Movember, Men, and Mamalode

NaBloPoMo Day 3 is in celebration of having my words published in what Lisa Stone, CEO of BlogHer calls, "America's best parenting magazine."

I'm thrilled to be published on Mamalode today, and their theme for Movember is aptly, "Men." My essay there "How My Boys Healed Me" tells of how a houseful of four males shed light in the way I once viewed them.

I'd be grateful if you clicked over to mamalode, and if you like what you read, please share.

To say I am honored and thrilled to be on their pages would be an understatement.

Thank you for sharing my work today, mamalode. And thank you to everyone, who shares in my joy today.

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This post is part of National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo. Click to learn more about it and to participate on your own blog. If you've written a NaBloPoMo post, feel free to share it in the comments.

ICYMI - Best of the Internet

Fun discoveries on the internet this week:

--Like this site: Astronomy Picture of the Day. A picture a day of our universe. Holds me in awe and my children, even more. Click and see.

--This one blows my mind: different kinds of rainy day music from rainymood . com. Really. I work best to nature's sounds, like rain, and with this, I can choose heavy, light, sporadic: SO COOL.

--A free download from sarahselecky . com on the ten most common mistakes short fiction writers make when they submit their work. Sign up and read this guide before you send your story out. I subscribe to sarah's free newsletter that includes a daily writing prompt... I get a lot of writing ideas from it.

That's the best of the best. I wish you a good week, with some fun, some production, and some just do nothing moments in it.

xo

Don't Want To Disappoint the Hispanic Seekers

With thanks to Jenni Chiu, for the inspiration.

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At the end of the day, my kids and I like to see what google searches bring people over to this blog. The searches are always a surprise and we try to figure out what post brings "Fat bottomed mom" and "Hoarder's house" seekers to the yard.

This week, I've had a couple of "What do Spanish people look like?"" and "Are Latinas too short for ponchos?"

I don't want anyone disappointed by what they find when they land here on this blog, so the call to help these people seeking answers to their searing questions that are important enough for them to turn to google at 1 a.m. is loud and clear.

I will help you.

You want to know what Spanish people look like?

Easy.

They look like this:



Blonde and blue-eyed, like my son.

or like this:

  Dark haired and green-eyed, like my other son.

 Sometimes, Spanish people look like this:

Dark haired, brown-eyed, olive skinned.

You can also find Spanish people with tan colored skin, and hazel eyes.

 Like this son.

If you want to know what Spanish people look like, sometimes they're beautifully copper, like my cherished nephew, Tomas.

This is what we look like in a group.

 
So, dear "What do Spanish people look like," I sincerely hope your search here has helped you to see that Spanish people can be light, dark, in between, straight haired, curly haired, blue eyed, brown eyed.

My apologies, also, for this long winded post, when I really could have just quenched your google thirst for information regarding Spanish people with one sentence, "The women are the most beautiful in the world and the men are like Greek gods."

Now, as for "Are Latina women too short to wear ponchos?," this is a serious matter. Please google search "Are short white women too short to wear ponchos?," this should lead you to "Carnivorous Blanket: how to avoid."

Happy searching!

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Care.com is a great site, featuring resources for health care, parenting tips, and more. Check out their fun feature today, where I and eight other bloggers, let you in on the Halloween costumes we survived as children.

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Soap Box Time

It's been awhile since I stood up here and wagged my finger. God I hate that finger thing about myself. Trying to stop that habit, but anyway, with my hands folded behind my back I need to talk to some of you about something called, "I'm not good enough."

As in what I read on twitter this week, used in this way, "I won't nominate myself for BlogHer Voice of The Year because I'm not good enough."

Would you tell a friend they're not good enough? Would you discourage a friend from trying to go for something? Then why would you talk to yourself that way?

Tell yourself you are that good, submit that post of yours that you are so proud of, and the one where your own words make you cry, and the one that makes you laugh every time you read it. Send that baby in here.

