I see you.

Hiding behind your family.
A fiancee,
a daughter.

I see you smile.
Play daddy.
I remember what you did.

I am someone's daughter.
Someone's mother.
I was someone's wife.

And I carried you with me.
A decade plus.
I can see you above me.
Moving.

I can feel your weight.
I can feel my powerlessness.
I can feel my fear.

I cringe,
To see you smile.
To know that you probably forgot.
What you did to me.
What you took from me.

You can pretend.
You can be who you claim to be now.
But I see you.
I have not forgotten.

And it is hard.

We step lightly.
Around mud puddles.
Patches of moss.

We are not graceful.
Our boots clunk.
Sometimes our ankles buckle.

We reach clearings,
Where we can walk freely,
Without hesitation in our steps.

We run,
In those moments,
Until we reach the next quagmire.

And then we step gingerly again.
Seeking our next reprieve from the muck.
Moving toward it with soft purpose.

We cannot halt,
Though we my falter,
Me must move if we wish to leave the muck in our wake.

And we seek God.
We admire the beauty.
We breathe deeply and give thanks.

We take in the greens,
the browns,
the graceful blues.

We take the moment.
Take in the bliss.
The grace.

And then it is onward,
To seek the next moment,
And to search, eternally, for ease.

Uncharted

I find myself in uncharted waters. Going to school, pursuing a master's degree that I do not know if I will use, working full time in a field that I never even considered a possibility for myself, not having a permanent residence, living almost wholly on the grace and kindness of near strangers, sober for over a year, and parenting only one of my children by myself.

Five years ago, I would have never imagined myself in this position. Honestly, eighteen months ago I could not have imagined my life without ever having another beer again. Going a year without a drink was not something I would have ever thought about seriously. It is amazing where life takes us when we are too busy living it to notice. What is really amazing to me about this unmapped territory in which I find myself, is that I like it.

I feel hope. I feel God. I feel purpose. I feel pretty good about myself five out of seven days of the week right now. Every day, I feel like I have done a damn good job at what has been set before me. First of all, I am an amazing mom. I cannot begin to explain how far I had fallen as a mother before I got sober. I was completely checked out and detached from my beautiful children. Now, I find myself counting the breaths until I can parent them together, as a single mom. The challenge sounds like fun and it sounds doable. I kick parenting's ass every single day, even on my bad days. And I know for sure that my son knows that I love the shit out of him, even when he is being a rotten little turdburgler.

My faith? My faith!!!!!! The most exciting thing in my life right now is my spiritual journey and my walk with God. There have been moments when I don't know what I am going to do next. I literally do not know where I will live after Friday, but I know that I am safe. I know that what is meant to happen will happen and that there will be a reason for it. I also know wholeheartedly that even when I struggle and despair, there is a plan for me and that the ultimate goal of that plan is divine love and unending happiness. This is all new to me. I never imagined that I would feel that kind of connection, largely because I never knew that there would be a day when I would want to. I always thought that I could rely on myself. All that that ever got me was drunk, sad, and divorced. Relying on my Creator takes a whole Hell of a lot off of my mind and I have spent the last year of my life with an almost constant smile on my face.

As far as my job, I don't even know what to say. I LIKE work. Who the fuck likes work? I mean, I actually look forward to doing my job. I want to be amazing at it. I want to do it well and I want to do it for a long time. I majored in history in college, guys. I had no intention ever of working in the medical field. I also never even knew I had the ability to understand vision and how to take care of people's eyes. I knew that I was capable of doing many things, but this particular thing was not even on my radar until recently. What I do know is that there is a reason that I got this job. I could not be happier with what I am doing and I could not feel better about how I am making my living. I am actually excited to wake up and go to work tomorrow. That, my friends, is a gift which I do not intend to take for granted.

This is amazing. My life is not where or what I had mapped out. I am floating in the sea right now. I am completely at the mercy of the waves and the tides. I do not know when I will find land. I do not know if I ever will find land. What I know is that while I drift, I will look up at the stars. I will take every moment that I can to feel grateful. I will take in every breath that I have to feel good about my life and about this journey. Never again will I feel entitled to the stars, the water, the breath, the life, and the moon. My life is a gift. It has become a journey down a path that I had considered off-limits. I have come, only recently, to realize that I am not the captain. I simply have to float, to walk the trail, to stare at the stars, and the soak in the gratitude. I am so blessed. So lucky. So blissful. I am so off-kilter it isn't even funny.

