Uncommon Julia

Birthday

Today, we're celebrating my (some figure north of 30) years on this earth.  And in so many ways, this is also a celebration of a new life. A second chance. And it is So. Much. Better.

I'll share more details later, but suffice it to say that the Beau has handles all the planning, and if you're a Jimmy Fallon fan, there will also be some karate pinata.

I hope each of you is finding a way to celebrate your own lives this weekend.  Cheers!

Missing Jake

Over the past year, my dog Jake hadn't fared so well.  Right around the time the girls and I moved into the rental house we live in now, Jake lost a lot of weight.  He recovered after a couple of months, but then late last fall, he began to have trouble with his balance.  He would list a little and cross his legs to try and maintain balance.  He also lost some of his hearing and his eyes began to get a little cloudy. 

It was pretty clear to Patrick and me that he had had a stroke at some point.  And he likely had a few more as time went on.  His balance became worse and worse, and his muscle strength was severly diminished.  For a lightning-fast sheltie, it was a marked decline.

Still, he wasn't in pain, and when he was on grass (as opposed to the hardwood floors here) he could run around a bit and yap at people passing on the greenbelt. Or butterflies. Or... wind.

But a couple of weeks ago, he seemed to truly be declining.  I could tell where it was going, but I just didn't want to see it.  The girls have been through so much loss and change over the past few years - the thought of telling them that Jake was too sick to go on just... Well, I didn't want to.

Friday afternoon, we put Jake out for some afternoon running around time.  But he was listless, and after a while we heard puppy-like yipping coming from the corner of the yard.  He couldn't stand up any more and was yelping in frustration.

I called the vet, but decided not to take him in until the following morning.  Friday was Hannah's kindergarten graduation, and I didn't want to spoil her night with sad news.

Saturday morning, the girls played with Jake, brushed him, and loved on him.  I told them that I was taking him to the vet, and that I wasn't sure what the vet would do or say.  I explained that Jake couldn't do the things he needed to if he could no longer stand or run around.  I asked the girls if they would like it if they couldn't go to the bathroom or eat on their own, if they couldn't play with their friends and could only lay in bed, day in and day out. They seemed to get it, but Hannah still held out a good deal of optimism that Jake would be okay.  She had brought home a drawing of a doggie on a table, and told me how she wanted to be a vet so she could fix dogs like Jakey.

I wasn't quite clear on just how badly Jake was faring until we arrived at the vet's office.  I had Jake in a towel on my lap, and he wasn't moving anything except his head.  Everyone in the waiting room was putting their hands over their hearts and making that expression of sympathy that's universally understood.

The vet tech (who has known me forever) and the vet herself didn't even recommend an examination.  They took one look and said, "So it's time, huh."  They both cried.

Patrick was amazing. As I started to cry, so did he. And he stood behind me and wrapped me in his arms while I petted Jake.  Then he went and got him some treats and began breaking them into little pieces so I could feed them to Jake by hand.  We talked about how weird and quirky and outright loveable Jake was.  He was neurotic and had a heart of gold.  He herded the girls and slept in the hallway to keep watch over them.  He ran big circles around them outside to keep his flock together.

They didn't let me stay when I had to put Bear down.  But this is a different vet, and they never even asked.  We stayed in the room and petted Jake the whole time, sweet talking him and telling him to have fun with Bear and the boys when he got there.  It was the quietest passing.

I chose Jake from a breeder eleven years ago.  When I parked and got out of the car, this tiny little black fur ball came running down a path at me, all alone.  I picked him up and he immediately tucked his snout under my arm, like a baby hiding from strangers.  I tried to objectively look at his siblings - Jake was the runt of the litter and he wasn't the "best" of them - but I just couldn't pick any other.  He kept looking at me with these warm, sweet, dark eyes, and then tucking under my arm.

He was not the most convenient dog to own - he yelped and was utterly freaked out by things like plastic bags.  He would bolt every once in a while and have to be tracked down, which is very un-sheltie-like behavior.  But what pet (or person, for that matter) is perfect? He gave unselfishly in the way that dogs do, and he was a great, great pet for our family.

Saturday night, when the girls came home from their dad's, they were too distraught over their day (that's a whole other story) for me to even consider breaking the news.  Instead, we all piled into the minivan, even though it was late, to go get the Beau's daughter who had been away for longer than normal.

