The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. - John Ruskin
Okay friends, I at least have the damn header photo back in place!
[A bajillion thanks to isnaini.com for STILL having this 'primitive' blogger template & images available to use. Blogger has updated their formats/layouts and whatnot at warp speed since my little blog came on the scene in 2006. But I don't care. This template is perfect for me, and I love this header photo so much! It was me to a T back in the day, alone in a corner clinging to music & words]
I have also spend almost 2 hours getting some more blog posts back up from 2009-2011. I am almost caught up with the old posts (woot!) and can thereafter GO FORTH and catch y'all up on all the Bidniss!
the following was in an enormous post I have saved in Blogger Drafts, with so many quotes and insights and lyrics from people all over the internet. That I have been compiling since this blog began. Read this one today, and while a bit on the cheese side it spoke to me. And whenever one does, I am compelled to post it regardless of the Fromage Factor:
I do not know how long I'll live
But while I live, Lord, let me give
Some comfort to someone in need
By smile or nod, kind word or deed
And let me do what ever I can
To ease things for my fellow man
I want naught but to do my part
To "lift" a tired or weary heart
To change folks' frowns to smiles again
Then I will not have lived in vain
And I'll not care how long I'll live
If I can give... and give... and give
-Author Unknown
A dead end street is a good place to turn around ~Naomi Judd
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living -unknown
Thirteen months ago, The Husband found gainful employment two hours away. I got excited for a minute. "This is our second chance" he had said. We would go to counseling when we moved there, he claimed. Give it one more real try. With the stipulation that I would find some accountability there for checking in on how I was treating him. Until we all moved to Clean Slate as a family, everything was on hold. Put in a box, emotion-wise. To be continued. And we ran things on the surface, civil and family-friendly. Still no kisses or touches or real engagement of any sort.
We put our house on the market, and he left Monday through Friday. Back to Stepford on the weekends, when I would go to work. It was the best summer I can recall. I had picnics and pool days with my children. We made cards and crafts and fed the ducks and geese at the pond. We picked raspberries and blueberries multiple times. We made pies and cobblers and muffins. I read books like I used to years ago (for fun, not for crisis-save-my-marriage). I wore sundresses with no underwear. I discovered the weekly podcast of NPR's "This American Life" which I used to love to hear on NPR, but couldn't find on our radio for years. I played music with good beats and likely inappropriate lyrics for my children. But we sang and danced and ate dinners outside.
After several weeks into this, maybe a month, I recognized that on every Thursday night I would fold in on myself. Like the time-lapse photography of a blooming flower. In reverse. Because he would be coming home the next day. And Who I Am was nothing of interest to him. There was nothing between us but parenting and running the house communication. It was all very amicable mostly, but having some time to bloom alone I did not like having him around and wishing for a relationship that just wasn't. And I was discovering Me again. And that I liked who I was more than my husband did. I had forgotten myself in the maelstrom. And for years before, truth be told.
And then it was fall. House still not sold in this crap pre-election economy. So kids start school and we continue this weekly routine. Only I add the gym and running every morning after the kids are in school. More books. More podcasts like "The Moth". More candles in the house and sassy clothes purchased, not always worn. Just on hold. Less linear living. We take a stepladder to a huge apple tree in our subdivision once a week after school and fill a huge basket with them. We make cakes and pies and applesauce and share them. We 'Boo' friends houses in October with Halloween goodies, my children sneaking up to ring the doorbell and run. It was the best fall I can recall. Until each Thursday afternoon-ish, when I would shrivel back up inside. It was nothing he did when he was home; he's a basic good man and a wonderful father. It was just everything we were. And were not.
And then I f*cked up. Spectacularly. And everything imploded. So I guess in the end that's a good thing. -ish. I still haven't decided exactly in hindsight, because there was serious loss as well. Glad I am not trudging that same worn path of my hopeless marriage, but unsure if anything other than a bomb blast would have moved us on out of the building. Condemned. Been condemned. Why are you still in this building? Can you not see it's unsafe for occupancy?
