I heard it in my head, but all I wanted to do was get through it, without going too far over in my allotted time of 5 minutes. I have no idea how long I took or how I really sounded, all I know is that I DID IT.

I left that room filled with emotion. My cheeks hurt from all of the laughing that I did at some of the stories. My heart hurt from the stories that made me cry. I was elated that I was able to get up on that stage and tell my story. I was also more determined than ever to find my Funny, to get over the shit that’s held me back, to heal the part of me that still couldn’t laugh as loud as it wanted to, for whatever reason. I was determined to find my true voice, and tell my stories with the humor from lessons learned, with the tone of those words as I hear them in my head, with laughter, and without taking it all so damned seriously.

The Millennial Monster’s Monsters

So our cats have gone insane. As I mentioned in my last post, we’ve all been adjusting to our new home and new routines since my boyfriend and I moved in together. It was totally expected there would be a period of adjustment, more for my son and my boyfriend than for me I think, but I TOTALLY did not think there was going to be such an issue with our cats! But they aren’t just having adjustment issues, it’s been 4 months, they have seriously lost their minds. The oldest cat, Joey, was a birthday gift for my son on his 7th birthday. I suppose it is possible that he may just be getting a bit senile, or maybe showing the long-term effects of the less than gentle early years growing up with my son, but we have another theory on what’s going on with him. We think he’s talking to dead people. See, our house may or may not be haunted, a subject which I don’t really want to go into too much at the moment (since it’s getting close to bedtime), but if it is, then that little guy is talking to those ghosts without any doubt. This is what he does – several times a day, almost every time he goes up into the loft over our living room, when he gets to the top of the spiral staircase he stops, looks into the darkness and gives a very guttural “meow” 4 or 5 times, which really sounds like he is saying “hello”. Watch this video and listen for yourself. He then looks down at us, and walks into the loft, as though he was just given permission to enter.

Kinda creepy, right? That’s nothing compared to what is going on with our other cat, Zoe. She is full on possessed or something. This is the sweetest little love bug of a cat you are ever going to meet, but since we moved, she has these psycho fits of growling and hissing and scratching and biting, it’s crazy to the point of us just waiting for her head to start spinning around while she projectile vomits pea soup. Now, there is a very specific trigger for this, which is whenever my boyfriend stands up. That’s it, nothing more than that, he stands and she freaks out. She used to absolutely adore him, when he would walk into the room she would literally stand up on her hind legs begging for him to pet her, he was her favorite. Now she only likes him when he’s sitting down. This photo was taken half an hour before the video, take a look.

Crazy, right? Yep, I know. Our third cat is Indiana, she came with my boyfriend, and she is a little over a year old. She is super cute, and really sweet, and doesn’t really seem fazed by any of this, nothing unusual going on with her at all. Maybe because she’s so young, and everything is still new to her? Maybe because she was a stray and on her own not so long ago? I don’t know. We’re just thankful that one of them is still normal. Wait, there is that strange thing she does at night, lying on the kitchen floor staring under the stove for hours at a time. I guess that is sort of odd too? Hopefully these things are all just move related adjustment issues, because it would really be awesome if our cats would all just get over it and behave normally again. It would also be pretty cool to stop wondering if there are ghosts that are making them act so odd, not that I necessarily believe in such things, but sometimes you just have to wonder, you know…?

A Letter To My Poor, Neglected Blog

My Dearest Blog,
I am so very sorry that I have gone totally M.I.A. on you for the past few months! I know it sounds rather trite, but things have really been sort of crazy for me lately. For real. But I think about you all the time, I have missed you dearly, and hope that you will forgive me for my absence. I know, I know! Just hear me out and let me try to explain…

I had all of the best intentions when I wrote my last post on New Beginnings. I was ready to embrace the fresh start that the new year offers, and I was committed to telling you everything. Well okay, not everything, just the stuff that I would let my Mom read, because I know you’re friends. So the intentions were there but then everything changed. My boyfriend and I decided to move in together and began looking at houses immediately. Well, technically, we started looking at houses first, and then we had the conversation about it, because sometimes things just happen backwards, you know? We found a place that we totally fell in love with, but we had to sign a lease that started in less than a month. Then we had to tell my son and make sure he was cool with the whole thing, which thankfully he was,  so we were a go! Crazy packing chaos ensued, quickly followed by the moving day insanity.

