existing in the here and NOW. right now.

sitting here processing this whirlwind summer as it comes to an end - so full of change..some amazing, some sad, some hard, some breathtakingly beautiful...and yet welcoming it all... which is new for me.
amidst all the emotion that comes with this, there is this deep dark place i go sometimes - in my head....of what it all ONCE was, and just exactly WHY it is what it is now.

the last few weeks have been trying.  trying my patience.  trying my heartstrings.  trying my emotional capacity....and that being said...SO much of that has been really, really good.

i'm unwinding years of tangled up emotions -  like a ball of yarn that has been tossed away...so beautiful, only too knotted up to use.

ideas of what that life was, creep in, and i get stuck in that deep dark place trying desperately to unravel it only to find MORE knots.

 i have decided to spend some time with it this summer....embracing it, loving it, and finally understanding it...untangling the knots, being patient with the fibers and strands and even using my nails to really loosen those tough ones.


in existing in this space and time, the universe has aligned me with some crazy serious vibrations...scary and new - but good.

feeling very welcomed here in this space, and feeling like i would like to unpack and stay here for awhile...because amidst all those beautiful fibers, is where i belong.

so many years ago, on this journey, of love and life, and loss and rebirth, i was a wild and wide eyed questioning teenager...i wanted the world to know me....i wanted to move mountains, i wanted to kick ass and take names, but i had no idea why, or for what...i was seventeen...

i fell in love with a boy, who would later become a man, MY man...and i would bear our 3 beautiful children with him. and we would live happily ever after...i was SEVENTEEN.  (insert rolling eyes and lame romantic music now if you wish.)

and life, well, it isn't always what you think it will be, and at seventeen i decided, under no duress i might add, that i was "BRYAN'S girlfriend."  period and DONE.

i existed here...waiting for him to return from trip after trip, and defining myself by this beautiful blonde boy i had by my side.

we survived the test of time - and adolescence - sometimes i wonder now, if it was simply because so many people told us we wouldn't...

i became his wife, and took on the title of "BRYAN'S wife"... and we moved forward somehow while standing in one place and created three amazing little human beings, and i quickly became "mama al" my three beans beside me wherever i went - like a mama duck with her ducklings.

and while it sounds like things were moving along as they should, they weren't actually moving at all.

somewhere along that path of defining myself as all of those things, i had lost the ability to define myself as ME...i had no idea who i was...or where my heart existed...i was terrified to be defined as anything other than MOM.  i hid behind my children  - even in photographs...such a metaphor for where my life had landed...but it gets even worse, as so many demises do...

i chose - read that word carefully, because it is important.  i CHOSE...to become "BRYAN's EX wife."  and for several years i stayed right there - parked my ass on that front step, and wore that title right the hell out.  i might as well have tattooed 'exwife' on my forehead.

i wrapped myself so tight in that ball of yarn and refused to move.

wandered in an out of a few relationships, always leaving because i couldn't exist in any space other than where i was..."exswivesville."

you guys know these women, they sit scowling at him, and possibly even at him's new "her."

no matter where he is or what he's doing - hating on his every move, and while in SO many scenarios, this is COMPLETELY justified, if one were to take two or three steps back...even babysteps, one MIGHT see, that the rest of the world is moving, shaking, making magic all around them...except in

i can't tell you the moment i decided to vacate that spot, because truly who the hell knows, but i'm guessing it was while sitting with a dear friend and pouring my thoughts out while she recorded me - i realized that it was time to unfold my achy limbs and climb OUT of that ball of knotted up yarn...i AM so so much more than an ex....

my self.   see - even stands alone - in writing.

my SELF...that fire... that 17 year old fire...it sparked back up  - until it was raging.- and every day it s burned brighter...dancing and growing...wanting to be felt....

i began defining myself again - as me.

...wandering into little head shops with dear friends and loving up on the hippie stank of patchouli (and not giving a damn what my uptight little town might think of me....)  touching pottery, sitting around a fire that I BUILT,  with dear friends beside me, cooking food -  because i love to feed people AND their souls, and not apologizing.

anymore.

those scary and unknown vibrations have shifted to a place of love.  embracing my life as a mom, a teacher, a daughter, a lover, a girlfriend (WHO HAS A GIRLFRIEND, and that is OKAY!!!) , a friend - a friend who has no boundries - and does NOT care that it doesn't fit your definition of fine....because yah know what...i am fine.

my SELF - is better than fine.

my circle of people is strong as fuck.  so strong it actually requires i say FUCK.  because I CAN.

i have the worlds BEST friends and family - (like i would marry them all and keep them on a remote island amazing) - and to be fair i don't even know where the line between friends and family even starts and stops these days...and that  - THAT is magic.

3 AMAZING kiddos - like SERIOUSLY AMAZING.

and one hell of a woman by my side who loves the SHIT out of me every damn day, embracing our steps together and letting love in...because i can.

i refuse to apologize for my heart....my soul...my fire...my intuition...my magic...OR my chaos...because that my loves, is WHO i am.and if you are already here - you already KNOW that.

it's my self.


my WHOLE damn self....and i am finally letting it exist here - and now...


bliss and blessings your way my loves....

now carry on.

*a

small steps and deep breaths

some days i feel like i cannot catch my breath....

like the world is spinning so damn fast that it is all i can do just to dig my toes deeper into the grass and hang on for dear life.  

between work and school and kids and hockey and lacrosse and LIFE in general...i worry i am not doing it right....not caring enough about some things and caring entirely too much about other things...

i get all the laundry done and feel like i have moved mountains...only to realize i have completely spaced out on permission slips that were due a week ago and oh-my-god lunch money and snack and 60 toenails /nails need clipping....i.can't.even.deal.

some nights i cook an amazing meal and other nights we have cheerios for dinner. and and and...holy hell these kids are going to need therapy...