How can you tell your kids to go for it and reach for their dreams if you don't do it yourself?

Go. Now.

Dang. The finger came out again, didn't it?

*submit, encourage, cheer and VOTE*

I love you guys.

* * *

Announcing Room of Your Own BlogHer Sessions for 2013

I'm thrilled and excited to share the news that Erin Margolin of The Road To My Writer Roots and I will be part of a panel presenting a Room of Your Own roundtable at this year's BlogHer 2013, being held in Chicago July 25 through 27.

We'll be hosting "Shedding the Façade and Writing our Vulnerable Truth," on Friday, July 25. A Room of Your Own is a 45 minute dialogue between a panel of four bloggers and the audience. BlogHer promises to assemble a diverse group of bloggers who will discuss what it's like to put our lives out for public viewing, and what, if any, restrictions we follow.

Come share, come talk; this promises to be a gathering of lessons learned, wisdom gained, and bonding through shared ideals.

We can't wait to see you!

BlogHer '13: Room of Your Own Roundtable: Shedding the Façade and Writing our Vulnerable Truth 

Friday, July 25, 10:30-11:15 | Shedding the Façade and Writing our Vulnerable Truth
In a world where judgment is rapid fire, the survival instinct we're born with is to not appear weak. Join bloggers who have shed the façade. Rather than private struggles and only working through life's questions within an inner circle, they have created strong, supportive communities. By bringing their truth -- sharing 100 percent of themselves, through working out depression and mental health histories, the challenges of finding a community, deciding what is right and what is wrong, by taking on less than popular stances, these bloggers have found strength where most expect the fear of appearing less than perfect. We hunger for connection, and connection comes from sharing our honest, real, and vulnerable selves.

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Mama's Comfort Camp

My friend Yael Saar is a mama on a mission to remove guilt and shame from parenting in order to make room for joy and love. With this in mind, she created Mama's Comfort Camp, and this month, she is celebrating the one year anniversary of this baby -- and I don't think she's been prouder of any other thing in her life.

She is the Founder and Keeper of the Mama’s Comfort Camp, a Facebook community that functions as a safe haven and refueling station for hundreds of moms from around the world. This community is free and open to moms of kids of any age, and we share our laughter, tears, and triumphs, all the while normalizing our motherhood struggles and bridging the gap between expectations and reality in a uniquely judgment-free environment.

Follow Mama's Comfort Camp on Facebook, where you'll find a community of acceptance, talk without judgment, and an openness to communication that may be just what you're looking for. Yael is an example of how the internet saves our lives.

I'm proud to be one of the Campers there today, and I would love for you to join us. 

Secretly, My Life Was Better Than Easter Baskets

Hard to not be envious, as a child, of the kids who had Easter baskets taller than they were, stuffed with 24 inch high chocolate bunnies (bet they were hollow), miniature chocolate bunny eggs wrapped in pretty yellow and purple foil (impossible to peel, anyhow), and plastic eggs rattling with coins inside (pennies, I'm sure).

Hard.

Unless you had something better during this time of year, like I did.

We Colombians do a lot of things to the moon and back, and Easter -- well, come find out why I say "No thanks, you can have your shredded plastic green grass."

I'm always proud to be featured at TikiTikiBlog, I'd love to see you there today for "La Via Dolorosa."

*thank you.

The Unpreparedness of No Good-bye

Grief,
the resounding echo
to one’s new reality.
Existing in time,
without part of one’s heart;

Grief,
the resounding echo
feeling, so surreal
Existing in time,
without part of one’s heart;
pain, deep, unable to feel.

Grief,
the resounding echo
tolerating days,
Existing in time
without part of one’s heart;
the unpreparedness of no good bye.

