learning to drive. again.

I'm convinced my computer caught the flu. People everywhere are sick, Avery and Taluelah were unfortunate enough to catch it, apparently cats aren't immune, so why not computers too? Okay, maybe it wasn't really H1N1, but my poor computer has been under attack and I have been cleaning up a massive mess over the last week or so. Thankfully, I keep a computer geek close and between his expertise, desire to help, and patience and my willingness to get back on board the rocket ship to cyberspace, here I am. I'm hoping we can all stay healthy now. I've got too much to write to be stuck sitting on a computer that won't cooperate.

A few months ago Dustin was refused entry into the Marine Corps because of a tattoo on the back of his neck. The Marine Corps just got rid of their ban on tattoos. Just weeks ago, Dustin was refused entry into the Army due to our inability to stay current on our house payments and because after months on the market we were still unable to sell the house before he was to ship out. We now have an offer on our house. There's that funny timing thing again. The big question everyone keeps asking me is, "Now that your house may sell, will the Army let Dustin in?" Actually, there are quite a few questions that people keep asking, and that we keep asking too. Why has the military door been slammed in Dustin's face again and again... only to be potentially reopened after we've been forced to move on. Why, after months of being on the market, is there an offer on our house after it's "too late"? Why, when we try to do what we think is the right thing, when we try to keep our integrity in tact, when we travel down a path to what we're sure is our destination, we hit another dead end? The fact of the matter is, I don't know. Just when I think I have everything figured out, I am reminded that I have no clue what any of this means.

I started learning to drive when I was 15. Between my parents risking their lives by being in a moving vehicle with me while my foot was the one controlling the gas and brake pedals, and a nice older gentleman with nerves of steel at the Driving School I attended, and my good old friend Raul sneaking me behind the wheel to give me a few impromptu lessons when no one was any the wiser, I managed to receive my Driver's License at the age of 16. In all that time and with all those teachers I wasn't ever taught to parallel park. It just wasn't something anyone thought I'd need to know. It wasn't part of the behind-the-wheel driver's test that the DMV administered, there are parking lots everywhere, and where there aren't lots there are garages. At least that was the consensus in the desert I grew up in.

One late night shortly after I had moved away from my parent's home, living in Torrance miles from a desert attitude and just blocks from a beach attitude, I was attempting to park my car along a curb in a parallel fashion. Try as I might, I just couldn't get close enough to that curb. The gap in my driving education was becoming more and more apparent each time I backed up and pulled forward and backed up and pulled forward again and again and again with the traffic that so plagues Southern California flying by inches from my car. A man came along on his evening jog and stopped to offer his assistance.

I was raised not to talk to strangers, especially when alone late at night, but at that moment, I'm fairly certain I would have allowed a man with his face obscured in a hooded sweatshirt with a Slim-Jim sticking out of his back pocket to get into my vehicle under the pretense of parking the damn thing for me. The man that took time out of his jog to assist me did not get into my vehicle and do the job for me, but instead stood on the sidewalk and guided me step-by-step into a parallel parking spot just inches from the curb. I'm not sure if he stopped to help because he worried more for my safety in all that traffic or the safety of the vehicles in front of and behind my vehicle. Either way he stopped and he helped and I learned.

Now that I am faced with finding a job, by some stroke of luck, the library clerk position has opened up at Avery's school and the school in Kelseyville Proper. I have applied and I will interview and we will all cross our fingers that this works out for me. I am certain that the competition will be stiff. This is a full time position between the two elementary schools in our small town. The person who gets hired will receive medical benefits, will have one of the very few full-time positions for a classified employee and best of all, will get to work around children and books all day! It is going to be hard for me to leave my sweet Taluelah to go to work full-time, but if I got this job, at least I wouldn't hate going to work.