BREATHE.   

i remember not so many years ago when i wouldn't dare let my kids out of my sight with a single hair out of place...and if there was even a spot of dirt or food on their clothes it was a mad race back upstairs to change before anyone saw...*SIGH* now its a question of how MUCH dirt is on the shirt and if it is really THAT noticeable.

it is funny - the things that i worried about when i was so very busy worrying about being a single parent....well - not having time to clip 30 toenails NEVER even crossed my mind...not once.

BREATHING still...

i try every day - to remember this is NOT a competition....that my world is just fine...a few nics and scratches on the surface and some scars that run way more than skin deep - but that ultimately, i am in competition with nobody...and my world only needs to keep moving forward at the pace i have set for it...for me and my beans.

we are MORE than ok...we are great.  we have a loving supportive circle...chock full of people that love the shit out of us unconditionally...like CRAZY love.  a family to die for - parents that literally move me to tears with how hard they love us...friends who make my circle unbreakable, a woman that makes me understand in the way she loves me why nothing before her was right...a job that i wake up and cannot wait to go to...coworkers who have my back...and the list goes on...

like seriously....blissed.

but it isn't all sunshine and roses.  

sometimes i get the wind knocked out of me...i go and sit on the hill at lacrosse alone...and i watch the happy families - moms and dads and their kids - the townies...i catch the sideways stares....my blue hair...my tattoos peeking out...the sympathetic nods...poor single mom...cant make it to all the activities...can't get the schedule right...can't seem to keep her head on straight... the moms who used to talk to me and no longer do...it sucks....its hard...it's like being in a real live episode of mean girls...or real housewives of suburbia...only i'm on the outside looking in...at what my life USED to be.

but here's the thing...my head is not on straight...because i don't want it to be...it's pleasantly and creatively crooked - BY CHOICE.  and i'm not that poor single mom...i am right exactly where i need to be...my kids are loved...loved DEEPLY...and i am loved....LOVED hard.  i didn't miss that practice - i was out teaching a grad class, or coaching a hockey clinic, or having dinner with a friend - because i can...and i want to...and my hair is blue because i fucking like it that way...and my tattoos are just stories on the canvas that is my skin...i like them there...and not you or your dirty looks will make me feel bad about that.  

DEEP BREATH.

i have made mistakes in my life...many of them.  perhaps i will venture to say an excessive amount of them...but look at me...i survived them...all of them...a few bumps and bruises, but i am still here - living and shit.

but my dirtiest of dirty little secrets - i don't regret a single one of them.  

they are just some of the scars that have built the path on my soul where my strength was born...i own each and every one of them and use them to remind me how many steps i have taken....and how far i have come. i would not trade my choas for your quiet.  i don't miss those days of keeping up with the joneses and worrying about how i will keep allllll those hairs in place....i chose this path...and i do not regret it - not even for a minute.  

most days i am just winging it...making my own sunshine where i need to and loving the shit out of my crazy....my choas...and my fire...i am blessed and lucky...every.damn.day.

lovins all around...

*a

3,285 days.

NINE more years.

NINE MORE.

Say it with me people. NINE.

which is actually 3,285 days remaining that i need to have any communication whatsoever with my narcissistic bastard of an ex husband.

i just received an email in which he called me a liar over a discrepancy of 5 dollars.  yup. FIVE mother-fucking dollars.


i have spent the last several years desperately trying to wrap my brain around the notion of co-parenting. i have tried to be nice, i have tried to reach out…have tried to be flexible…

tried to understand...how to split time with my ex and our collective children, yet make decisions together.  here's the thing…for a lot of you - this works…but for me…well - I'm throwing in the towel.

line in the sand.

waving the white flag.


I'm DONE.

R.I.P co-parenting….

see here's the deal.  when one co-parents with a narcissistic bastard, the experience is QUITE different then co-parenting with a logical sound minded individual.  it's wasted time, and wasted energy.  energy i simply do not have to give.   in theory co-parenting sounds AHHHMAZING. not trying to glorify divorce but seriously….you get every other weekend to have some free time to get shit done, you get to have space from a relationship that went south but still be connected to that person who you deeply loved at one time, forever (if you could only see how hard i just rolled my eyes while typing that.)  that is all IN THEORY. You no longer have to cook meals for someone who doesn't appreciate your efforts, or wake up next to someone who took you for granted for 18 years…BUT you still get to have 3 amazing kiddos with said person.

FAST FORWARD to co-parenting with a narcissistic bastard instead….

last week i picked my children up after their "daddy" weekend - to be told that my baby…the youngest - was sick all weekend.  not runny nose sick- but coughed through the night and had to be medicated sick.  and this was the FIRST i heard of it.

i have this habit of picking up the phone to call and tell him when the kids have a paper cut.  because we signed papers saying that is what we would do…CO-PARENT.  

craziest thing is this though…i drop my kids off on daddy weekends and i magically disappear into the ether.  POOF!  i actually do not exist again until sunday night at 8 pm.  i am only a figment of their imagination when i show up at weekend games or events…i have no parenting say or place in this world…because when its a daddy weekend we play house with girlfriend from hell…who my oldest son lovingly refers to as ISIS.  i shit you not.



so people…i am burying the notion.  from this point on we will move forward in a world of parallel play…like toddlers in the sand box - who know each other yet choose not to interact…there will be no more friendly attempts to chat at games - and offers to watch the kids events together…or offer a coffee if I'm making a pre game run.  it is time to lay this to rest….peace out NBXH.


i know i know - you're all hearing that stupid song "now your just somebody that i used to know…"  sigh….maybe i will get it tattooed on my FACE…


3,285…….say it people…3,285  I GOT THIS.