A lot of my belief system is upside down in the months since, so what you read now may or may not sound like the same girl who wrote the last three years of sh!t on this blog. I cannot even go back and read all that bemoaning and angst, it's excruciating. I could trim this blog to about a third of its original ramblings and agree with those. The rest I would delete, I think. Or severely edit. But it was my torturous processing of it all, so there it sits.
More sweet little quotes from The Vault that needed a place. And a gingerbread house from two years ago...
Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, love more, and all good things will be yours. -Swedish Proverb
Every Christian family ought to be a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by His rule. -Jonathan Edwards
The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. -Theodore Hesburgh
His mom leaned on him for emotional support. So, to this guy, "love" felt heavy and burdensome. He couldn't help it. Love was a weight to be carried, a responsibiity to be endured. Getting closer to his girlfriend didn't make him feel playful, spontaneous, and erotic... it made him feel like he was entering a maximum security prison. -Esther Perel, author, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic
“Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.” -Soren Kierkegaard, fcuking brilliant man
Found this comment floating around online somewhere talking about the power of touch, and was struck, as I struggle with needing it and not receiving. This brought tears to my eyes, if you can believe that:
...the Savior touched the leper to heal him. He touched the leper! There was (is) no one so sick/sinful He would not touch them.
I had a whole intro to this post, and it disappeared when I published. [insert murderous thoughts here]. Something hinky is going on with my draft folder...
The nutshell: I missed the bus on this when it was all the rage, but glad I took the ride now. Here are all the passages I re-copied into my journal. Read it for yourself, no matter your theology (as you might imagine I squinted at quite a few things described), and you'll have lots of your own passages to dog-ear, too, I would imagine.
Photo links to the Amazon.com page:
[pg. 12] ..I only exhausted him. We both knew there was something wrong with me and he'd been losing patience with it. We'd been fighting and crying, and we were weary in a way that only a couple whose marriage is collapsing can be weary. We had the eyes of refugees.
[pg. 21] Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story ... when the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore - despite the fact that you KNOW he has it hidden somewhere, god*mn it, because he used to give it to you for free) ... Meanwhile, the object of your adoration has become repulsed by you. He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with a high passion
...during the worst ugliness of divorce (a life experience my friend Brian has compared to "having a really bad car accident every single day for about two years")...
[pg. 58] He says all Americans are like this: repressed. Which makes them dangerous and potentially deadly when they do blow up. "A savage people," he diagnoses.
[pg. 83] The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she would eat his soul. Or I might even learn how to ... stop trying to eat his soul.
[pg. 102] In Venice in the Middle Ages there was once a profession for a man called a Codega - a fellow you hired to walk in front of you at night with a lit lantern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and demons, bringing you confidence and protection through the dark streets.
[pg. 122] ...the built-in glitches of the human condition, which I'm going to over-simply define here as the heartbreaking inability to sustain contentment.
[pg. 132] I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the, "monkey mind" - the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl.
[pg. 141] "That's just your ego, trying to make sure it stays in charge. This is what your ego does. It keeps you feeling separate, keeps you with a sense of duality, tries to convince you that you're flawed and broken and alone instead of whole"
[pg. 148] He says, "Give it another six months, you'll feel better." "I've already given it twelve months, Richard." "Then give it six more. Just keep throwin' six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time."
[pg. 150] "You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be."
[pg 155] Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well - that would be the end of the universe.
[pg. 157] "There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all thought history. How much do you love me? -and- Who's in charge? Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief and suffering" ... it is only questions of longing and control that emerge to agitate me, and this agitation is what keep me from evolving forward.
[pg. 171] you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.
[pg. 175] In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult ... Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark.
[pg. 207] "Imagine that the universe is a great spinning engine," he said. "You want to stay near the core of the thing - right in the hub of the wheel - not out at the edges where all the wild whirling takes place, where you can get frayed and crazy. The hub of calmness - that's your heart. That's where God lives within you. So stop looking for answers in the world. Just keep coming back to that center and you'll always find peace."
[pg. 279] "I think she had a secret mind inside her other mind, nobody can see inside there."
A long dispute means both parties are wrong -Voltaire
I'm sitting in a wi-fi cafe catching up on emails and attempting to blog. Here's a great quote, and I have several posts rattling around that I'm going to empty on the page today/tonight, so more to come.
