i'm not invisible

i got married in my early twenties. i was younger than a lot of girls, but i'd dated a lot of different guys and i felt confident that i knew what i was looking for and that i'd found it when i met chris.

before i was married, i felt like a confident, self-sufficient woman of the world who could handle anything that came my way. i had a lot to say and an opinion about most subjects, which i felt free to share any time with anyone.

my husband is very good at holding his tongue and over time, i learned to keep my mouth shut until i'd filtered my thoughts through my brain and decided they were worth spilling out onto the people around me. i think this is a good quality most of the time.

i learned how to delay any real decisions until such time as i had discussed them with chris. he's never been demanding about how i spent time or money, but it seemed reasonable to share those decisions rather than just rashly do whatever i felt like without thought to the other half of my partnership.

then i became a mommy. it was what i'd always wanted and i was very happy to have my little girl. my life revolved around brooke and her needs.

over the years, it seems like more and more of my self has vanished as i've dedicated myself to caring for my family. i ate what they liked, i slept when i needed to sleep so that i could best accommodate the lives of my husband and kid. i go where they want to go and watch what they like to watch.

as a larger woman, i've dressed in a way that would blend in to the background and i didn't do anything to draw attention to myself because i didn't want anyone to look at me and think the fat girl was getting out of hand. if i was invisible, no one would notice all the ways i was lacking.

when i think back to the time when i felt most like i knew who i was and was in control of my own life, i picture a big mouthed, hootchie-dressed, smoking girl, with super-high heels. i see long acrylic nails, red lipstick and sleeping til noon.

i like that girl, but those things don't fit me anymore. there has to be a way to rediscover or rebuild myself into a current version that will work for my life and not leaving me feeling like i only exist for the services i perform for others. i want a sense of self-satisfaction that isn't about anyone else, but isn't totally selfish either.

this year has been a time for me to start figuring that out. i still don't know what direction it's going to take, but i'm putting some time and effort into exploring my options. i've made myself more of a priority than i have in many years and it feels good.

maybe eventually i'll figure it out. i don't think the new me looks like either of those girls up above. i think she looks more like this. and she's not invisible.

so campy

for about a year, brooke has been talking about going to summer camp. she'd read about it in a book and seen some tv episodes about camping and she wanted to give it a try. it made me a little sick to my stomach when i first started considering actually letting her go. she's always been explosive when things got too loud or overwhelming. she likes to know what to expect all the time and she needs time to transition more slowly than most kids from one activity to the next. these are all things that would likely be aggravated by a typical camp environment.

there's a place i went as a kid, every summer, called word of life ranch. it's a wonderful, beautiful place in the adirondack mountains where college students who have done a year at their bible institute work as counselors during the summer. i have tons of happy memories of being there and i felt like, if brooke was going to camp, that's where it would need to be.

i got over my anguishy belly and signed her up for a week. i decided she would only go as a day camper rather than overnight every day for a week so as to have a chance to detox and calm down in my presence if things got too overwhelming for her. i was anticipating at least one SOS call from camp admin asking me to come get her because she was freaking out and inconsolable.

well, as it turns out, brooke was incredibly ready for camp. we drove to new york (15 hr drive) and for a couple nights we just went to the evening camper meetings and walked around the property. she had a chance to absorb the noises and smells and chaos and yelling with me at her side before i dropped her off for a whole day. she met her counselors and the kids who would share her cabin for the week. she was more than ready when i left her at 7:30 monday morning.

all day long, i waited for the phone call of distress. nothing. i enjoyed my day with family and when i picked her up in the evening, she was happy and full of sugary joy.

she got to take a horsemanship class that allowed her to spend a total of six hours with the horses over the course of the week and that was definitely her favorite part.

brooke functioned happily through so many various new things all week long. she had to learn how to go through a food line and pick her own meal choices three times a day. she had to sit still and quiet through bible meetings. she had to always keep track of at least one of her counselors and she had to stay calm even when things got super loud.

each night when i picked her up, she didn't want to sit quietly with me to cool down after a hectic day. she wanted to play and squeal with her cousins and practice her newfound trick of armpit farts.

all in all, it was a fantastical week, better than i'd even dared to hope. she can't wait to go back next year and she wants to sleep over in 2013 now that she knows what to expect.

it's amazing to see my little aspie girl absorbing and applying all the coping skills she's learned so that she can go new places and try new things without becoming overwhelmed or freaking anyone out in the process. my soul is a happy place.