Sunday morning is when I had to tell them.  Caroline had to ask for clarification: "Jakey's not comin back?" And Hannah was distraught: "First Bear died and then Daddy went away, and the Rocky went with him, and now Jake is gone, too?!! All our family is going away!"

I did my best to let her feel sad, to not minimize her feelings.  Because that's hard.  And she's right that her life has taken hit after hit recently.  But then I also pointed out that we have so many new blessings in our life, like Beau and his daughter.  She demanded that we get another puppy, and I used the opportunity to explain that our loved ones are not replaceable.  And that getting a new pet, or having another child, or gaining new grandparents does not take away the pain.

It took a while, and a lot of snuggling, but she seemed to reconcile herseslf to his death.  The Beau's daughter woke up a little later, and he took the opportunity to let Hannah and Caroline explain that Jake was gone.  His daughter talked about how she had lost a dog about a year ago, and it gave all of them a chance to frame his passing in their own words.  I think it helped a lot.

Last night, I found this in Hannah's homework folder:

"I love my dog Jakey.

He is my favorite dog.

He is nice.

He is lazy sometimes.

I love him."

Amen, baby girl. Amen.

Miracle Cream!

I know a number of you suffer (I like to use that word with a bit of melodrama. It's fun to claim to suffer from things that aren't really a big deal. I wish I had a fainting sofa, but I'll setttle with a heavy sigh and feigned mop of the brow.) from melasma, as I do.  Melasma is the "mask" of pregnancy that (surprise!) doesn't always go away after you give birth.

My melasma, which looked like errant patches of disperse freckles all over my cheeks and chin, had become worse in recent years.  Last month, when I also reached my patience quota with a weird blemishy thingie on my cheek, I decided to woman-up and go to the dermatologist.  He pronounced me free of worrisome moles, froze the (likely benign) werid spot off my cheek, and gave me a prescription for a bleaching cream for the melasma.

I felt old just getting the cream.  Like I should be sleeping in rollers and bobby-pins with an ashtray on my nightstand and mirabou slippers to match my shorty robe.

But even as an uncovered, compounded perscription, it only cost $55 (far less than most of the OTC stuff that claims to work) so I decided to give it a try.  Certainly the melasma wasn't giving me that "glow" of youth, so why not give in and embrace my bleach cream-needin' self?

It's a small jar, but one that will last for well over a year, and the prescription name is a cryptic "TRET/HYDROQ/FLUOCO .05/6/.01" You know what that translates to?

Super fabulous clear non-spotty skin, that's what!

After less than a month, I can't see the melasma anymore. And apparently there's some Retin-A in there, too, so even my few blemishes have adiosed.   The doctor said to use it in six-week phases, as needed.  I'm also keeping up with my daily sunblock (Skinceuticals, if'n you want to know) because as soon as I step into the sunshine, the miracle will undo.  But I made it through field day without any negative consequences, so I must say, I'm very impressed.

So there you have it. Perfect skin in jar! Run out and get you some! (Clearly, this isn't some sort of paid endorsement. There's no company that produces this, and frankly, I don't know what the stuff is called. Just in case you're wonderin.)

I'll tell her you say hello.

Moxie will be at my house tomorrow.  She's swinging by for lunch. Yeah. That's how I roll.

We could talk about our oddly overlapping careers in the education industry. But I'm betting we'll more likely talk about boyfriends, sex, and nail polish colors. Oh, and shoes.  Definitely shoes.

So *this* is what partnership feels like?

Yesterday was Mother's Day.

(I just thought I'd state the obvious there - especially since my core constituency is comprised of women who are all too aware of what yesterday was.)

I know that it's kosher to declare your first Mother's Day as a mom to a living child as your best ever. And well it should be.  But for me, it wasn't.

Now, please don't misunderstand me - my first Mother's Day after Hannah's birth was filled with relief and emotion and reflux and a few ping of regret over the missing children.  It was lovely.

But, in ways I'm only just now beginning to understand, it also wasn't.  I was dealing with a husband who had checked out, who refused to help with overnight baby care, who left all day long for his new job in "real estate" (how much time he actually spent working versus gambling is anyone's guess), who had unrealistic expectations of both me and Hannah.  Add to that my own Little Red Hen complex, and you have a good recipe for underlying disappointment topped off with a resilient smile.

