11 New Year's Eves

11 years. 11 years since I stood at the top of the stairs holding up two prospective tops for our night out that evening with the Meredith's. 11 years since you smiled at me and said I would look great in anything. 11 years since my last words were, "I hate you" with a smile and an eye roll. That still stings. 

It took a long time before I could go to Target. With that day's timeline, it is most likely where I was when you took your last breath. I was right across the street from the gym, right across the street from you. I got a chai latte at the Starbucks there and it took a long time before I could drink those again too. 11 years since Marlo's howls, 11 years since Eileen's passenger seat. 11 years since the nurse who held my hand, and the doctor with tears in his eyes. 11 years since the police officer who handed me your wedding ring with heartfelt condolences in his eyes. 11 years since I said, "no" when they asked if I wanted to go back and see you. I was terrified to see you, knowing that if I went, it would be real. 11 years since my body eventually shut down and I fell into a shock-slumber, waking to your arms tight around my shoulders and saying, "Tiffin, I am so so sorry."

It was real. I know Dan visited me those wee hours of January 1, 2010. It's been 11 years since my life was divided into before being a widow, and after. I have grown, I have fallen, I have flourished, I have sank. But with every rise and fall, each twist and turn, I have always been moving forward on this road. Dan's spirit, his fire, his sense of humor....and that smile, it is always with me.

 

I have so many blessings: I have a husband who hold my hand every step of every journey and

is my biggest cheering section. We have the two weirdest, funny, and amazing children. My
family, my friends, my people!! They are beyond words incredible. I am grateful beyond any 
words.

 
 

I've never been a fan of the phrase, "Everything happens for a reason." I mean,  sure, it may (or may not) be true, but either way, it isn't helpful when your heart is in the depths of despair. Knowing the, "reason" will not be revealed until we 

look into the eyes of our Savior. It will be then when our lives will be laid out like 

road maps of paths that led us to Him. 

I do, however, know that His mysterious ways have steered me to a very strong, safe, and happy place. Never to forget the past, always to say I love you in the present, and never to take the future for granted.

Roots

 If you have walked with or followed this journey of mine in any way, you know that anxiety is a family member and you are inevitably aware that it is, once again, December...

My therapist, Jay, asked me last session how I was handling my December extra-anxiety. I told her that I actually felt much better than past yule-times and that I was proud of myself. I then went on telling her about scheduling physicals, how I was worried about Nick getting diabetes in the future, and that I check my kids' temperature and breathing on a regular basis. Ok, so maybe not, "much better". Thank God I can have a chuckle about it, because living with it is honestly exhausting. 

Jay gave me some homework and asked me to dig really deep to try and identify the first time I had the dreaded feeling. The racing heart, the pitted stomach, the feeling of being startled without provocation. I immediately went to the room. That cold hospital conference room where the doctor said, "There was nothing else I could do." Even as that memory gut-punches me to this day, that was not the first time. I went back a little further. High school? Even though every thought about decisions and choices I made in high school currently give me anxiety (because I have a children), that's not it either. I keep digging. I was 12, we were on a family vacation in Emerald Isle North Carolina. Something terrible happened to me there, and though that event indefinitely had a hand in shaping who I am today, it still was not the root of my anxiety. 

There are many inspirational quotes about roots and trees with one common denominator: roots are deep and steadfast and taproots are almost impossible to remove. When a root so deep is damaged, it endangers the life of the tree. I went far enough down to find where my root was harmed. And it was a place I haven't visited for a long time. 

The garage door on St. Charles- this is my root.  It was slow, loud, and horribly foreshadowing every time it opened. It meant our step-dad was home. The husband my mom was blindsided into marrying. Have you seen, "Dirty John"? Well that doesn't even come close. Jaim and I would come home from school and do everything humanly possible in the, "main" part of the house so that when that sound took our breath away like a belly-flop gone wrong, we knew we could spend the rest of the night in our rooms, if need be. We gorged food, she helped me with homework, we watched Guiding Light, we talked, and then....we waited.

