More Than Momma

I always wanted a Big Wheel.  They were the coolest ride for kids my age back in the day.  I swore that everyone had one, except for me.  I had an Inchworm.  I think part of it was because my parents were just flat out smart that I had no business with any Mean Machine on the very steep street we lived on that dumped off into another well-traveled street.  I mean it was bad enough that I lost a roller skate wheel once going down that death trap of a hill. When we moved out to the country, I was too old for one but I wanted a new bike.  I knew exactly what I wanted. BMX type bikes were all the rage post high handlebars and banana seats and I did not do very well with that last biking sensation.  You see I wanted to be like the guys who had the jumping BMX bikes so I tried to jump my non-BMX bike over the curb at my first elementary school parking lot.  Can you say "bottom teeth through top lip" and holy blood? So when I outgrew my deathtrap of a bi...

The youngest went back to college this weekend.  He moved himself in. I was a thousand miles away. And it was the very first time in over 20 years that I did not have to brave any store for any supply of any kind for the Back-to-School rush. While his brother was in college, he was relatively close so we would go to help out with the annual college move or post summer sublet clean up. But this year, due to family conflicts in scheduling, the youngest went it alone.  He even said, "I rely on you too much momma.  I need to do this on my own!"   Knife to the gut! I know that for some folks, this is the norm.  You help them pack up the car and send them off.  But I have always kind of been a little extra when it came to my boys.  Add to it that I am a former educator and that brings Back-to-School to an entirely next level experience. And when they were younger, crazy!  I remember having to but double of everything after the divorce- one set for ...

 Maryland crabs steamed in Old Bay.  That was my father's delicacy.  Forget caviar or a gigantic ribeye steak.  Forget champagne or some hard to find spirit.  Give my dad all you can eat Maryland crabs and cold beer and life could hardly get any better. He could sit and pick crab for hours and not get tired.  You see, picking crabs is a social affair, or it should be.  Maybe that was what he loved about it since Daddy could talk. One of the places I remember going for all you can eat was a little place called The Cracked Claw. In time, I would work there.  My first real job beyond babysitting and my newspaper route that Daddy insisted I have.  I was the salad bar girl.  Basically I set up and took down the salad bar when I worked.  I was in charge of coving the tables with brown paper that spooled of a metal mount on the wall and I was in charge of busing the same tables once they were littered with carcasses, empty drawn butter dis...

 My parents weren't overly religious people. Mom was raised Jewish and Daddy raised a Christian. Mom was not bat mitzvahed and do not really know if Daddy went through any formal rights of passage.  But they both believed in God. It was 1967, and my father had proposed to my mother.  They were to be wed in the summer after her graduation while he would be on a short leave back in the states. In order for her to be able to go with him to his next post in Germany, they would need to be married. At that time, this was problematic.  Dad was not Jewish.  There was not time to convert and mom, she is a stubborn gal, refused to force this in order to be married in the synagogue.  Mom was not a Christian and was not going to convert.  I am guessing my Gram and PopPop would have lost their minds to that.  So there was no church where they could be married.  And, they could not locate any religious officiant who would marry them outside of the the acco...

 Last winter, the hubs and I had quite a bit of construction done outside which had left much of our yard a muddy marsh by the end of the spring thaw.  Having never actually grown grass from seed, I was certain that a large truck would bring us pallets of beautiful grass to roll out like carpet.  That we would water it and almost immediately have the lush green lawns seen on most every house flipping show streaming today. I was wrong.  Very wrong. Unbeknownst to me, our yard is made up of a rocky substance called shale.  Once the topsoil was upturned to regrade the yard, a crap ton of shale. Once the numerous trees were removed and the earth somewhat reshaped, a crap ton of more shale. And to top it off, not all of the fallen tree pieces made it to the wood piles and became buried amongst the soil.  On top of all of that, there arose a plethora of quartz and other rocks whose names are unknown to this commoner. And it all, or mostly all, apparently has to b...

 I have been going to some kind of therapy since my early 20's.  I am a professional at going but not at getting it all to stick sometimes. I have been to counseling for anger, anxiety, and depression.  Marriage counseling, family counseling, and grief counseling. Spiritual-based, cognitive-based, and mindfulness-based therapy. Holy moly guacamole. Maybe I am a little obsessed? Maybe I really am/was a tad bananas? Maybe I just want to find ways to be a better, happier human?   I like to think that it is the last one of the three. I fervently believe that therapy is a good thing and it has been of benefit to me in so many times of my life.  What I have come to learn, however, is that therapy is not only something that one needs to seek out when life is in the proverbial toilet.  Like coloring my greys, getting check-ups or mammograms, talking to a skilled professional about my mental and emotional well-being is a type of personal maintenance equally as ...

 The 1970's and 80's were an interestingly wonderful time to grow up.  While bras had been burned and opinions were evolving on race, gender, and even sexuality, there was so much that was still ingrained in everyday life, at least within the suburbs and countryside outside of our nation's capital.  Or is it capitol?  I told you not to expect correct spelling long ago. And while women were becoming legislatures, news anchors, and surgeons, just as many, if not more, were staying home and conforming to the social norms expected of them.  More females worked as divorce started to become less taboo and I was part of the very first latch key generation.  Hang a key on a shoelace and pop it around our necks to let ourselves in after school.  And no, most of us did not die. But in my home, there were still so many things that a good girl just did not do.   Girls could not have a boy in the house with nobody home, even if said boy was her bestie and...

 I do not know when this love affair began but I know when the realization that it existed hit me right between the eyes. We had been working an entire day in the woods surrounding our house.  Moving logs.  Hauling brush.  Splitting and stacking wood. Battling yellow jackets. Braving giant brown fuzzy spiders.  It was harrowing work, not for the faint of heart.  Ok, it was normal work following the clearing of many large trees that I had never experienced in my life and it was HOT.  The smell of myself offended me. This was not our first day out back working, but it was a day where I persevered over pain and allergic reactions to stings.  I was determined to prove that I could hang with the hubs. And then he said those magic words! "I think after this we should go to Jimmie Cone (best local ice cream ever). We have earned it." I jumped and squealed with delight.  Clapping my hands in approval.  Smile as wide as my best Christmas morning....

 Life is not perfect.  But I thought that others actually had the perfect life.   My friends had happier parents, more friends, and carefree lives.  Other kids were attractive, the ones everyone wanted to be like and be around, and never had a worry in the world.  Other marriages were blissful, fulfilling, and without constant struggle. Other moms were perfecting parenting and were raising amazing humans without even batting an eye- Don't get me wrong because my kids are pretty darn amazing people. I was raised at a time, in an era, with a home where appearances mattered.  It was not necessarily what went on inside the home that mattered.  It was what others perceived to be that was important. But it was all a facade.  A farce. Now I do not blame my parents for living like this.  It is what they knew and what they aspired to be.  It was actually what the media was feeding them much like what social media is feeding our children toda...

Hello darkness.  You are not my friend.  I have no idea what lurks within your shadows and beneath my bed, but my imagination and bits of reality shape the terror that can freeze me in place. Since childhood, darkness, you have haunted me.  You have been my nemesis. For decades, you defeated me. You might say that this is a fairly common fear for children and even adults, but where does it start?  Where does it come from?  I have to imagine that there was a time that I did not need that night light as a child. There must have been.  I couldn't have been born with this fear, right? Some will say that phobias and fears, even those that are irrational, stem from some event. Some trauma.  I mean, there have been traumatic things to happen in my life, but in relation to the dark?Nope.  I got nothing on that one.   But then again, if there was truly a trauma, would one actually know?  I mean people suppress those, don't they? I do know th...