Last year, my first Mother's Day as a single mom of two was tough, but beautiful in its own way.  Knowing there would be no one to help the girls make sweet little thoughtful gifts for me, or breakfast in bed, or help with the laundry for that matter; I endeavored to make it a happy day for us all by making breakfast, snapping a few pictures of us three before church with my camera on a tripod, and generally letting my discipline techniques take a back seat for the day. It worked, but it was still bittersweet.

This year. Well, this year, like the rest of my life right now, filled me with wonder. 

The Beau works in experiential marketing. Have I told you that? He also has a degree in Chemistry. And another in engineering. I know, right?!

As a result of his job "creating experiences", no celebratory stone is left unturned with him.  The morning started off on the right foot with Hannah waking me, two gifts in hand.  One was a necklace made at school that featured her school photo in the middle, and the other was a book where she'd filled in the blanks with all these nice things I do as her mom. There was also a poem that featured angels and the word "Mommy" just enough times to get me all choked up. What? Is your heart made of cinder?!

I then proceeded to sleep in while my mom (who was in town) and The Beau were in charge of child wrangling. I could hear much discussion about presents and wrapping, and every now and then Hannah would peek her head back in to bring me some new gift she'd created from paper towel rods, wrapping paper strips, and markers.

I took note of the time and decided to go ahead and shower and get ready for church in case the impending festivities ran long.  By the time I was out and dressed, they announced they were ready for me downstairs.  The Beau had each girl (all three - his daughter was with us) standing there with a present in their hands.  He pointed toward a card and explained that I needed to read it aloud.

It contained a "Once upon a time" story, and at various junctures, each girl came up and gave me a gift!  Each gift was correlated with some trait of the girl - gift of song, love of sweets, and story time requests.

I made it to the end without crying, and gave each girl a big hug. But I was unable to hold out any more when I hugged him.

Later, we went to church. And I cried some more there, too. We followed that with a wonderful lunch (cherry banana cream pie, folks), naps, and then a movie at our brand-spankin' new theater just down the road.  After dinner and baths, the girls (just Hannah and Caroline by this time)  played a rousing game of "party house", wherein they play under the sheets while we alternately flap them about and then pin the girls down and tickle them.

Then I cried once more for good measure. Because my life is so unbelievably full.

He is so thoughtful. So supportive. I casts the rest of my life in the sharp light of contrast and I cannot help but see how far off things were before.  I know I am doing the same for him. And that my care for him, my genuine desire to make each of his days better, makes us more whole and healed every day.  And best of all, we appreciate each other.  We know what we have found, and we are simply giddy with joy for it.

So yesterday. Yesterday was the best Mother's Day ever.  And I know there will be more to come.

I'm sorry, that's just not possible.

I'm going to make this statement fully expecting you to pull an Elaine and shove me half way across the room as you declare, "GET OUT!"

Hannah is about to graduate from kindergarten.

I know. Impossible, right? I don't get it.

... Basically, you're saying I successfully conceived and gestated a small female human, managed to rear her through her infancy (a phase we fondly remember as the projectile vomit era), navigated her through toddlerhood without a single fractured bone, refrained from sending her away to the circus during her "big girl" years when she steadfastly refused to wear anything other than a skirt or dress, held her hand, kissed her boo-boos, rocked her in my arms, swung her in circles, tickled her belly, read her every book in our household 36x over, walked away from her on the first day of kindergarten just in time to conceal my tears, and now... now her whole first year of school is done? Just like that?

Not possible.

In the past year she has achieved so much. Not only is she brilliant, with a story-writing ability that blows me away, and an endearing tendency to successfully complete math computations while still writing the numerals backward (she is her mama's daughter) - she has done something much, much more impressive.  She has endured the splintering of her world and has begun to reconcile, insomuch as anyone can, the fact that her father has left her life.  She has gone from a quiet, serious, watchful, cautious child to a gleeful, funny, stunning, witty, fast (she's a gazelle), grounded, inspiring, force to be reckoned with.

I am in awe of her.

Someone please tell me how this happened.

Thanks for the advice, but...