Watch.

I work part-time in the childcare room at a local gym and one of the perks of the job is that I can bring my six-year-old son with my to work when he isn't in school. I like this for two reasons, the first being that I don't like being away from him. One of the perks of my sobriety is that I actually like my kids and want to hang out with them. The second reason is that it eliminates the need for me to ask someone else to babysit.

Yesterday was the first time that the need arose for me to bring him and it was a rough night for us. I have written before, a long time ago, about Archer's personality. He is shy and introverted and he is weird as fuck. Just like his momma, damn it! I am proud to be raising another introvert because I LOVE the fact that I am introverted. I am proud to be raising someone as weird as myself. I love that I have grown into my weirdness and I love that he shows signs of growing into and embracing it sooner than I did.

But yesterday I realized that being a weird, introvert is probably easier for a twenty-eight-year-old who embraces it than it is for a six-year-old who doesn't completely understand it. I watched my son sit in a room full of kids and play alone. I watched him play contentedly for a while and then I watched him look up and watch them longingly. I stood there and observed as he tried multiple times to connect with the other kids and I held back tears as I watched him fail.

He would hear them say something about Pokemon or Minecraft and try to connect, because he had found a shared interest. He was ignored. He asked to play zombies, because he loves zombies, and was told that it was for "the family." I watched him sit in the corner and watch them play and I could see from his face that he was hurting.

I understand that my son is different. I understand his strengths and his weaknesses. I understand his heart and I know what kind of kid he is. He is amazing. He is a good friend, he's incredibly smart, he's funny in a very dry way, he loves animals, his kindness is unmatched, he loves to read, and he shamelessly loves his momma and his daddy. He also loves Jesus, which I think is pretty cool considering he is a product of Dave and myself.

The difficult thing is that he doesn't understand himself. He is six, so he isn't supposed to. He isn't supposed to understand that introverts have a tougher time in today's world. It is my job as his mother to keep him from needing to understand that any time soon. So, I did what I have done before and what I will do again. I fought my instincts, which was to say, "You kids HAVE to play with him," or even "You guys SHOULD let Archer join." I called my son over to me and said, "Hey, buddy, what's wrong?" My son said to me that he didn't like the games the other kids were playing, which wasn't surprising to me.

I told him that it is okay to play alone. That it is okay to want to play alone. I told my son that he has a choice, he can play a game that doesn't interest him because he wants the company of other children OR he can play alone and do what he wants to do. I also told him that introverts sometimes take longer to make friends and that we often have fewer friends and than our extroverted peers. However, I also told him that because we take longer we tend to have more intimate friendships and make stronger connections. Then I gave him an idea of something he could do to help me out and keep himself busy for a little while.

I knew what to do because I have read the books. I know how to be and to parent an introvert. I had to fight my instincts because I am a mom. All I want in the whole world is for my son to feel happy in his own skin. I want him to see himselff as I see him and to know that those qualities are high on the list of amazing qualities any person could ask for. I want to make my son feel good, but I can't. My job as a mom is to give my son the tools to find happiness within himself and to find completion within his own heart.

Being a mom is the most difficult and most rewarding thing I have ever attempted because it is the biggest battle between my survival instinct and the little voice in my heart that leads me down the right path.

Softness.

When I woke up this morning, I was laying in bed and a line from Pulp Fiction crossed my mind. I can't quote it exactly, but it is when Bruce Willis' gorgeous, very thin, French girlfriend says that she wants a pot belly. She says that it is funny that what feels good to touch doesn't look good to the eye, because the extra flesh of a pot belly is soft and appealing to the hand.

I'm not exactly sure what caused that scene to flash through my mind, aside from the fact that Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies and I haven't seen it in a while. But I do know that it hit home for me. I recently wrote about having put on some weight and how that bothers me. It does, I am determined to lose it. But I also know that yesterday, I was looking in the mirror and I actually enjoyed the extra flesh on my body. I haven't gained a lot of weight, but it seems to have gone to my legs and my butt, which are two of my smallest areas.

After I thought about Pulp Fiction, and about how important that one line is to modern women, I started thinking about my last boyfriend. He would always tell me that women are supposed to have fat and extra flesh on their bodies. Women were built to have some padding. He would always say that as if he wished women would remember it, which made him even more appealing in my eyes.