Strange Things My Boyfriend Owns #37

You’re not going to believe this, but the most stressful part of the move wasn’t any of the things I just mentioned! I know, it’s hard to imagine, but the most painful part was the unpacking. I mean, holy fucking shit, that part sucked. To put it in perspective for you, three and a half months later and there are still 4 or 5 boxes left. Yep, seriously. But I learned a few valuable lessons from it, which I hope to never have to use because I would like to NEVER have to move again!.Let’s just say that I rescued my boyfriend from a possible future as a hoarder, and leave it at that. For now.

Combining two complete households of crap into one wasn’t the only challenge that we faced once we were all moved in, because the two households of crap belonged to two, somewhat set in their ways, grown adults with their own ways of doing things. And issues. I have mine, he has his, some are definitely bigger than others. There was even a bit of undiagnosed OCD that reared it’s rather peculiar head. So yeah, major adjustments had to take place, the least surprising and most significant one of course was with my son. He had to get used to having my boyfriend around all the time, and my boyfriend had to deal with adjusting to the wonderful world of parenting a teenager. It could probably go without saying, but THIS WAS NOT EASY. It is an ongoing process of adjustment and learning, but I think we’re doing pretty okay now. And I am absolutely certain we are going to be awesome.

Home.

So, on top of all of that, the cats have gone insane. The house may or may not be haunted, possibly by a ghost cat. We lost the thousand dollar stuffed fish in the move, which eventually (sadly) found its way home. We had a total nightmare experience with the gangsta cable guy from hell. We’re still pondering the bizarre security system, and the need for video camera surveillance in this neck of Suburbia (my theory is that Russian drug lords were the last renters). I finally have a deck garden again!! My son turned 17, and has no interest in getting his driver’s license. We survived junior year (what a bitch). I discovered Family Locator (best freaking invention EVER). I also discovered Pinterest… I know, I know, I said I would NEVER go there, but it was for work, and well, it’s really not so bad. Don’t get mad at me, there’s room for both of you in my life, and you will always be my true love!

Well, that’s all the major stuff, I could go on and on, but I just wanted you to know where I’ve been and what’s been going on. I promise to sit down and tell you all about all of these stories very soon. Please, please know that a day has not gone by that I haven’t thought of you, I have truly missed you dearly and promise to visit with you on a much more regular basis going forward. Thank you so much for understanding, I’ll talk to you soon!! xoxo

Yours Always,
Kate

       

New Beginnings

The greatest thing about the New Year is the opportunity for a fresh start, a clean slate, new beginnings. This is something I generally really appreciate, but this year more than ever, I am seriously embracing it. Last year was chock full of love and happiness, sadness and heartbreak, fear like I have never known before, excitement and joy, pain and confusion, hope and healing. It was beautiful, and exhausting.

Now is the time for letting go.

I haven’t been able to write anything for this blog for a while now. I got stuck on something, a thing I couldn’t completely put into words, at least not for the whole world to see. Well, not just yet anyway. A thought from the past, a feeling which came from decisions made long ago, has been haunting me. It breaks my heart, it makes me cry in my sleep, it takes my voice away, though I wouldn’t say the words even if I could. I say I have no regrets, but sometimes I wonder if I’m strong enough to survive the repercussions of my actions. I couldn’t have done things differently, I couldn’t have made other decisions, and that’s why there are no second thoughts. But the fact that it couldn’t have been any other way still does not take the pain away, and I sometimes wonder if I will ever really get past it. Sometimes I wonder if I’m really just being punished.

I do have a place for these thoughts, where I can lock them away until they are ready to be released. I’m working on a novel, a memoir really, and that’s where I write all of my secret truths. So that’s where all of my words have gone recently, because they are just too much to share with anyone right now.

And so, I get up every day, and I take care of everything else in my life, I get it all done, and I go on. I remind myself every morning how strong I am, how far I’ve come, and then I pray for a little more strength, just enough to get me through the day. It seems this prayer is actually answered on a daily basis, so for all you heathens out there, don’t make fun, faith comes in a million different forms, and I know MY God will never give me more than I can handle. I am not a religious person by any means, but my spirituality is unquestionable. I have faith in love, and in all that is good in this world. I have faith in the fact that the energy we put out there is what we will get back in return, good or bad. I have faith in the kindness of strangers, and in what we can learn from the innocence of our children. And I have faith in myself, because I know that I am strong enough.