~Susan Alldred Lugton

My beautiful nephew died suddenly early Sunday morning, before the day even had a chance to begin. My heart is broken and my tears won't stop from the pain of not wanting this to be true for my sister's child. There is not enough room here to tell of the tightness in my throat that I can't swallow away and memories of a little boy echoing so desperately in my mind that they scream "Come back!" The only word for what we are right now is devastated. 

I hate that this is real.

Please send us your prayers, your love, your hope for our healing -- for something that feels so far out of the natural order. 

Thank you. 

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ICYMI

Back to the best of the internet this past week. A few pressing things moved my usual In Case You Missed It post out of its Monday time slot, but I can squeeze one entry in before Thanksgiving posts are due. At more than one place.

Lots to laugh over, ponder, smile with, relate, and slap five to. So let's get started, y'all:

In Case You Missed It: (the best of the web this week)


--Life in its heart clutching moments, a post from a delightful blog where two sisters, Jen and Sarah, co-write. On Momalom, Tuning In. Just a few sentences, but such a red hot arrow to the truth of what is life but moments, guaranteed to melt you into a puddle. In the best bleary eyes from tears way.

--Some great advice on how to grab a reader's attention with your first sentences. From write it sideways, a blog you need to follow. They have daily tips on ways to improve your writing, like their post "6 Ways to Hook Your Reader From The Very First Line." In their words, "Since 2009, ‘Write It Sideways’ has been helping you see the world of writing from a fresh perspective. Our experienced team can help you learn new skills, define your goals, increase your productivity, and prepare for publication. Plus, we’ll try really hard not to be boring when we do it.

-- A blog that feeds your mind, your soul, your eyes, your heart. Chookooloonks. I don't have to point you to a specific post there, because anything you find at Karen Walrond's place of beautiful in word and photo, will set you in your day. Truly, Chookooloonks is a gold mine of a find on the internet. Click over, and you'll find yourself just a little bit of an improved, inspired you. Every day.

--And a post that went viral--though it should have gone antibacterial--laugh and snort your way through the tale of what happened to a very pregnant woman who just wanted a late trimester massage. NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH, but so unbelievably well told and ridiculously funny. Hands down, yes--a nightmare of a massage, and yet? Pamie.com makes us laugh. **Pamela Ribons has written four books, and after reading her post here, I am buying every single one of them.

***

Have a great week, everyone!  Remember to count your blessings and write them in stone--and write your troubles in sand. Enjoy Thanksgiving, and all the tales that come along with it. Because family will be involved. 

Maybe you'd like to borrow my doormat?: "Friends welcome. Relatives by appointment."

xo

Thanks Giving 101

For the past 20 years, I have been falling asleep in the same way: in quiet thoughts of thankfulness for all that I’ve been given and all that I have.

I read a post earlier this week where the author shared her perspective on life’s trials and challenges. She wrote that she worked hard to find good in all of life's situations. Tragedy aside, life is full of difficulties. Difficult can feel insurmountable, but putting our chair in a different corner of the room allows a fresh look at something that we'd rather not have to deal with.

Sometimes, you have to decide to find some good in the worst of things.

Giving thanks, thanksgiving, is something that I had to make a deliberate decision to implement in my life.

I had grown tired of  feeling angry, shortchanged, and envious of all that others seemed to have--but that I didn't. I was tired of waking up that way--dissatisfied and sorry for myself. I was tired of falling asleep like that, asking why I wasn't one of the lucky ones. Morning and night, my mind went to discontent and emptiness. That was my life.

About 20 years ago, I found a book on making your life's work be the cultivation of an attitude of gratitude. I wanted that: to be thankful every day for many, many things--for the people that make up my life, for the experiences that I’ve had, for the wonderful characters that have played roles along my journey here. For the sun on my face, for a body that is still capable, for a clear night sky, for my family, my friends, for the gift of being able to write, for the opportunity to contribute in some way.

It is the conscious act of gratefulness that will make for the quality of life.