Love conquers all, rapes all, pillages all, leaves all for dead." -Pratt I'm around, ya'll, just fermenting a bit, trying not to whine and bemoan my life, but find the purpose in it, and get off the throne in my heart and let God have a seat there. Every time I think I have done so, I grab it back like we're playing Musical Chairs and the music has stopped. Nobody wins that, especially me.
Is it just me, or does this blog take for-freaking-EVAH to load in your browser too? Clue me in. I love my template but I think there's some hiccup in it that hangs up the speed.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -Frank Herbert Damn straight, Skippy. Wish everybody got this.
The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down. -Proverbs 14:1 NIV Woe to you ... you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
Woe to you ... you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. -Matthew 23:25-27 NIV
Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air.
-broadcaster Tom Snyder,1935-2007
Wheeee! Lots of sh!t flying through the air.
Sure enough, I open my mouth and satan sees where to get me. Fcuker. The engine noise has been so loud in the last week, I just want to lay down and give up. He who is in me is greater, He who is in me is greater, He who is in me....
I am weary of this seesaw I live on. Hope - and change, and then backsliding and nothing good. Fall is in the air ...literally.
Ya'll, truly. I'm ashamed to post anymore. I cannot imagine what a fcuking SNORE it is to read 'hey, big insight' and then 'hey, i still suck'. I hate being me, and then every once in a while I don't. I keep pushing this elephant up the stairs, I keep blowing it, yet I keep having hope. Many days, I honestly do not know why, other than God won't let me quit completely. And, lucky you, are stuck on the ride with me.
I also feel like I'm giving God a bad rap. Not like I'm some big influence or He can't take it, but I keep saying Yay God about stuff that happens, thinking I'm on the upswing, giving Him credit. And then BOOM, I crash, my inner garbage coming out from underneath the carpet where I've apparently swept it, and it kind of makes God look bad to those of you who don't know Him well.
I am not representing Him worth a sh!t. This is not God's fault, it's mine. And looking back over old posts from last fall/winter, some of my world is different and yet much of my Insight remains un-acted-upon. Again, that's my fault. Emotional impotence.
I have seen changes in me, and I write those first to encourage myself. The most positive changes have been with my children. I have been, in the past, a scary horrible no-good parent. Selfish, downright mean, and easily irritated by small people who were not intentionally doing me harm.
Every parent struggles with pieces of this puzzle, but my struggles were more than sleep-deprivation and normal stress. There was a black place inside me, still is, that puts a shield between myself and my family. Cannot put words on it, but it was ugly with the people who least deserved it. And rose up in a swift tsunami-type fashion when it came.
If nothing else, that change in me is Real. And I weep, that deep-down painful sorrow of regret, when I think back. I would give anything, anything to rewind -and tape over- that part of my movie.
I look back in my rearview mirror with a clarity that I don't have in The Moment (or The Month, or The Year). Honestly, I feel like I'm several years behind myself. Like now, for instance. I'm learning much about me that would have SO better served me two years ago. But it's not enough to know it now, because such damage was done in the interim that I need bigger forces than Two-years-ago-Insight. Capice?
Like bringing in FEMA way too late for Katrina; would have been beneficial on the ground before landfall, not playing catch-up in its wake. Bigger forces (military, etc) were needed in the aftermath - and even then, it was impossible to 'fix'. Granted, hindsight and all. Who can know what is needed ahead of time, or how much destruction we'll find ourselves in, etc. But really, ya'll. You know what I'm saying? I am just now getting the FEMA funds in, far too late for where the circumstances are.
There is a deep piece of my heart that swings in a free fall, scared and frightened. It looks for a place to grab onto something safe, but chooses people & circumstances to validate me. Especially my husband: please love me, please like me, please find me to be good, please please please.
Nothing 'sticks' to my heart, it's like Teflon. God sees me as I really am: filthy rags. BUT. He also sees me through the blood as I am in Jesus, worthy of love. Why can't that stick to me?
I wander through life like a Wemmick, letting people put their gold stars or red dots on me as they choose. Even those don't stick: and not for the good reason in the story, but because the ways of other-seeking validation don't work.