Some days he would come home and go right to the basement to his computer. We could smell the cigarette smoke wafting up the stairs and we knew that if we were silent and tip-toed, we could mill about the kitchen or even sit on the porch and wait for mom when the weather permitted. Other days he came home mad. The cigarette would already be burning, hanging from his lower lip and stuck there like the tiniest bit of super glue was holding in place. He stomped and slammed cabinets to give us our warning. If we stayed in our rooms, we could be ok, but if we didn't shut and lock it fast enough, one of us was going to pay for his bad day. 

I asked my sister before writing this if she minded that I now release this pain into the atmosphere. We have buried this truth for decades. And just like a quote in the book I am reading now, "Bygones can be like collard greens, they become bitter if you keep them in your mouth too long", my fear is that I continue to vandalize the root instead of nursing it to health. 

For the sake of repairing the root that my mother invested her life in fostering, Jaim's root, and my root, I share. On behalf of healing and one day maybe, just maybe saying goodbye to anxiety once and for all, I share. For someone who is struggling with their own damaged root, and for those whose roots are being damaged in real time, I share. You are not alone. 

Although it is, in my case, the emotional abuse that resonates with me more, the pictures I conjure of my sister throwing herself over me to protect me from any blows intended for me, start my heart racing all over again. The invasion of privacies and the gross overbearing misuse of power are all right there at the root. The little details of his abuse are not as pertinent as what the abuse turned us into. Hungry. Hungry for love, hungry for attention, missing our mom who would stay locked in the basement or bedroom with him, while he told her how horrible she was and what terrible children she had. She stayed in those rooms, because when he was at his worst with her....she knew she was protecting us from him. 

One day my mom stayed home from work. She NEVER missed work. When J and I got home, he wasn't home yet. She told us that we were leaving. She had bought a townhouse and that we were not going to school tomorrow. There was no shock on our faces, we grabbed hands and jumped for joy. I was 15, my sister almost 18. My mom said, "We need to be fast, and we need to be quiet. We are the Three Musketeers and nothing will ever break us again." The nexts day, as the man whom we would never mention in our house again was at a golf tournament, we moved our entire lives into that new home. We had no furniture. We shared a makeshift bed of comforters on the living room floor those first few nights. But we had it all. We had each other. We had everything. 

I guess this is just about as good an ending as you can have in a story like this, however the, "everything"in that last sentence, included anxiety as our new family member. And though we never said we were now the "4 Musketeers", we were never quite the same either. 

So there it is. That's my root. The day my evil twin Anxiety was born. And though my, December Anxiety is strong with me, like the force... I also carry pride, joy, hope, faith, and love. I am proud of my mom. I am proud of my sister and I and our resilience (with some hiccups along the way ;-) ). I have so much joy and love in my family and with my friends that I often feel unworthy of such abundance. Even at the darkest moments of my life, I had faith. I knew God was with me, he has never left me, and continues to carry me this very day. 

I will sign off tonight with hope. Hope that my story may begin the healing process for whatever part of your, "root" that is damaged. Hope that you know things that happen to you, do not define you. 

ps. I love you, J. You have, "saved" me so many times and in so many ways. I was not your gift, you are mine. XO 

Moving

As a young widow of 29, HATED the word, moving. Moving through, moving ahead, moving...on. I have also despised every time I had to physically move, and it's been a-lot!!

I remember each time vividly. From Ramblewood to St. Charles. St. Charles to Falcon Crest. Falcon Crest to Tolstoy, Tolstoy to Newton, Newton to...darn, what street was that off Nanticoke in Salisbury? Help me out, Friend. From that street back to Tolstoy. Leaving Salisbury, I cried for the entire two hours to Redeyes, where I had to work that night. My eyes were so puffy and swollen, a regular customer ran out and bought me some Preparation H to help me out!

Then began the journey of my, "adult" moves. I moved back to Falcon Crest, renting that town house from my parents for a while. I moved in with Dan, I moved out for a while and into a condo with Wendy. Dan and I decided together was better than apart, and I moved BACK in. We bought the Aspenwood townhouse, made the best friends, had the biggest laughs, and adopted the dogs that became the reason I got out of bed in the mornings after he died.

