Chin #2

Growing up I had an in ground pool in my backyard. It was GLORIOUS. Word on the street is my parents threw me in the deep end when I was 1 and figured I would sink or swim and I swam.
By the time I was double digits I was able to swim from one end to another and back in one breath. I spent hours playing mermaid with Sara and floating on rafts with Nicole. Alaina and I plotted our overthrowing of the world from the pool and Jake and I danced to Hakuna Matata around it's edge. So many awesome memories involved that pool.
There were dark days with that pool though. I was never able to swim in it alone...at least for very long. Because of the sharks. They were very prevalent in my small town backyard fresh water pool. (Damn you Jaws...DAMN YOU!)
But I also cracked my chin open on that pool edge.

One evening after a family swim night that usually involved Sharen and scrubbing the side of the pool, because we were weird kids...let's just put that out there. This is back when there was still a fence around the pool and that's where we hung all our towels. I had reluctantly climbed out of the pool and had my towel wrapped super hero style around my shoulders. I looked around for my Strawberry Shortcake hologram flip flops and spotted them just on the other side of my dad.
So I wrapped my towel around and buried my hands down in it's warmth and began scooting around the backside of my dad to get to the wonder that was my Strawberry Shortcake flip flops.
I inched and scooted and shuffled to just behind him when he took a giant step back. Ok, for him it was just a regular step, but he's a tall guy so regular steps to a 7ish year old are giant steps. He bumped into me and since my hands were wrapped into the towel I couldn't untangle myself enough to grab onto Dad to keep from falling back into the pool. I stepped back and ran out of concrete so into the pool I went, slamming my face, chin first, into the side of the pool.
Blood went everywhere! At least that's what I thought at the time. But my chin was cracked open again.
12 stitches and several hydrogen peroxide torture sessions later I was good as new and joking that my dad pushed me in the pool on purpose. At least until the next time I cracked my chin open.

Chin #1

I was so excited to be in kindergarten. I was in AM kindergarten, which is clearly the best, and I loved my teacher, Mrs. Nye.
Each morning we had story time in the corner and then headed back to our tables. One day I was wearing my favorite purple shirt with a bow on the front. Story time was over and Mrs. Nye asked Nathan Mestrey (Mestre, Meastry...oh I don't know) push back the tv to the other side of the aisle.
Now that I think about it I can't imagine why she would have done that...but that's why these memories are probably only partly true.
But I was tra la laing back to my table and Nathan decided to pull the television cord out across the aisle and trip me. I tripped and flailed my arms about landing on my face. I pulled my head up and looked down at blood pooling on the floor.
Mrs. Nye rushed over and started running me down the hall to the office. All I remember after that is trying desperately to take off my shirt on the walk/run to the office. Because it was my favorite purple shirt with a bow and it was getting blood on it! It didn't actually occur to me that removing it would increase the blood stain...

I got 12 stitches and was tortured by peroxide for a few weeks but I mended; at least until the next time I cracked open my chin.
On a completely unrelated not Nathan got hit by a car that same year while we were playing outside. He went to get a ball that went into the street and smack. He survived with a pretty busted up leg. I think I remember Mrs. Nye getting a tv cart to roll him to the office with his mangled leg dangling off the edge...but that's probably not true.

Naked

I read Naked by David Sedaris
That's about all I can say about it. I didn't enjoy it and struggled to get as far as I did into it, about 3/4 of the way through.
It was ok, sometimes funny, but overall I was very underwhelmed with the book. So many people had told me how hilarious his books were and how much they enjoyed them and I just didn't get it.

Oh well.
It counts if I read over 1/2 the book, that's what I've decided.

Try

It's coming. That time that time seems to freeze and stand still, when all I can think of is you. The time of year that I let all my guards down and open the gaping wounds in my heart and think of you, of your smile, laugh, the way the wind blew the last time I held your face with my eyes. I still see you, just out of the corner of my eye and just over my shoulder. All tangled up in the he said she said drama that ensued I still see you.
I talked to someone about it last year; about the rush of water that seems to drown me the week before. I want it to stop. I don't want to stop missing her, I don't want to stop loving her, I don't want to stop remembering her. But I want to stop being so paralyzed by the sight of an ice truck, or the dinging of a bell announcing the arrival. I want.