God won't let me go naked

Five months ago, i had just started dieting. i wasn't entirely sure how it was going to go or if i'd be successful, but i was determined. i remember saying to my mom that i didn't know what i'd do if i shrunk out of all my clothes. i can't afford to buy new ones just because the older ones don't fit anymore. she assured me that God wouldn't let me go naked.

i've been volunteering with a thing my church does called "the closet." it's a place where anyone can drop off clothing or linen donations, much like goodwill, but instead of selling the items cheaply, everything is free to anyone who needs it. they have shopping days 4 times a year and everyone who comes in can take what they need for their family. i love this organization. i've donated tons of our clothes and brooke and i work there - sorting, organizing, carrying, hanging, painting, helping customers, etc. 

this place has also been a wonderful source of clothes for us this year. i can't wear anything from last summer unless i'm able to tailor it. i've cut down a few things, but not everything can be altered by me, by hand and i really needed a lot of new things.

today i got to do some shopping in there and i got a whole bunch of stuff, including some things for brooke and i to wear to my sister's wedding next month. i even got a pair of brand new, gorgeous heels that are exactly what i need for the couple dressy things i own. and might i also mention that the quality of my clothing has improved tremendously since i started getting second hand stuff. i've never even tried anything on in ann taylor or banana republic or some of the expensive department stores, but now i've got all that pretty, high quality stuff hanging in my closet and it was either free or really cheap from goodwill.

on a separate, but related note, i started doing P90X three weeks ago. a few months ago, i never would have been able to do most of it, but i'm keeping up fairly well, though there's room for improvement. i've lost 54 pounds now and i think i'm physically stronger than i've ever been in my life. free weights are new to me, but i like them. it's kind of cool to be able to see muscles popping in my arms and legs. and i'm discovering that i have bones that i'd almost forgotten about. collar bones, shoulder bones, hips, ribs. so exciting.

i feel like my life has gotten bigger as my body has gotten smaller. when i was fat, i wanted to be physically invisible. i wanted to wear baggy, plain, uninteresting clothes to avoid drawing the eyes of anyone i didn't know. i avoided doing fun or silly things that might cause my fat to jiggle. 

so many things have changed for me internally as i've changed externally that i'm wondering why it took me so long to do it. then again, the shrinking world sneaks in, a little piece at a time, not all at once, so that you almost don't notice it until you've gotten used to it. and i wouldn't appreciate the changes as much if i hadn't lived life in chubbytown for ten years.

i'm so glad that God didn't want me to look frumpy or go naked.

a cautionary tattoo tale

i've been thinking lately about the many, many foolish choices i made in my early twenties. there was an abundance and i made them all with the reckless abandon that only the young fool does. i had been fairly careful about my choices up to that point in time with only a slight swerve into the fast-moving naughty lane before my twentieth birthday.

i look pretty normal here, don't i?
but underneath that calm exterior lay the makings of a party girl.

but when i turned twenty, i decided that i was done with the good and i was headed as quick as i could find it, into the bad. i boycotted church and started swearing excessively. i dated men who weren't future husband material and cut and dyed my hair into unacceptable colors and styles.

one of the things i decided i needed to try was body art. i got my belly button pierced and then passed out when i stood up. fortunately, the 18 year old guy who'd clamped and stabbed my navel knew enough to slide me gently down the counter where i'd flopped like a boneless jellyfish and then give me a coke when i woke up.