And so this is my new beginning. This is my letting go. All of the words I couldn’t say have been put away, written somewhere else, releasing me to focus on the present, to embrace my life and to share my stories. I have so much to be thankful for, so much love and light in my life,  and I do have a story or two to tell, so now I’m going to get back to it…

The Cat in the Hat and the Not-So-Stealth Santa

This is the story of The Cat in the Hat and the Almost Christmas Miracle.

You know how Macy’s has a special stuffed animal every year at Christmas? If you spend a certain amount of money, you can buy it for a nominal amount, limited edition, a collector’s item sort of thing. They do it every year, or they did, I don’t know if they are this year, but in 1995 their stuffed toy was Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat. It was about 2 ½ ft tall, and it came with a miniature copy of the book attached to its wrist. It was very cute, but not something that was on my radar until a friend bought it for her boyfriend that year.

It was my son’s first Christmas, he was 6 months old, and he and I went over to her place to visit one afternoon several weeks before the big day. He became completely enchanted with this toy, he wouldn’t let go of it the entire time we were there. Next thing I knew, my friend and I were on our way to the closest Macy’s to find one of these toys for my son for Christmas. It turned out to be a greater challenge than we had anticipated. It seemed that there were none left in the store. We ran from department to department, until we finally tracked one down in the men’s fragrance department, THE last one.

My son was so excited to see it sitting there on Christmas morning, and from that day on, they were inseparable. When my son could speak, the toy simply became known as “CAT”, and he went everywhere with us, even on a trip to Ireland when he was 2. Needless to say, CAT went through the washing machine several hundred times, and after a while, he started to look a little beat up. Not exactly falling apart, but well-loved, worn and faded.

When my son was 5, I came up with the brilliant idea to replace the old cat with a new one. It would be a Christmas miracle! Santa would return CAT to his original beautiful state, a better version of himself, to be loved for many years to come. I scoured eBay, and finally found the same 1995 Macy’s toy, in mint condition, and bought it immediately. I was so excited!

On Christmas Eve, I snuck into the room my son was sleeping in at my mother’s house. Total stealth mission, gently pulling the old CAT out from his arms, and replacing it with the “new” one. He didn’t wake up, it went perfectly. I hid the old one in a closet in the guest room, and happily went to sleep feeling like a little kid myself, I was so very excited to see what my son thought of our Christmas “miracle.”

I woke up several hours later to the sound of my son screaming. I ran in to see what was wrong, as he held out his CAT to me, saying that something had happened, this wasn’t his CAT. I knelt down next to him and told him my story about it being a Christmas miracle. He didn’t buy it, at all. He said NO, this was NOT his CAT. I insisted that yes, of course it was, Santa had just cleaned him up, gave him new eyes, and made him look like new again. He was still skeptical, but he seemed to start to accept what I was saying.

Many hours later, after all of the presents had been opened, I was sitting in the living room playing board games with the family, when my son walked into the room with a huge smile on his face, holding both CATs. He exclaimed, “See Mommy, I told you this wasn’t my CAT, this is MY CAT, Santa brought a new one and now CAT has a friend!” I was devastated for a moment, feeling like a complete failure at pulling off the magical Christmas “miracle,”  but then realized how completely ecstatic he was to now have 2 CATs, and that he had been right in knowing that the new CAT was not his CAT. So I just went with his decision that Santa had simply played a trick on him and hid his old CAT for him to find later. The magic I had hoped to create for him hadn’t happened, but he was happy, and that’s all that mattered.

For a while after that both CATs were taken with us everywhere, but eventually I persuaded him to let the old CAT rest, and just bring the new CAT with us when we traveled. So, the new CAT also got to visit Ireland with us as well when my son was 9, and everywhere else we went for the next year or so, until my son decided that he was too old for such things.

Both CATs are still with us, packed away in boxes now, because I couldn’t possibly part with things that had brought my child so much joy for so many years. I would imagine that few stuffed animals have been as well-loved, and as well-traveled, as these two. They’re also a good reminder that when playing Santa, you really need to be smarter than a five year old.

Counting My Blessings

 These are the things I am most thankful for right now:

My son. My sweet angel, and favorite little devil.

My boyfriend, for showing up, opening my eyes and my heart, and letting me know a kind of love I had only read about before.

Pumpkin. And by pumpkin I mean pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin seeds….

My extremely loving, supportive, and sometimes dysfunctional family.