Feeling grateful feels good--that's not just a feeling in our head and heart. Research done by D. Jeannine Calaba, Psy.D., author of The Power of Appreciation, has done studies that confirm that when people feel thankfulness, good things happen to their minds, hearts, and bodies. They sleep better, they are more content, they are more patient, they feel more fulfilled and are more supportive to those around them, they have a bounce in their step. People who practice gratefulness have less depression, anxiety, envy, and jealousy.

Giving thanks for what we have creates positive energy that others feel. It is a force that can transform disagreements, calm strained relationships, improve work situations, help to accept health adversities, maybe make peace with aging. Being grateful can pull us through financial crises, medical challenges, children with special needs, and the valleys in life.

Gratitude has come to mean living in peace and joy with what I already have in my life. I can want more, absolutely, but I can work toward any goals with the assurance in my heart of being happy with what I already have. I no longer pursue dreams with the thought, "Then I will be happy." To hold gratitude for the life I have and the people I share it with, deepens the love I feel for those around me.

I want to be that person that says, “I am fortunate in the life I have. I will find happiness in my life. If I have nothing more than I have now, I will still remain content.”

Being appreciative makes you look at your life as more than trials, difficulties, and bridges that seem too far to cross--being grateful releases joy.

I have spent too many years being angry over things that seemed unfair in my life.

Anger at losing my father at only six years old. Anger at being raised by a clinically depressed and detached mother. Anger at trying to grow up American, but being too different to fit in. Anger at not finding my way and looking nothing like everyone else while a teenager. Anger at seeing all that everyone else had that I didn't. Anger that my three pregnancies required five months of bed rest each. Then, anger at children being born early requiring NICU stays and coming home on apnea monitors. Anger at my children having peanut and dairy and egg and beef and countless allergies all meshed together with asthma and eczema requiring steroids. Anger at feeling so out of place in my small town. I could go on still and write a second paragraph on all that I was angry about--but that wouldn't be good for anyone.

So. Much. Anger. They say to never go to bed angry--well, I don't think I slept for 18 years.

All that anger that would never bring me any closer to the happiness that I ironically chased. When I decided to work toward being grateful, my eyes were opened to all the miracles I had missed: like being able to be what has made me the happiest in my life: a mother. My children who survived tenuous first years, but are now healthy, a devoted husband, a home that is never without heat or food, my good health, being able to spend time on my writing, my three boys who express their love to me every day. 

I grew to become appreciative for all my experiences, because they are what made me into who you read on this blog. Yes, it was tragic to lose my father to suicide when I was six and that my mother became despondent after that. BUT, but, I was raised by a dedicated grandmother whose influence remains with me today, and I was a bright child, always able to transfer my thoughts to paper and and keep notebooks full of my stories.

I was very good at the written word and this won me scholarships. I was able to attend college. And being able to write, here, and to have a place to work through my stuff, y'all. I mean, how much better does it get?

Tonight, when I lay in bed for those first few moments, I will close my eyes, and take a sweet, deep breath. I will think--and smile--with thoughts of all the good that is in my life. There is so much.

I will fall asleep being grateful for another day, for my life, and for what I have here--with all of you.

I am grateful for you, your thoughts, your time. The gift of you and your energy.

You fill me with joy.

Thank you.

***

**Just given another reason to be grateful: mamapedia ( a collective site I love with a readership of 800,000) just notified me they've syndicated one of my posts today, True Mommy Confessions. Please stop by, add your own confession, and think about submitting your writing to mampedia. Great opportunity for exposure and they've got a nice community of dedicated readers there. 

To My East Coast Friends: Mi Casa Es Tu Casa

My friends on the East Coast have been hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. Many still with flooded basements, like DustyEarthMom, and many going on Day Ten without power or gas, like VerbVixen. (read her post today, for a heartbreaking account of what life is like right now after Sandy)

I have a love letter to my East Coast bunch up at Aiming Low today, and I mean every word.

