Monthly Archives: April 2011

Day 82: Meditation

Posted on April 25, 2011 | 4 comments

Day 82: Sit in the lotus position for 30 minutes.
Sure. Just as soon as I have thirty minutes. I actually did take thirty extra minutes after Bikram the other night to sit. And just be. It’s easier to carve out thirty minutes of time when you have already earmarked ninety.

This morning I knew I had to go to the chiropractor, remind Mike to get keys cut, sign up Emily for kindergarten after school care and then go to work. But when I looked at my phone on the way in to the chiropractor’s office and my gmail calendar was not showing up, I flipped. I tend to schedule things, put it on the calendar and I don’t have to feel the stress of both completing a task and remembering it. But this week I actually have things on there like “find suitcases.” “Charge camera battery.” Not in lists… but on my calendar. At certain times. I am starting to feel the Bridal Mania and I have been choosing to sedate it with a steady diet of Budweiser and scheduling. Both seem to set me at ease. So, not being able to see my calendar this morning had me panicked. I can’t exactly kick back beers at work, so I need my calendar. If nothing pops up and tells me to do something, I’m cool. I’m not forgetting things.

To that end I decided I needed another thirty minutes of sitting. I rarely take a “lunch break.” But I have promised myself I’d get in the office early and stay a bit late if need be this week, so taking thirty minutes for me seemed necessary. And it is 80-something out today. And not raining.

It wasn’t on my calendar. But I sat on the floor for thirty minutes and did my damnedest NOT to think about anything.

And then I took a quick walk outside. Spring has sprung. I hear Springtime is a nice time to get married. And turn 35. And make babies. I am feeling pretty confident in my ability to get two of the three accomplished in the next couple of weeks. For now, the third task is not on my calendar. Fingers crossed that it won’t ever need to be.

4 Comments

Posted in Exercise, This Book Will Change Your Life

Tagged Birthdays, Lotus, Spring, Wedding

It just might be a lunatic you’re looking for…

Posted on April 14, 2011 | 11 comments

No matter how sure I am, no matter that I know in my heart of hearts that I am doing the “right thing” there is something about having a “wedding” that is making me antsy. It’s funny, I never felt like this when I got married before. Although if you’d asked me to be honest, even then, if I thought we’d make it until the end of time I would have had to ask you what “make it” looks like to you.

I am so absolutely ready to marry MQD. We have grown so much together in the last two years. Not only closer, but individually. And I can see us continuing to challenge each other for years to come. It is the making a decision that touches not just my life, maybe, that is making it scarier. You don’t typically choose a parent for your child. And I have been so lucky. To find a boy that makes me crazy and a man that makes me sane all wrapped up in one human being.

So what is it that has me staring at the ceiling at night instead of sleeping? Equal parts “Do I remember where I put my strapless bra?” and “Will anyone notice that my shoes are not exactly the same color as my crinoline?” and “How long do we try to get pregnant before I freak the fuck out?” I suppose. But if I dig deep and am honest there isn’t any part of me that wonders if MQD is the “right person” for me. But I do find it unsettling that there is no litmus test.

I never imagined I’d get married again. And I never imagined I’d spend my days adding up numbers and arranging invoices and expenses and facts. But what appeals to me about my job is exactly what is making me antsy about getting married. I don’t love construction. Or math. But I love it when all the numbers add up. They are right. There is no need to argue them. They are correct. Period. I love being right.

In about two weeks I will gather my friends and family and say “Hey guys! Check out this Life Plan. I pick him. He is “right.” And I am “right” for him.” But I can’t export a marriage in to Excel and double-check it. There will be no tape from the adding machine stapled to our marriage license with my initials on it.

I have been thinking on this for a few days. Wondering when I stopped being fearless. Is it being a parent? being older? having been hurt in the past? Have I just developed a tendency to over think things in the last decade?

And then I ran across this. And I stopped worrying about right or wrong.

Loving the wrong person

Let our scars fall in love.
–Galway Kinnell

We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems–the ones that make you truly who you are–that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person–someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”

I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.

~ Andrew Boyd

Can’t get much more wrong than this, can you? Love you, MQD. Thanks for putting up with me the last few weeks.