Dustin is still looking for that thing that will pay the bills and that he will not hate getting up for everyday. We're not sure what it is, but there's no time like the present to go out and find it. Avery got his first 4th grade report card and did not make Honor Roll. He was sure that he would and so he's had to take a step back and take stock and see exactly what he needs to change to attain the heights he is all too capable of reaching. He gets in his own way and while Dustin and I can see what needs work, it is for Avery to figure out on his own. He wouldn't listen to us if we told him anyway! Adam is at the Middle School and while he was excited and nervous about it at first he has seemed to settle into the routine of things. We're pretty sure he's having trouble with one of the other 6th grade kids, but he doesn't want to share what's happening, so we're stuck offering support and advice when he's receptive, and chalking the rest up to preteen angst. This too shall pass? Oh my.

Taluelah is growing much too quickly. I do not remember the boys seeming quite so big when they were a year and a half. In fact, according to their baby books, they were not nearly as big as their little sister is at the same age. Everyday she communicates better. Her words are beginning to flow and we've even had a few very short conversations - usually regarding her food. She's still bossy as ever but it's quite difficult to keep from smiling when she decides to scold me for potentially reprimanding her. She will start digging around in my purse, or she will find a pen or marker or pencil to steal, or she will put a Lego in her mouth, or she will do any number of things that require a reminder that she is doing something she should not be, and when she sees that I have caught her in the act, even before I can get a word out of my mouth, she puts up her hand, palm out, says, "Stop!" and then proceeds to put one finger up and say, "One..." For those of you who know and have adhered to the principles of "1,2,3 Magic" she's the poster child for the children's edition... "1,2,3 Magic - How to stop undesirable behavior from your parents." In her efforts to discipline me and every other big person in her life, Taluelah has not yet made it to two, but I know it's coming.

If the bank does accept the offer that has been made on our house, we have until January 10th to find a new place to live. It feels like the new year is still a ways off, but really it's right around the corner. We're hoping that given our credit history we will be able to find a rental. My realtor has assured me that we are not the only people who have gotten into trouble financially and there are homeowners who will rent to people in our situation. I certainly hope she is correct. There are many many rentals and empty homes in our area. We just have to find the one that is right for us, and do so quickly.

In this conundrum that Dustin and I are faced with, we don't know which way to go. Sometimes it feels like we've exhausted all of the resources we have within ourselves. We're pretty smart, he and I. But, we don't always have all the answers and we don't always make the best choices. This is one of those times when the late night joggers who wear their halos under hats and hide their wings under sweat drenched shirts come out to show the way. They hold open doors that we didn't know existed and light the darkest of days with the glow of their love. But we know, me and the man I married, that no matter what doors we've been led to, we're the ones who have to walk through and hope to find our way in the madness of this world.