I'm no fool. I am actually a smart person, good student, quick study. But not where the rubber meets the road obviously. I'm an asset to most situations - outside of my own home. For the most part, I like who I am with everyone else in my world. I've learned to be a better friend to people, really be interested in them and concerned for their wellbeing, I accept responsibility for dropping the ball - personally with friends, or professionally with coworkers. Quickly. I don't need to be reminded or prompted for that.
At home I do. It has taken the better part of three years for me to to step around the screen of My Defensiveness with my children - my own children, for fcuk's sake - and apologize when necessary. My husband had to call me out, listen to me deflect like a petulant teenager, and finally, I would say I was sorry about something to my own child. I am sick at myself when I think of it all. This was not some isolated incident; it happened often.
On the thank-you-Jesus flipside, I can now spot when it happens without a Proctor/Chaperon/Husband present and apologize immediately to my children, with a non-deflecting explanation. Even more than half the time (praise God), I can see it coming and stop the Bad in a pre-emptive strike, completely foregoing the need for apology and repentance. Am I making any sense? she asks the invisible internet.
But I can do none of these things with my own husband. There have been very itty-bitty-small, too-little-too-late FEMA-type improvements, but again, they are small in proportion to where we are -and where I need to be with this stronghold. I need to be down the road a-piece, people. And I don't move. Much. WTF?
I do not, without great wailing/gnashing of teeth- if ever - say "you're right, i'm wrong" right off the bat. I imagine myself being able to do it, but when we arrive at an opportunity: WALL. Fear. Defense. And it's only with my spouse. I will own up to anything, anywhere. Elsewhere. Here online, at work, with my counselor - about the very thing my husband has told me. I can't think of anywhere else that I do NOT eat my sandwich I made.
But to his face, in the moment? I am mute, with my insides contorting. Dying to connect in a real way, yet placing a firm wedge between us that grows larger with each conversation: But that's not what I meant, I never said that, I didn't do that. Because, as he so aptly puts it, if I am never wrong he is the one who always must be. That's not relational balance, nor is it fair. Dammit, I am NOT this person. I'm not. But here I am, having been her for the better part of my life.
This screams "Trouble with Authority Males over Me", as there is only him really. And God. I fool myself that I'm cool with God, just not my husband. I'm probably not cool with either of them. This is something else my husband has suggested. And, like all his points, I cannot come to grips with in his presence, yet mull it over afterwards. He thinks I don't believe anything he mentions or insights, but that's not it.
I've been on my knees about this problem, and others, and continue to be. And will continue to be, until He changes me or I die. I can't do this alone. I crave relationship, yet am so damaged. The area of Relationship is where my damage was done initially (childhood/innocence/trust betrayed, etc). Why do you think it's hard for me to even trust God, a heavenly Father, when parental relationship was so perverted in my reality.
I have no excuses: yes, my past is why I've made all these fortresses to my heart, but I no longer live in a battlefield. I should not function like I do, to the detriment of everything I ever wanted. And years behind the learning curve.
I see through a lens of competition with my husband. I want to be Good Enough, I think he's a Better Person, I reflexively feel like a Loser and/or Belittle him in some way. Not always directly, just not Building Him Up or Supporting him. I pray for the know-how to Get Over Myself and my implanted fear that if he is a Happy, Successful human being, he'll want nothing from me or not need me. Or find someone Better. This is a whole different topic, but it all ties in to the tangle that is my black, ugly places. Fear is immobilizing
Ironically, or not so much, I do Build Him Up in my conversations about him. Just not to him. Like it's Giving In, or some such bullsh!t. Again, in my rational mind, I see all (well, most) of my wrong behaviors and know I need to change. Every opportunity reveals my failures.
He's really a good man, my husband. And I really want to be a good woman. In general, but especially in my home. I want to be well-matched with him. I want to be vulnerable with him, rest in him. I have likely never done that, at least not since we were very newly in love maybe. The undercurrent of Us is static and tension, as I manipulate all things in order to Keep Me Comfortable. I want victory where I've previously had nothing but defeat. But I want it on my own, not depending on him to validate me. And this is where it's so tricky. Where I fall down.