11 Comments

Posted in Family, Parenting, Wedding Planning

Tagged Andrew Boyd, cold feet, Wedding

Letting go and holding on…

Posted on April 6, 2011 | 10 comments

I have an unlikely friend. The Universe works in mysterious ways. When my phone rang a couple of weeks ago and it was the young lady my ex-husband was living with soon after we separated you’d probably not have guessed that I’d have answered. Or that she’d have been calling to ask for advice. Or that I’d have poured a glass of wine and sat down on my back porch, giggling like I was talking to a dear girlfriend. Or that I’d have been so very thrilled to hear the anticipation in her voice as she was preparing to catch up with an old boyfriend.

Then again you’d be just as surprised to know that a few years ago, when I was preparing our divorce papers it was Hillary I called. To make sure it was a good time to send them. That she’d be around if he needed someone to talk to. Because I hated the idea of him hurting and not talking to anyone about it.

Sometimes the world brings you the people you need in your life. And sometimes you seek them out, asking advice from the friends that you know will tell you want to hear. I knew Hillary would tell me to do what I needed to do, not take any bullshit, rip the band-aid off. And when she called the other evening, I suspect she knew that I’d tell her to dive in, head first, heart and arms wide open, because what have you got to lose? If there was ever a time to ask a woman if she thinks it is a good idea to be open to the possibility of Love I’d guess that the month before she gets married is a pretty damn good time. I think my exact words to her that night were “What did you think I’d say? Are you fucking kidding, I love Love!”

So it was with a heavy heart that I read her email last week. She told me that it was a no-go with the old flame. I replied that she just has to keep putting herself out there. And in what I declare a moment of genius told her that “our hearts are like earthworms. We have endless regenerative powers.” Hillary is a tough cookie. And when I didn’t hear from her I assumed that she was toughing it out. Her earthworm heart mending itself in time to be torn in two for perhaps the gazillionth time, but all in all, no worse for the wear. And then yesterday she posted this….

Dear Kelly Ann,
You never mentioned that once you try and finally let go….what happens when they try to force themselves back into your life? What if my guard is weak just like my heart? Why all these fucking games? Why all the constant tugs on my heart strings?
Sincerely, Hillary from cantstopthebeattt

And I am at a loss. I am a Dreamer. A Believer in Love. But I am not one to suggest to my friends that they keep putting themselves in the line of fire, earthworm hearts or not. So I am not sure how to respond. And when I am not sure of what I think I am prone to question what the asker thinks I am going to say… Did she ask me hoping that I’d tell her to stay true to her heart, to try one more time, to never give up, because after all wasn’t it me that was “in Love with Love” just last week? Or did she ask me because she heard the tearful struggles. She saw me crying in the parking lot of the Waffle House where Jer and I would swap Em for the weekend. She knew from our talks so long ago that I did leave once, but I never stopped loving. So maybe she was looking for me to be the Kenny Rogers of relationship advice and tell her to “know when to walk away, know when to run.”

As is usually the case once I talk myself all the way through both possibilities I can see that neither is really right.

I can’t tell you how to walk away. And I can’t tell you how to hold on and keep trying, in spite of the hurt. Because I don’t think we every really make that choice. Hillo, we don’t choose to fall in love. And we can’t, unfortunately, choose to let it go, either. I don’t think we ever really walk away, or put up a fence around our hearts, not when you love with your whole heart. So, then when is it over? It’s over one day when you wake up and you realize that you’re not crying. That you fell out of love as wordlessly, as effortlessly and quietly as you fell in.

So, keep treading water if you don’t want to dive in headfirst, little girl. But I’m afraid you can’t just get out of the pool. I don’t think girls like us have that as an option.

*A few years ago you put a bunch of pictures of your past in a mirror. A mirror that had been mine and had hung in my house, with pictures of my past in it for over a decade. When I moved out I didn’t take it with me. And it ended up in your hands. I hope you still have it. And I hope you keep looking in it. For a little while longer, anyway. And then I hope one day you don’t need it anymore. I hope you get all the answers you need from your past. And I hope you know how grateful I am for your unlikely friendship.