Turns out that last infection wasn't really an infection at all. It was another bout of kidney stones.  The culture came back negative for growth.  So now I'm back to the land of what-the-hell?  Am I just going to get kidney stones every other month or so?  Grr.

My urologist gave me a number of options, ranging from cautious to invasive. Unfortuately, there weren't many in between those two extremes.  I chose cautious. I have some scripts for pain meds and antibiotics that will get me through more stones without having to pay $30 to pee in a cup every time.  But if I have a few more of these "sessions" over the next few months, I may start to think more about the invasive stuff.

Lauren's BEER! suggestion is sounding better and better.

My Fella

My grandma used to always use the term "fella".  "Got a new fella? Is he tall, dark, and handsome?"  Man, I really miss her sometimes.  Especially since I know she would have instantly loved my new Beau.

I'm at a loss to try and summarize this relationship for you, here, in this fast-forward, fill-in-the blanks phase of blogging.  How do you start to describe a person who is so meaningful to you, without glossing over huge sections of time and details?  Perhaps I can't.  I think I'll sketch an outline and let you start to see the details as we move forward.

The Facts:

I met the Beau through Match.com over seven months ago. I picked him out because he had an extremely well-written, witty profile and all kinds of little details that matched my life, in odd and unexpected ways.  We exchanged emails for a few days, then text messages and phone calls.  If memory serves, we met face-to-face in just under a week. But by then, it already felt... significant.

Then I tried to screw it up. Not consciously, mind you, but this guy was so nice! He opened doors, asked all sorts of questions about me, brought me flowers, and soup and medicine when I was sick.  He wrote me love letters and looked up articles about synesthesia.  He made book recommendations based on our conversations, and he was a father of a 5-year-old girl who had assumed the majority of her care since her birth.  He knew how to make ponytails.

"What's this?" my mind cried out, "There has to be something wrong with him. Being this nice is... well, it's just got to be wrong. Unmanly maybe. Maybe creepy. Certainly this can't be real." 

I was very near the verge of goofing it up for good when Dr. Luz intervened in her lovely, straight-forward way. She urged me to step back from the situation and observe, and think about whether his actions were actually "creepy" - or simply thoughtful and generous.  Something so far removed from my experience that I didn't know how to process it.

Turns out that what I'd always mistakenly labeled "chemistry" in relationships was nothing more than my learned response to co-dependent people.  People who treated me aloofly, weren't forthcoming with praise or interest, denied emotions when possible, and fostered self-criticism - they felt like home to me.  They felt familiar. And I kept going back to that same archetype.

In one single evening I had a watershed realization, and then there was no going back. That clarity, once achieved, is such a gift.  The Beau was not a creep. He was a good guy. And he was hot. And smart. And absolutely wonderfully perfect for me. I could make a list  as long as my leg about his positive traits and characteristics and quirks - something I would have been hard-pressed to do about my ex even early on. 

Luckily for me, the Beau was patient enough to stick around for that epiphany.  I called him that very night and spent a couple of hours on the phone talking him through my realizations.  Coming from a near identical upbringing, and a similar relationship background, he was able to identify with what I was saying right away.

We haven't looked back since.  Every. single. day. I learn something new about myself that I would not have been able to see were it not for him.  And the same goes for him.  I am my best self when I'm with him because he supports and inspires me. I don't fear him or his judgments. I know to my core he would never say things designed to hurt me, nor say something careless.  And he is his best self, too.

Now, on the other side of this looking glass, I can not only see that I was picking the wrong people to foster relationships with (not just romantically, but in friendships, too), I can also see why.

Every tough discussion I have with my Beau is calm and thoughtful. We talk and then fall quiet a bit. Talk some more and get closer to a resolution. And hours later, we arrive at a solution, feeling even better about ourselves and our life together than we did before the tough topic.  I've never experienced anything like it - but I've always wished it could be so.

We are healing each other by recognizing how co-dependency has influenced our lives and by holding up a much more accurate mirror for one another. A mirror that shows just how wonderful we are when we're in a healthy relationship, and how limitless our life together is.

So... I've clearly crossed the line here in trying to stick to the facts. It seems that's not in my skill set for this particular topic.

There's so much more to say, but you have your own life to lead. We'll catch up as we go along. But if you have any dying-to-ask questions, ask, and I'll try to answer.