So easy to see it in your mind, especially after the fact, but impossible to implement. I am NOT the one person too fcuked up for God to fix. I just had to write that 'out loud' because I need the reminder. I'm too big for me to fix, but not for Him.
When "You're right, I'm wrong" about anything (but especially the big things) I pray to step over myself and tell him so. Within minutes, not hours, days or never. With God's help, and only through that, I will change.
From this day forward, I drag my sinful prideful self to a standing position and attempt to move forward. Again. Damn, ya'll.
Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly we cannot choose how, but what we can decide is how we meet that end - in order that we are remembered as men. -unknown
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Want to tell ya'll what's been going on - yet scared if I open my big, fat, quick-to-claim-change mouth, it will go away. Aside: I felt the same way the day after I became a Christian, too. Everything felt very different, and I tiptoed around it for a while thinking it was some total bullsh!t placebo effect. Or if I acknowledged it in any way, it would dissipate immediately and prove me a gullible dumba$$. Trust no one. I am Fox Mulder.
I have been clinging, clinging, clinging to The Husband, or the Hope of him for-freaking-evah since the affair. Unhealthy and all that, well aware. Much advice given (and heard) to not focus on my spouse, but to look up to the Lord and put my faith in Him with the capital H, not the lowercase h. Concentrate on that at He will give you the desires of your heart, etc.
Heard it, understood it, totally agreed with it.
Still could not do it.
My emotions have been all tangled up with my husband's actions, what he was -or wasn't- doing. My validity as a woman, person, etc. all directly dependent on how my husband acted.
Trying to be pretty enough, helpful enough, or [fill in the blank] enough for him to [love me, be attracted to me, want me, need me] again. Fcuk. Who could stand that? He told me that I was measuring everything he did or said against how it Made Me Feel.
I kept wanting that to NOT be true.
But it was.
Even when I tried to disconnect from reacting to him, I did it in a p*ssed off kind of way. As if to Prove a Point, or Get Him To Notice. All about - still - his reactions, just from another angle.
I b*tched and moaned wherever I could ... on this blog, to my counselor, to a very few friends (who could still stand to hear me whine about my tribulations months later) ... all about how my marriage was difficult, how my life was SO HARD, how I needed, I wanted, I craved. Pity me, I am Suffering such Woe, I am the Victim of my Life.
Even while learning to see my own flaws in this relationship, and empathizing the state of my husband's painful path, I still did every action, thought, prayer, with the motivation of Getting What I Want.
So.
Long ago, when I was maybe 10 years old, I went to California and was able to ride in a glider one afternoon. Amazing. Gliders are unpowered airplanes, launched by an aerotow -or powered aircraft- tethered to the glider by a rope.
The tow plane pulls the glider until the desired altitude is reached and detaches the glider by disconnecting the rope. The glider then sails in the air until landing on its own.
While the tow plane is pulling the glider by the rope, you're surrounded by the loud engine roar and feeling the vibrations of the engined plane, as if you are riding in a regular small plane. And then, suddenly a loud pop occurs, and all noise and vibrations cease. Immediately. Everything is very, very quiet although your landscape has not changed a bit. It is unreal.
This is the perfect word picture for what happened to me about two weeks ago. My landscape has not changed one eensy iota, but suddenly everything changed inside my plane. It got quiet and smooth, and I didn't even do anything. I've been praying for change for, oh, years and on some random September day - in the middle of the day, no less - I untethered myself from the lead plane.
Or should I say God untethered me, because as we all know, in my own strength I am a glorious failure many times over.
He probably just got sick of watching me spin and spin, fiddling while Rome burns, tethered to the wrong thing. I imagine he reached out and said 'you know, this glider you are in is pretty cool, but you're not using it right. You're still hooked to someone else way past cruising altitude. No one else is supposed to be leading you at this point but me' and-
POP
end of freaked-out vibrations and jackhammer engine noise. Calm, eerie quiet and blue sky. While the landscape is exactly the same.
My external situation has not changed one whit, same marriage, kids, job, life, hardships. But my attitude has. Fo' reals, yo. Do I trust it? Are you kidding? Of course not (see: Fox Mulder), but I sure have enjoyed it. I got untethered from The Husband and found some sense of Who I Am, validation on my own, and a sense of worth in spite of all that jazz.