My niece and nephew, who are of course a part of the blessing above, but truly need their own call out because of how unique and precious they are. I always have such a blast with them, and just by being themselves with their extremely dynamic personalities, they make me laugh like nobody else can.

Tom Robbins books.

Conundrum wine, which gave me the guts to put myself out there and start dating again, which directly led to me meeting my guy.

My Mom’s carrot cake.

Coffee.

Finally having long sought after balance in my life.

Led Zeppelin.

My super kick ass camera. I researched and saved for it for 3 years, finally pulled the trigger about 5 months ago. I’m still trying to figure out how to use it…

Yoga.

Valium. For when yoga doesn’t get me there.

Scary movies.

Knee high boots and flip flops.

The beach.

My strength, faith, and hopelessly optimistic spirit.

My career, and all of the people who took chances on me along the way.

All of my girlfriends. We’re all spread out all over the country now, but I love them dearly, miss them tons, and very much look forward to our phone dates.

The BEST Apple Crisp recipe on the planet, which I got from my friend Jen, and haven’t shared with anyone else, until now. This recipe is so freaking easy, and the results are so unbelievably fantastic, you’re going to want to keep it to yourself too! I just made it for dessert for tomorrow night, here’s a photo of the finished product:

And here is the recipe:

Ingredients
6 apple – peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup water
1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×13 inch baking dish.
Arrange apples in an even layer in bottom of baking dish. Pour water over apples.
In a medium bowl, mix together cake mix, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Stir in melted butter until ingredients are thoroughly blended; mixture will be crumbly. Sprinkle mixture over apples.
Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 55 minutes.
Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and enjoy!

I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, with many cocktails and as little family drama as possible!

           

A Boy Making a Man’s Decision

We all have tough decision to make in life, some harder than others. This story is about my greatest challenge as a mother, and a decision my son should have never had to make.

It’s just been me and my son since as long as I can remember, it feels like it has always been that way, but it hasn’t. The dad and I were together until he was two years old. My son doesn’t remember that time of course, thankfully, because as there were many happy, good times, there were just as many bad, painful things that occurred then as well. The dad and I had loved each other, but he wasn’t ready to grow up and deal with all of the responsibilities of being a parent, which I had no other choice but to do. We were young, and he was a drummer in a band, our lifestyle had been very much about the party, but changes were necessary once our son was born. I changed, I grew, I embraced parenthood and all of the changes and sacrifices that it entailed, but he wasn’t ready for it, and he had a temper which eventually made it an impossible situation. We tried, but it just didn’t work.

After our split, we tried to do the weekend visitation thing, but that didn’t work for long either. I went back to college up in CT, and drove our son down to him in NJ every weekend. As much as I tried to make the situation work, it wasn’t enough for his dad, and eventually he decided to move to SC to start a new life there. We kept in touch for a while, but he soon just disappeared. I never went after him for child support, or anything, I had figured that if it was that hard for him to be there for his son and do the right thing, if it was that easy to just walk away, it was better to let him go, for both of us. We didn’t hear from him again for years.

About a year after we moved to California, when my son was 7, I felt this uncontrollable urge to try to track down the dad, just to make sure he was okay. I had a feeling that something had happened to him, and I needed to know. I had always made it a priority to stay close to the dad’s entire family for my son’s sake, even though he was no longer in the picture, it was so important to me that my son always know where he came from. None of them had heard from the dad in years either. They tried to discourage me from looking, they were concerned about my son being hurt, but I couldn’t help myself. A friend of mine found him in a bar in Charleston, she walked up to him and called me, then put the phone to his head. We spoke. He was in bad shape, I was kind, and he cried. That conversation led to another and then another. He left SC and moved closer to his family in PA, and got sober. I called him every day for a year to support him and remind him why he was doing it. When I knew he was in a good place, I let him back into my son’s life. It started with phone calls, which became more frequent over time, and eventually he came to visit us out in CA.

I need to mention a very critical part to all of this. In all of the years that the dad was absent from his life, I had always told my son that he was very sick, and that’s why we couldn’t see him. The truth was that he had a major issue with alcohol and drugs, and he had depression issues which perpetuated his addictions. In my book “sick” is a relatively accurate description of this, though I might use a significantly more colorful vocabulary in describing him to anyone else, the whole truth was clearly not information my son needed to know. I knew it was critical to keep him from thinking that his father had just abandoned him. I was a psychology major in school, so I had some understanding of what damage this could cause. I knew that children could understand “sick” and it was something that they could feel compassion for, and even if it made them sad, they would not be internalizing anything damaging because of it. So when his father came back into his life, there was no resentment, only joy that he was now better.