i got my tongue pierced a few months later, which wasn't particularly smart since it was only a few days before thanksgiving. my tongue swelled up and left me with a lisp that was hard to hide when speaking with people, like my grandma. and i couldn't indulge in anything but cranberry sauce because chewing was pretty much out of the question. i decided to take that piercing out after one night when i was making out with a guy who suddenly pulled away from my face, reached into his mouth and pulled the ball from the top of my tongue barbell off his tongue and handed it to me.

piercings though, are just beginner stuff. they're removable and can be denied once you get tired of them. tattoos though, hold a whole different realm of stupid possibilities. don't get me wrong, i like tattoos a lot. i like the artistic aspect and the way they can mark a significant event in your life.

however, the way i went about getting tattoos wasn't artistic or significant. i decided all of a sudden, to find the name of a tattoo shop in the yellow pages and then go there. i went alone and didn't give any prior thought to what was going to be put permanently on my skin. i picked some flowers out of a book. they were boring and poorly done, but they live on my ankle for anyone to see when the weather is warm.

having a tattoo made me feel like a tough guy. like i was part of the cool kids' club, even though my ink was meaningless and tacky. i decided about a year later to get another one. i was determined to do better on my second round in the tattoo chair and i chose to put it in a location where it wouldn't be visible so often. i picked my lower stomach.

obviously, for a woman, that's a bad choice of body real estate, even if you're young and thin and can't imagine ever having kids. twenty year olds know nothing.

you see that smiling face and belly shirt? yeah, that was me, happy and stupid and about to show off my sneaky stomach tattoo. please disregard the huge beeper in my pocket.

i did my best to clean up these pics so you can make out what that ridiculous mousey looked like when it was fresh and new. you can see how perfectly it fit under my bikini bottom so that it always stayed hidden.

that was fine and dandy for a while, but a few years later, i got pregnant. and once i was pregnant, all hell broke lose with that tattoo. it ceased to be a cute little mousey and instead stretched out into something alarming and grotesque.

i actually got brave enough to take a picture of it tonight. a few months ago, i never would have considered it, but i've lost 48 lbs to date and i can see it now, so i am once again aware of its existence regularly. being thinner though, hasn't helped it to become any less ugly.

as i was taking the pictures, i kept thinking they were blurry. then i realized that the photo was perfectly clear, it's just that now it looks like an underwater sewer rat. or a jacked up elephant.

so let this be a cautionary tale for anyone considering a tattoo. be very careful about the location of your potential ink. if you don't have a good reason and location for it, then forget it and go get something pierced instead.

sum-sum-summertime

as every school year draws to a close, i picture something slow and easy and calm just ahead of me. i imagine sleeping late each morning. having brunch, reading books, lazing about endlessly on couches. it seems as though i'll have all the time in the world for catching up on all the things i love to do that i don't have time for during the school year.

yet somehow, every summer i'm surprised at how it doesn't happen quite like that. our first week of summer vacation was spent catching up on all the things i should have done in the previous months. like grooming the cats, thoroughly cleaning bathrooms, mending or altering the pile of things that were too big, missing buttons or whatever. i was running errands that had been neglected, such as finally getting my car registered in this state, since we've been here for a year now.

our second week was spent going to the pool as frequently as possible. i know, i know, that's not a task to be avoided, but a blessing to be cherished and i'm very happy to have the chance to go to the pool. but i thought i was going to spend my summer writing a book. and maybe i still will, but so far, the writing hasn't been happening very much.

instead, i've been taking care of life and people and cats. and going to parks, working on my tan. and discovering that i love yoga. that's pretty shocking to me because i never would have imagined that yoga was something i would ever want to embrace and yet, here i am, doing an hour every day and thoroughly enjoying it.