Oh my, this sounds all kind of self-helpy. Eww. I swear there will be no summer-camp karaoke version of "Friends are friends forever" sung at the end of this post.
The fact remains that this is a significant change in my thought pattern (regardless of how I've come off as so Enlightened or whatnot); no self-pity, no hovering around him, aching that he doesn't want to be around me or love me or whatever.
I've been most careful to hip-check my motivations and make sure I'm still respectful and kind to him, not detached in that Fcuk-you kind of way at ALL. I keep proofreading myself, thinking I will surely be bursting into flames emotionally at any point because I cannot ever keep up any change I'm trying to make.
So far, there are a few twinges of my old stuff ready to bubble up on occasion, but I look up and pray for focus and it generally works. Inside my glider is still quiet, although not as dramatic as when it first occurred (dammit). But I think God knows that Drama gets my attention and He swung the pendulum waaaaaaaay to the extreme initially so I would know it was Him (with the capital 'H') and pay attention.
I'm working be a team member in the household, because it's Right, not because it might please (lowercase-'h') him.
I'm just kind of 'over' him, but not in the break-up way.
Dealing with my FOO (family of origin) as a grown-up is crazyhard, especially in the aftermath of my mother's death, but I don't think much healing would be happening without it.
But still.
I've been dealing with sh!t for a looooooong time now, and I've still been tethered to the towplane. So why now? Mid-afternoon in mid-September? His ways are SO not our ways, but when He steps in: you know it.
"to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. -t.s. elliot I don't know why I have always wanted an Easy Bake Oven. No clue. Perhaps having grown up on the Wrong Side of the Tracks, it was the appeal of the Glamour toy. It certainly wasn't the cooking aspect; I was such a latchkey kid that I did a lot of cooking for myself. Mainly noodles and Ragu, or Swanson's chicken pot pies -but still. I was not craving time in a kitchen.
But I never received one as a present. And frankly, I'm not even sure that I ever told anyone that I wanted one. Maybe it never was written on a Wish List for Santa, but I cannot remember a time when I didn't want one. Perhaps in my fantasy thinking, someone would just know and get me one.
Never happened.
I was not scarred for life by it. As ya'll know, there were plenty of real-life events in my childhood to scar my psyche. The lack of an Easy Bake was not one of them.
Eventually I became an adult(-ish) person. And I have mentioned over the years that I always wanted an EBO. I even remotely entertained the idea that perhaps one day a creative, thoughtful boyfriend (or later Husband) would buy one and put it under the tree for me. I never asked for one outright, but subconsciously I pictured a sweet man giving me the Easy Bake Oven I never had.
Ya'll, I am not right.
As an aside, I will tell you something wonderful that The Husband did years ago that resembled this little fantasy. There is a Dr. Seuss book called Happy Birthday To You! about a Seussical place called Katroo where on your birthday all kinds of amazing stuff is done for You! Just for You! I loved it as a child. So happy and celebratory, and completely opposite of my entire childhood. It's not a widely known book, and we found it one day in a bookstore. I waxed all kinds of nostalgic about it to my husband. The next year on my birthday, that book was one of my presents, complete with a sweet inscription from said husband. It's one of my favorite presents ever, and I read it to the children on their birthdays at bedtime. I doubt my husband even realizes how special that was for me.
Moving on!
So here I am back in Stepford after a horrific time dealing with my mother suddenly, unexpectedly in ICU and her subsequent death, and all these swirling emotions. One Saturday morning we go to a yard sale as a family. And what to my wandering eyes should appear? A brand new, still in the box, Easy Bake Oven.
Of course we bought it for my daughter you see, but my inner little girl was sated. A wrinkle in the fabric of my life was smoothed. I do not pretend to know why, it just was.
The next day we made a chocolate-frosted cake from the still-unopened mixes included in the box. I knew from licking the batter that it would be perfectly hideous, so I didn't even have a bite of the finished product. That wasn't the point, and I knew that going in. I just wanted to have one. And I do. How did an Easy Bake Oven get on my cosmic To Do List? I've no idea. But now I can check it off the list. And I'm oddly thankful. Go figure.