In response

Art is always open for interpretation. Every person sees this world through their own eyes. I have two friends with very different opinions of the Mona Lisa. One thinks she looks a bit constipated, the other finds her countenance demure, unassuming. I don't have an opinion, about the Mona Lisa anyway. Written word is no different and faces the same scrutiny all other art forms face when presented to the public. What one pulls from what they read can be quite different from what the author intended. It can be right on too. That all depends on who the reader is and what life experiences they are basing their opinions upon. I think what the artist's followers sometimes forget is that the artist is not painting or drawing or sculpting or writing with any of them in mind, but for release and for the sake of art itself.
I have shared the details of my family's journey over the last couple of years. There have been other blogs that have since been retired and/or are on hiatus for one reason or another. This blog serves the purposes of my family best for now. It allows for my creative juices to flow while staying true to the facts of what this life has to offer or to take away. I feel some of you relate and at times commiserate. I think some don't quite get it, and others are completely on board. Some find escape, hope, adventure, a life more or less ordinary by clicking a link and reading the thoughts that I pour into the big wide world of cyberspace.
Ultimately, this is my life. I choose to share and I fail to see how that makes me anything other than honest. I am a human and so too is my husband, my children and all the others who at some point may make it into my posts. None of us are so above being humble and feeling humility. In fact, sometimes a show of humility is the very thing that makes or breaks a decision. And while I feel the way I do, and act accordingly, I do not choose to put anything in my posts that would truly embarrass anyone, including and most specifically, my husband. Ask him, he'll tell you.
I can't help but find it strange, that the barrage of insults and "reprimands" that have been hurled in my direction, have come not from well informed people, but people who only think they understand my intentions and our situation. Believe me, you do not. And from the very small group of people who actually know of the issue Dustin and I are faced with, not one insult, not one reprimand, not one negative comment directed at either Dustin or myself. It helps to be informed before you make a judgement call. It helps to keep your comments to yourself if you do not know what the true issue at hand is. It helps to know what you are defending before you attempt to defend it.
My family, being the 5 of us, appreciate the show of support we are receiving from our friends and some extended family. I have taken time out of my day and space out of my blog to explain something that really shouldn't need explaining. If you are concerned, call. If you want to help, offer. If you have a resource we do not know of, share. If you want to comment on my writing, do so here. If you do not like reading what I put in my posts, don't. And if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all. That's what my momma taught me anyway. This life is hard enough without the people who claim to love you making it harder. A lesson Dustin and I are still learning 12 years into this marriage.
We will continue to learn. We will continue to fight this fight. We will continue to pull our boots up and wade through the crap until we find that light we've so been searching for, and then we'll probably have to wade some more. Most importantly though, we will continue to love. That is the road we started down so long ago and neither of us is willing to see this latest stumbling block as a dead end, but instead another one of those lessons in life that hurts like hell but teaches you volumes about where you are and what you have. I can only tell you one thing for certain at this point -- this day is gone, and tomorrow is a new one.

crossroads

I have so much to write but I really don't want to. I have laid myself out raw in front of everyone and the whole world who cares to read knows more than I do sometimes about what is happening in my life. My short term memory has been failing me because there is so much to remember lately. Because of that fact and the fact that I have been encouraged to continue my writing I sit here in front of my computer wondering how to start this next chapter. Quite literally.

Timing is everything and the foreclosure papers we received one week prior to Dustin's scheduled departure did in fact stop him from going back into the military. On the appointed date I drove Dustin to Ukiah for a recruiter to take him to Sacramento for someone at MEPS to tell him that he was not going anywhere. Nowhere but back home anyway. Not only was this military path one that was supposed to pull us out of our own personal economic disaster, it was a break for Dustin and I.

This life, married, hasn't been all that. There have been the highs, but then there have been the lows too. All marriages ride the roller coaster we have been on for the last 12 years. Some people enjoy the thrill of seeing what's around the next skyscraper bend and the weight of the stomach dropping lows. Some learn not to get back on the rides that made your head spin and emptied the contents of your stomach. Some never learn. And some get on a new ride altogether and start on a track they never should have ventured down.

To say I am at a crossroads does not cover the true nature of where I am at right now. Adam will resume public school next week so that I may look for a job in this small economically challenged town. My house will be sold off in January and I will need to find a new place to live with my three children. One that I can afford, very possibly on my own. Taluelah will be placed in daycare. I cannot begin to explain the heartbreak I feel when I write that. Moments like this I think back upon a college career started and then cut short. I think a lot about the warnings against having children so young and with someone hardly known. I think about choices and how the consequences of my actions affect the amount of opportunity available. I think about all of this, but then I stand back and remember how it felt to fall madly in love with a young Marine so long ago. How I felt when I held my first baby boy and looked into his sweet brown eyes. How any number of moments have caught my breath or made me scream or driven me mad and made me realize that this is what life's all about. While there are some things I might change given the chance, I have no regrets. Never have, never will.

I will cry and be sad and be hurt and be angry. I will try to figure out if there is anything worth salvaging from the remnants of 12 hard fought years. Maybe there is. Maybe another door is closing. Only time will tell. But I have my boots on and I am walking, because that's just what I was made to do.