i hope your summer is going well (if you've already begun it). i hope it's more relaxing than mine, but if not, i hope you get a little tan and make some great memories and get to do some things you like that don't involve cooking, cleaning or laundry.

this is the mini-waterpark only 8 minutes from our house where we get to spend our days.

don't you just want to jump right in and start splashing?

her face makes my heart happy.

life is good, even if i'm not asleep on my couch.

what a view.

who's in charge around here?

as a child, i was always in a hurry to be an adult. i was the kid who couldn't get grown fast enough. i didn't mind responsibility. i ate responsibility as a healthy after-school snack! i was babysitting my infant sister when i was ten. i was the one who rushed to wash my hands and hurry to the table when my mom yelled that dinner was ready. i always changed the toilet paper roll without being reminded. i was the kid who, when mom said, "can someone help me with this?" i helped, while my siblings acted like they didn't hear her.

when i was nineteen, i got a job as a nanny for three little kids. my boss trusted me to get them up and ready and out the door for school on time every morning. i potty-trained the youngest one. i did the laundry and cooked food. i grocery shopped for the whole family and had access to the family checkbook where i was free to forge her signature any time there was an expense i needed her to pay.

never once did it even cross my mind to doubt myself. i never questioned whether i was responsible enough to handle the job. i just did it. and for the most part, i did it well.

but when i was twenty-three, i was working in a retail clothing store and i got promoted to assistant manager. suddenly, i was in charge in a store where i'd been working as a sales associate. i had my own set of keys and the combination to the safe. i carried large amounts of money to the bank and opened and closed the store daily.

it was while i was working there that i suddenly started feeling like maybe i wasn't up to the task. i would sometimes look around and wonder who was in charge.

one night, my friend/co-worker was standing behind the register with me and when there were no customers in the store, she whipped up her shirt and showed me her fresh, new boobs she'd just had done. my eyes widened and i started looking around, wondering why the manager on duty was allowing such shenanigans in the store during business hours. then i realized that I was the manager. why was i letting her do that? it was hard to be the one to shut down the fun. to enforce the dress code and to never leave early, even if there was a really good movie playing across the road in five minutes. i didn't necessarily want to deal with the angry customers who wanted to speak to the person in charge. i felt like i was playing charades and i was acting out the role of manager, but my turn was almost up and then someone else would take over.

i had a repeat of that same strange feeling when brooke was born. when i was home with her by myself for the whole day and she was so tiny and vulnerable, i'd sometimes look at her and wonder how i could possibly be trusted to keep her safe. i'd wonder who was in charge around here. where's my supervisor? are there hidden cameras watching to make sure i get things right? when is my mom going to show up and establish some rules around this joint?

sometimes i still wonder where the grown-ups are. because maybe i'm not quite ready to grow up yet. i think i want a popsicle. and a nap.

dead birds and hungry snakes

tonight, we were visiting my parents. we were having a good time, about to serve dinner, when my dad noticed a dead bird on the ground below the big window out back.

knowing my child like i do, i immediately called brooke to come outside and check the bird out. she ran out, checked for blood or goo and then picked it up and thoroughly investigated it. she spread out the wings, opened and closed the beak, rubbed its belly.

then she headed further out into the yard to find a place to set it. a place where it wouldn't get stepped on or picked up by the dog. we were heading for a hole where a stump was ripped out recently when i spotted a snake on the edge of the hole.  brooke climbed a tree with branches overlooking the snake so she could get a good look. i ran in for the rest of the family so they could enjoy our slithering discovery.

turns out, it was a copperhead, so it had to be.... um... separated from its head. with a shovel.

when i asked brooke later where she'd decided to leave her dead bird, she told me that when she climbed the tree, she took the bird carcass up with her. she inspected the snake and determined that there were no obvious lumps, so it probably hadn't eaten recently. she then threw the bird at the snake in hopes that she'd get to watch it swallow it whole. too bad snakey lost his head before he got his easy meal.