My real question is why women don't get this? Why don't women see this about themselves and want it? I am just as guilty of being blind to this as any other woman I meet or who may read this. As I write this, as I say that I enjoyed my extra weight yesterday, I am planning on losing it. I won't stand for being this weight for long. My ideal body is very thin, without the extra padding that my ex-boyfriend seemed to find appealing.

Should I blame the media for this loss of clarity? Should I blame men? Should I blame myself? Is there something broken in my mind that tells me that I should be skinnier than I am? I don't know. What I do know is that some of the women who I personally find the most beautiful are not thin. In fact, I can only name a handful of women who are as thin as I want to be and whose looks I admire.

Why is is that we can't embrace our softness and love the fact that we were meant to have it? For me, this is a continual battle. It is a fight between my body and my mind and everything I know and love about myself. And the bottom line is that it shouldn't be. I have bigger problems. Weight should be the least of my concern right now. I am told daily that I am beautiful, even by the man who's divorcing me, so why is it that I can't believe it.

My body has done wonderful things to earn this softness. I birthed a nine pound baby. I birthed a baby in twenty minutes once. And one other time, I birthed a baby in my living room. My body has run 13.1 miles, and I have the medal to prove it. My body has been sober for over a year. My body nursed one child for over two years. There are really good reasons why my body is not rock-hard and firm. There are really beautiful reasons for the softness of my flesh. Yet, all I really care about is hardening that softness.

It all leads me to the question: Would I rather sleep on a soft pillow or a hard one?

Pretty.

It just so happens,
that as the sun goes down,
the light hits you.

Your curls light up.
Your hair is on fire.
You are pretty.

It just so happens,
that as the sun rises,
the rays bounce off of your cheeks.

Your cheekbones appear rosy,
Your dimple glows,
You are priceless.

It just so happens,
that in the afternoon,
the sun is in the sky.

You look sun kissed.
Your shoulders glow.
You are luminous.

It doesn't matter,
what time of day.
Or if you have spilled coffee on your shirt.
Or if your socks don't match.

You are not perfect.
I am not perfect.
We are divine.
We match.
We just need the light to hit us, just so.

We just need to see it,
Through our eyes.
We just need to see it,
in the shadow.
With our hearts.

Among.

I think that I have written about this before, but if I did it has been long enough that I don't think it matters.

I have always had issues with people. I like to be one on one or two on one, but if the group is much larger than that I will sit in the corner and look around. I don't like to feel socially pressured. Even if I am in a familiar place, like the place where I am currently staying, if there are people at the table playing games I will go to my room and do my own thing.

I could go on and on about how my introverted nature affects me daily. I run alone, do yoga alone, will walk to and from work alone and be perfectly happy. I like to ride my longboard alone and generally I prefer to be alone for a significant portion of my day. I have even always elected to go to college online because I feel uncomfortable in a classroom.

As it stands right now, I like to hang out with my son and with my best friend. Occasionally I will reach out to other adults for coffee or to talk. I do meet regularly with my sponsor from AA, and I do find myself looking forward to that.

 Lately, however, I have been pushing myself to be among others. I started going to church and I am trying out different small groups. I have been working on making connections with other women in AA and asking people to meet for coffee so that I can socialize. It's hard for me because all of my gut instincts scream to me to cancel on them and to stay at home doing homework or drawing.

I have to fight with every corner of my mind to actually follow through with these commitments. And sometimes I have the tendency to dive in overboard and make too many social arrangements. It leaves me feeling exhausted and emotionally depleted. I have to find balance in this matter. I have to find myself able to socialize and able to come home when I need to. This is a learning process for me and sometimes I find myself wishing that I was an extrovert, for whom it came natural to be around people all of the time.

What is strange about me is that I am not socially awkward. I have social skills and I am friendly. In fact, most people are kind of surprised when I tell them that I am classically introverted. They think that I probably read an article about it and decided that was what I wanted to be. But that isn't the case. Many introverts work in extroverted jobs, are friendly, and even have bubbly, outgoing personalities. I think that I fall into that category of introvert and so it surprises people when I want to hide in my room rather than play monopoly.

It's very new for me to want to me among. It's hard for me to make myself a part of because I don't want to become overly involved and because I don't have a lot of practice at doing it. How does a twenty-eight-year-old adult learn new social practices? Does it just take time and patience? Should I read a book? It's a long road to normal and I don't know if I ever want to get there.