It didn’t take very long for him to disappoint us once again. On his second trip out to visit us, he was supposed to pick our son up at school for the first time. Needless to say, my kid was thrilled. He was very excited to introduce his dad to all of his friends, kids who had only known him without a father. It was a big fucking deal. But he didn’t show up. I got a call at work from the leader at the YMCA after school program my son attended, informing of this, and how sad my son was. I left immediately to pick him up, and attempted to cheer him up, surely something must have happened to his dad that was totally beyond his control to prevent him from being there, though I had not heard a word from him. He showed up at our place a couple hours later, with barely an apology. He was down in Laguna Beach getting a new tattoo, and had just lost track of time. I could not believe that he was still the same self centered jerk he had always been, and that I had let him back in, and my son was hurt. I tried to stay calm, explained to him why none of this was at all cool, and then we moved on. I had hoped that would be the only time he would hurt or disappoint my son, but it wasn’t. Over the next year, shortly into each of our visits with him, my son began asking when he was going to leave, because he liked it much better when it was just us. He felt no love for his dad, there had been no opportunity for that to grow, though being the sensitive child that he is, he felt compassion for him, and would never hurt his feelings by letting him know how he felt himself. But it wasn’t long before everything changed again. The phone calls became less frequent, no visits were planned, and eventually he was just gone once again.

I was so angry with myself for letting this happen, for giving him a chance to be a father to our child again, for putting my son into a position where someone could hurt and disappoint him like that. As much as I felt I had done the right thing, saving him from a world that he would not have survived for very much longer, the sacrifice had been the well-being of my son. But my son was actually fine. He was happy that he was gone. He had had the chance to get to know him, to see him for who he was, and to make his own decisions about him. As it turned out, it was the best possible thing to happen, because in the end my son understood exactly why I had made the decisions that I had, and why we were better off without him there.

Years passed without a word, and the dad soon became a distant memory. When we moved back to NJ, I was a bit nervous about living so close to him again, I knew if he found out there would be a great chance of him re-surfacing. Sadly, I was right. His sister told him where we had moved, and encouraged him to try to reach out to us. He sent a letter directly to my son, who unfortunately was the one to check the mail that day.  He was shocked to receive the letter, and upset by the words that it held. The dad had basically said that he was a better person now, and my son “owed” it to him to give him another chance to be a part of his life. A box full of peculiar Christmas gifts showed up a few days later, but it was way too little and far too late. To say I flipped out was a monumental understatement. I sent an email to every member of his family who knew where we had moved, demanding to know who had told him, which is when his sister came forward. The rest of the family was furious at her, because they knew that I would NEVER give him the chance to hurt my son like that again, and that it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for me to just disappear. But it was only a few moments before I suddenly realized, this was no longer my decision to make.

I spoke to my son about it, to see how he felt and what he wanted to do. This was now his decision to make, it could be no other way. He was very upset that the dad thought he could just cruise back into his life once again, and that he had made it seem as though my son owed that to him. He thought about it for a couple of days, and decided that he didn’t want to have anything to do with him, he didn’t want him in his life in any way, and he didn’t not want him to contact him again. The dad was a person who had only caused him pain, fear, and disappointment, and he wasn’t going to suffer through that again. He owed him NOTHING. I watched my thirteen year old son become a man over those few days, as he made the toughest decision of his life. I marveled at his wisdom, as I watched him become stronger as he took control over standing up for himself.

I suggested that he respond in writing to the dad, but he felt that it wouldn’t matter what he wrote, he would only see it as a response which would be perceived as an open door to further communication. I contacted his aunt, and told her to call the dad, tell him my son’s wishes, and to just fix it, which she did. It’s been three years now since we’ve heard anything from him and our lives have gone on. We do talk about the dad occasionally, mostly so I can make sure that my son’s head is still in the right place with the decision he had to make, that he’s not silently hurting because of it. He laughs at me when I show this concern, and reminds me once again that it was the only decision that he could have made, that we’re both better off because of it, and that it was really the dad who had made the decision for us, many years earlier. My son only forced him to follow down the path he had already chosen a long time ago…

This post was inspired by Mama Kat’s Pretty Much World Famous Writer’s Workshop. Check it out!