The internet has brought you into my life, all you wonderful smart and funny people from the East, and I'm sorry it's taken a storm of the century for me to tell you how special you are to me.

My love letter to my friends on the internet, caught in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

You are a hardy bunch, but still, wouldn't hearing how much we love you and care about you, feel really good about now?

xo

***

The Aussies Nail It. Again. R U OK? Day

Have you heard about this? R U OK ? Day. It's got me inspired, and in turn, it's inspiring my kids. The day is Thursday, September 13, an international day set aside to ask each other, "Are you OK?"

The R U OK Day? organization has a motivating website that tells you everything you need to know, as well as some ideas on how to ask someone more about their life. Ideas on how to begin are here.

R U OK? Day is an international day of action that began in Australia. On the second Thursday of September (13 September 2012), the day is dedicated to inspiring all people of all backgrounds to regularly ask each other "Are you OK?"

In their words, "By raising awareness about the importance of connection and providing resources throughout the year, the R U OK? Foundation aims to prevent isolation by empowering people to support each other through life's ups and downs. By regularly reaching out to one another with open and honest conversations, we can all help build a more connected community."

Very cool.

I'm excited to initiate conversation, strengthen existing relationships, and maybe make surface acquaintances into something deeper, by asking one small question. You may give someone the courage to ask for help by asking "Are you OK?" You might stop little problems from becoming bigger, because you got involved. Help is always available and it’s important for people to know that someone cares enough to support them, even more so if they're struggling. Show you care by asking how they are.

You don’t have to be an expert to support someone going through a tough time. You just need to be able to listen to them, without judgment and take the time to follow up. Ask, listen, encourage. For ideas on where to start, how to start, and some great examples on how to ask "Are you OK?" click here. Share the list with your children.

I challenged my family, me included, to ask someone we only know on a surface level, on Thursday, September 13, "Are you OK?"

Just that one question from you on that one day, may change a life. Or, at the very least, it will bring a smile. Most people don't openly share their feelings, especially if they feel shame in their problems. The best thing we can all do is regularly talk to the people around us - regardless of whether they are at risk - because connection is good for everyone.

Here's to your chance, September 13: R U OK? Day. Ask a question that could change a life.

You Are My North, My South, My Sun, My Moon

Image via Flickr  cc

Once there was a well-meaning, well-intentioned woman who had three children. She and her husband love these children and work as hard as they know how to give them food that they like, in-style clothing, a respectable looking home, and a car that doesn't have too much rust on it.

The children were all handsome and blessed with quick wit and an appreciation of a good prank. No doubt, characteristics inherited from both the mother and father, but more from the mother. The children made the parents as happy as parents could be and there was no end to the joy that they brought into the lives of the mother and father.

The father took pride in the outward assurances of all the good he had brought to his family; a comfortable home, a dinner table always full of more food than his children could eat, a wife who was able to be home for their children if they needed it.

But the well-meaning woman, who adores their children more than she could ever find the words to express, would ponder the doings of the day; did she provide them with the stuff of a happy memory? Would they look back on life with her and smile?

She thinks about their days together and there is so much that tells her how she misses the mark that the other women she knows always seem to hit.

There was the Monday last June when she was to pick up her youngest from an early release of a class, only to forget and have one of the on-the-mark parents call her at home, to tell her they had her child with them, wondering where she was.

While out shopping one day, she finds a jacket that makes her think of her oldest son. Excitedly, she buys it for him and leaves it hanging on the coat hook near the back door. He sees it when he comes home and asks her, "Whose is that?" When she tells him through grinning teeth that it's his, he responds, "No it's not."

Driving home from a store that is unfamiliar to her, she is caught in a roundabout intersection and loops through it only to find herself thrown back into the parking lot from where she first entered. It takes her teen-age son sitting next to her, who is one-month-old in driver's license years, to talk her through and out of the roundabout the second time.