When Nick eventually moved into Aspenwood with me, new beautiful memories began, and when we got married, and became a family of 3 and two enormous dogs, we knew we needed some more space. We found the split level on Mt. Hope Court and fell in love. The backyard was enormous and we knew that Lawson and any brothers or sisters she would come to have, would love it. We spent 5 years at Mt. Hope Court. When talking to my therapist about my feelings on leaving Mt. Hope, I dove into the beautiful memories that I am taking with me to the new house. The harder part was when she asked me if I would be able to leave the hurt that ensued in that house, behind. Losing Levi's twin, the loss of Marlo and Gunner, and one other painful curve-ball to our family that I wasn't sure we would get through. We did, however, get through it, and became stronger because of it. As for the loss of Levi's sister, I will always tear up when I talk about it. I will always look at him on birthdays and think, this party would have been super heroes AND princesses, I will always wonder, "what if". But, on the other side of that, I am SO happy. I am SO blessed. I am the mom of the two silliest, weirdest, best laughs, best smiles kids.

As the kiddos grew, the itch to move into a community with other kids became great. Our street on Mt. Hope was quiet, and wonderful, but there were no other kids for L & L. We began the search. We wanted to be close to Piney so that L & L would be close to their school friends for play-dates, playing sports together, etc. We looked at a few houses, but nothing checked all of our major boxes.

As Nancy's stories of her neighborhood, the friends she has made, the fun her kids were having...visiting her pool with her last summer, etc, we decided to check out Two Rivers. All we were going to do was look at the model. Fast forward, we have been on Waxwing Ct. in The Woodland at Two Rivers for exactly 1 month tomorrow!! I think it is safe to say that this is the best decision we have made for our family ever. The kids are the happiest they have ever been. The house is gorgeous, but more than that, the true sense of community, and that "it takes a villiage" attitude is so evident. We have made instant friends, and L &L mix in with all the other kids like they have been here for years. It is beautiful, it is heart warming, soul filling, laugh-having, ALL THE FEELS.

It wouldn't be reality to think that we aren't going to have some heartaches in this house too, but I can say with a pretty strong sense of certainty, the years to come in this home, are going to be full of love, smiles, and joy.

Moving is no longer a loaded word. We are moving forward, and it is beautiful.

Hello Forever Home.

A New Shade

I could't quite put my finger on it. Why I ended up crying so hard. The song isn't even that catchy, or good (in my opinion) and yet, there I was, short of breath and dying inside. Tim McGraw was singing about calling his mom, and that was all it took. It took a while to sort through the obvious, and get to the real root of the meltdown. Of course I miss my mom. Our bodies remember trauma, and not only is Mother's day coming up, her angel date just passed. But that wasn't it. It was the realization that I never had the opportunity to fully appreciate my mom while she was alive.

As a little girl, I thought my mom was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was cool, kind,  and even though I didn't quite understand it then, she was never left alone in a parking lot, or a mall, or the grocery store line for long without someone (usually a man) being drawn to her like a magnet. Men fell over themselves to load that black Mustang 5.0 with our groceries and buckets (literally buckets) of flowers appeared on our porch for years. She worked hard and prayed harder and I wanted to be just like her.

As a teenager, I thought I knew MUCH better than mother and we butted heads. I made some really bad choices and am sure told her I hated her once or twice. She never followed through with sending me to boarding school (although she probably would have if we had any money). But the local AAPD officer was part of her fan club and picked me up from school my junior year upon her request and my detest. As you can imagine appreciation ran very low these years. When I think about it now, and Lawson treating me like that in the future, or acting IN ANY WAY like I did, I want to cry and go back in time to throat punch my past self.

She never really approved of my bar-tending years and then Dan and I decided we were going to move in together pre-marriage, well, you can only imagine. I remember her coming to our house in Aspenwood, after we purchased it and not looking directly at the bed in the master bedroom. It made me eye roll, but still not appreciating the reasons behind her concerns. Then I think about that photo of her and Dan on our wedding day, as she is gently touching his smiling face. She had to be so pleased he made an "honest" woman out of me.

When Dan was tragically taken from us, my mom had a new role. She worked all day and then would come over just to lay eyes on me before going home. Or she would pray the prayers I couldn't pray and hug me until I fell asleep, head in her lap. Of course I appreciated her and she was mom, she was what I needed, but I was so far in the deep end of my grief, that I didn't realize the appreciation I had back then.

Then a short year and 5 months later, she was gone.

