4.13.09

4.13.09

along the way

So, it's silly how even while I am being angry about silly things that really don't matter (that prozac must be kicking in) that I make dinner for my girls, and out of the woodwork six neighbor kids surface and kick around awkwardly hinting that the spaghetti my kids are eating sure looks good. Ok, so they come right out and ask if they can have dinner with us. I send them to ask their parents. They come back with a questionable blessing ("my mom says only if my brother Mason can eat here too" or "my dad is watching me but he is gone right now"[from a 5 year old]) and I dole out the food with fear and trepidation, praying every blessing I have ever learned and hoping that I didn't happen to use the one package of Italian sausage from Top Foods that was laced with botulism, or feed it to a kid with a lethal pork allergy. Or worse yet, Jewish parents. My only hope, is that if they do get sick and they didn't really have permission to eat here, that they will be too afraid to tell their parents where they got the food poisoning. But for now, Seven thousand kids laughing on the back "porch" (5x6 feet) with plates of mediocre spaghetti in their laps and Truck circling protectively makes me smile. I miss feeding people. And hosting parties. And having friends. I miss barbeques and the horse trough swimming pools and empty beer bottles piling up. There are so many, very many things that I miss these days. I want my missing to be happy, thankful, positive missing. Grateful for the moments I have had, not painfully yearning for the next. I miss, with every cell of my being, dancing in the kitchen. I miss the kitchen times. I miss the porch times too. Dusk was my favorite. A beer on the front steps. Batting mosquitos, or wrapping up in a blanket because there is frost on the ground. Always one or the other out at the ranch. I miss floating foot to head in the horse trough with homemade margaritas. I miss falling asleep on the living room floor. And Lego Star Wars video game dates. I miss the smell of the shop. It was awful. I miss uncomfortable rides on the wretched three wheeler, with a million dogs in the dust behind us.

Every day I am more convinced, or convicted, to use a marble word, of the wrong choices I made. Every day I understand more how much I gave up and for how little. Just like Esau, and the bowl of pottage sucks ass. I think I would love God more if redemption involved rewinding time and getting a redo. Or if giving forgiveness was as easy as asking for it. I would be more inclined to spirituality if I could believe that people are capable of loving and being loved by someone like me, unconditionally, and if a change of heart really meant a change of life, and we could actually put stock in apologies and repentance. I am more keenly aware of my flaws, my mistakes and my regrets than I have ever been. Maybe that is what the hard times are for, to see where the good times really were and learn gratitude, so if by some miracle they are offered to me again I will not be the fool I was and give them up for a twisted soul and gaping, oozing hole of need in my heart. Fool, heal thyself. Get over the shit and make the life you want. Make it happen. Over come the petty, outlast the rugged terrain. Buy new boots on the other side but don't quit in the middle. Eat the shame that is yours to eat, before it is too late. All of the shame eating in the world will not save me now. I mean, I might feel better, but I won't give me back the life I threw away. Now I know how they feel. All of them, All of us, the ones who have lost it all for a stupid stupid moment of stupidness. And now I have to piece something back together that I can live with. And all I can think of, all I obsess over is the glimpse of happiness, a few short weeks, when I knew who I was, and more importantly, why. Oh for a second chance.

Oh for redemption.