I've tried lancing the wound throughout this year. I've tried to work through it in small doses instead of drowning in it for 1 week only.
But I'm nervous, that it will still happen. That I will be crushed all over again, that I will not sleep and I will eat and eat to push down the grief.
This year, ten years after, I'm going to try. To not shrink away from friends and family, to not hide in my bed listening to sad music and swimming in a cold drink.
I'm going to try.

Ally McBeal

I've been rewatching the series Ally McBeal the last month or so. I loved Ally McBeal.
I was hit or miss with the show when it was on originally so I'm picking up on episodes I've missed and falling in love with episodes I loved the first time around.
I ugly cried when Billy left the show and I've laughed so loud I've scared the cats at the show.

I just started season 4, the Robert Downey Jr season. It was a big deal when he was on this show because it was his first time back acting after years of public court hearings and rehab attempts to kick his drug habits. Oh RDJ, how I swooned for you.

Killers

The floors are finished! I was able to move back into the house on Saturday and have started the arduous process of settling back into my life.

Sharen and the kids helped me move out of the hotel and were rewarded handsomely with Chick-Fil-A milkshakes. After we inspected the house Sharen and the kids headed to Meijer and I ran to Home Depot for felt things to put on the bottom of the chairs.
When I got back from Home Depot I went out to the shed to the secret hiding place the flooring guys were supposed to leave my front door key. I grabbed the turtle and walked to the garage. Upon opening the turtle I saw they had not left the key as instructed.

I immediately burst into tears. I mean, sure...it could have been the stress and exhaustion of this whole process...but I'm pretty sure it was fear. I was terrified. I suddenly because really aware that I was in the huge house all by myself and this company could come and go as they pleased with the front door key they didn't return, probably so they could return that night and murder me. Further more they probably have someone hiding in the attic waiting for night to fall so they can descend and murder the single girl living on her own.

Damn you Law & Order! DAMN YOU!

I calmed down enough to find the card for the flooring guys and called the owners cell phone, he was on vacation. Also known as THE PERFECT ALIBI. I had to calm myself down again so I could call his back up guy and I left a message there and at the office. I told them as calmly (I hope) as possible that I was really uncomfortable with my key being taken and I needed a call back today to see what happened. There were also other issues going on with the floors that I needed resolved and told them I needed a call back about that too.

Then I just sank super dramatically to the floor and called my sister. I needed to calm down so I could see to drive to Home Depot again to buy a new lock and key set for the front door. I knew that if I didn't change that lock there was going to be no way I would sleep Saturday night.

I also had to calm down right away because some friends were coming over to help me move my big furniture in 1/2 an hour and I needed to leave so I could get back in time.

I hightailed it to Home Depot and bought the lock set which Trent kindly installed for me later that afternoon. I still had trouble falling asleep Saturday night, I couldn't fall asleep because I would hear all these noises and think KILLERS! I even inspected the ceilings of my upstairs because I watched a Lifetime movie like 10 years ago (starring Angie Harmon) about this woman who had a neighbor install cameras in her attic to watch her. I still have a little crick in my neck from walking around while looking up.

In the mean time, I've left now FOUR messages for the flooring guys and still no call back. Clearly a sign that they are KILLERS.

Tension

I don't like tension.
I don't like it between other people. I'm the one trying to help them work it out even when I'm not supposed to be involved. I don't like tension between myself and others, I want to address it, get it all aired out and resolved. Then I want to forget that it ever happened.
I especially don't like tension when I feel it in myself and even more so when I can't explain why it's there.

I've been trying to work through some of this tension that I've been feeling as a single girl in a married world and it's just overwhelming. I'm trying to make sure that I'm not stridently single because I'm hiding or if it's because that's what God wants for me, at least right now.
Add to all this the marriage series at my church and a few specific conversations about my relationship status and I'm feeling the tension. I don't like it.

I know that a lot of the pressure I feel is pressure I put on myself. Pressure to seem sane, normal, included, not affected. I spend a lot of energy trying to appear unaffected by this tension, when in reality I'm very affected. This is probably no surprise to those of you I talk to on a regular basis since I drop this topic into random conversations and end up trailing off in voice and person before finishing a thought.
All I know is on one hand I know that it is fine to be intentionally single, non-married, non-dating, that I'm happy with it and can't imagine my life any other way for now. But on the other hand I've been feeling really damaged about it. I've been feeling as if there is something wrong with me that I don't even want it.
I'm afraid to talk about it, afraid that people will assume it's a case of the lady doth protest to much.
So if I act all twitchy and awkward about it, that's why. That...or the killers.