I remarried, had Lawson, got pregnant with twins, lost a twin, had Levi, settled into motherhood, it happens so fast. But the worst of the pain didn't begin until then. As I grew as a mother, the need for my own mother was ten-fold.

Yesterday, as that song played, and I snotted down my face in my car, fumbling for a brown crinkly glove compartment napkin, I looked upon a new shade of grief. Grieving the ability to properly appreciate my mom before I didn't have the chance to anymore. Appreciate her in a way that would make her realize what an impact she has had on me as a mother and as a person. I am different now than I was even 8 years ago when she was taken from us. I want her to see that in person. She really never had a chance to see the fruits of her effort in full bloom. There is no doubt in my mind that our relationship would have been closer than we ever were, right now. Right now as I am in the thick of little kids, behavior management, and elbow deep in glitter crafts and spider man string. Right now.  The "Three Muskateers" (J, mom, and I) I'm sure would still do our annual Christmas shopping, spoiling all children to the max. And my amazing sister would have less of a burden worrying about my anxiety and filtering all of my child-rearing questions. Bud would have to share the live video chats and grand-kid, "I love yous". I would have less of this emptiness.

Side note: A global pandemic and the results of such only add to my fifty shades of grief. Pretty sure all of you that made it to this point, could have read a million other things that made you smile instead of  turning you into captains of sadness, but I appreciate you sharing my road.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful mothers in my life. I will never waste a second letting you ALL know how much I appreciate you! 

Title-less

I am screaming on the inside. A deep, creeping up from the toes, and exploding like the outer casing of a Jiffy-Pop, kind of scream. We have all had our share of grief, some more than others. But now, this grief is one that we are all sharing together...yet so far apart.

Personally, I am grieving my job. I never wanted to sit behind a computer or be any kind of tech support. I knew that my animated face and silly/juvenile sense of humor was better suited on stage. Not that stage, but the one in front of sweet faces with their futures, a vast blue ocean in front of them, and I am one of their lighthouses along the way. Never again will I take for granted the opportunity to pull a student to the back table to work one on one with a difficult subject. I will never underestimate the power of a reassuring hand on a shoulder and eyes that say, "It's ok, let's try again." I will from here on out, when I am with my students again, take a mental snapshot of every smile, every lightbulb that suddenly goes bright, all of the big and all of little...all of the things.

I am grieving self care. My hair, I don't even know what to say about it. My makeupless face, because, well, what's the point? All those pretty clothes in my closet and I wear workout gear 24/7.

I grieve alone-time. The only time I am alone is when I am on a run (and getting little pep-talks from Jill encouraging me to make sure I do eventually run home 🤣). When Nick offers me some time to be alone, I either run, shower, or sleep. Not because my body needs it, not because I am not getting enough at night, but because my mind needs it. If I am left to think, my mind creates more chaos than what I am already living, and that is too much to handle.

My children. Oh Lord, my children. The little centers of my universe, the suns of my sun, and the moons of my moon. Every little sarcastic smirk, nonstop machine gun talking, WE did that. They are little NickTiffins and IT'S AWFUL!!!! Zero degrees of separation from L&L. I tuck those little cheeks in bed every night and then in the millisecond of a blink, they are right there, with the early peekaboo of the sun, in my face, ready to start the day. And what day? The SAME day. THE SAME DAMN DAY AS YESTERDAY!!!

Every day as my anxiety fills, the me that I love, empties. The carbs ain't cuttin' it, and I feel my turtle shell growing larger and more obtrusive around me.

I know that even though I am, in most ways alone, besides immediate family, I am far from alone in these feelings. We can love our children and still want them to GO AWAY with every fiber of our being. We can connect with our students online, but still feel so far removed from the art of teaching, that we wonder, does this matter?, multiple times a day. We can put on the face mask and deep conditioner at night, but wake up in the morning and forget to brush teeth until 5.

I guess the the new title of my blog should be:  The woman, who is now 40 and not so young,  who used to be a widow, then had a mess of other really bad shit happen, and a ton of fantastic things too, and is now navigating a very narrow road of teaching from home, teaching her own kids, trying to still be a wife Nick wants to be married to, and a worldwide pandemic. Too much? Maybe just a little.

If there is ever a point to any of my writings, besides making me feel better, I hope that this touches another person that is struggling like a mofo right now too. Hugs.