Trying to encourage her happy-to-stay-home middle child to be with others, she promises him that if he arranges a bike ride with friends, she'll take care of his chores for the day. His green eyes look at hers and they strike a deal. He comes home late in the day, spent, to find that his bedsheets haven't been changed, nor his laundry folded and put away, because she just forgot.

But one evening, everything felt in place. The house was caught up and there was space to breathe before dinner. She pulled everything together for the day, miraculously somehow. More than anything that night, she wanted to squeeze in one of summer's last walks. The woman and her three sons left, planning to be home in time for her husband's arrival, when they would all eat together.

The four of them walk quickly, each boy trying to make her laugh the loudest as they take turns presenting their "walk of the day." She stays back a bit, watching her loves from behind and listening to their knock knock jokes - smiling to herself, finally feeling like one of the women who always hits the target. They return home and the first one to enter the house is the youngest. She smells the smoke as soon as he opens the door.

As they were weaving their way around the neighborhood - she, giddy from a day without failing - the potatoes that she had forgotten to take out of an oven that she had forgotten to turn off, were turning cajun blackened instead of fluffy baked, from their second hour in hell's fires. She shouts orders like a seasoned captain of a pirate ship, "Open the doors! Get the overhead fan going! Slide the patio door over!" and her children take to the commands as if they're running gunpowder to the cannons.

After she has all hands on deck, she sits at the kitchen island and tries to not cry. But the disappointment, again, of just not being able to be what she feels these beautiful children deserve, becomes too much for her to hold in.

"I'm so sorry. I am so sorry. I wish I was like the moms your friends all have. I'm so sorry."

All three of her princes surround her and promise that it doesn't matter, it's only potatoes.

Her littlest one pushes his way in under the arms of the two oldest brothers. "Naaah," he says, his little head resting against her shoulder, "I like it this way. It's more fun."

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*I had coffee Friday with a wonderful local blogger I've come to know, Jen, of tranquilamama, and she loved this story that I told her, about my week. I decided to share it with all of you today, hoping that if there's a woman out there reading this who thinks she's missing the target, that she sees she's actually nailing it, right on the head.

xo

You Think It's Easy?

Worrying more than usual, fearing what might happen more than the average person, preparing for the remotely possible even if others don't. For the phobic and uberphobic among us, this is a way of life.

And it's not easy. We have to be faster, quicker, smarter, more clever - to do just the typical-all-in-a-day's-work things, like turning left on a yellow arrow across four lanes of traffic at 5 p.m. on a Friday night.

Not easy. But, through the awesomeness that Aiming Low is, they give me the space to write up aaaallllll my secret tricks to making it work. Today, brought to you by Aiming Low, Better Living Through Phobic Efficiency.

Have hope, my dear tribe, it can be done.

 

Social Media Saves Woman's Life!

Sensationalism in that post title? Not really.

The internet did save my mental life. Since logging on four years ago, I have found friends, become happier, skip instead of walk, and wear a lot more red than I used to. I've donated half the black blazers in my closet to Goodwill and replaced them with Smiley-Face T-shirts.

All because I've found my place in this world through the internet.

Care.com sent me a very welcome request to be interviewed for their Being A Social Media Mom series: 5 Moms Speak on How Social Media Has Changed The Face of Parenting. Once I made sure that this meant they weren't looking for technologically literate social media moms, I excitedly said yes.

This interview series is an interesting look at the pros and cons of social media and whether it affects our lives as parents. My take is this: I wish for anyone who feels out of place, unheard, lonely, lost, wishing for a sense of belonging and connection, to take that jump on the internet and follow some blogs, or start their own.

I'd love it if you'd click over and read my story at  Care.com, as well as what the other women interviewed for this series have to say about Social Media and their role as mother.

I can't say it enough times and in enough places: I love you guys.

Thank you.


xo

Hope 2012: A Blog Relay

Melanie Crutchfield, who blogs at melaniecrutchfield.com, came up with this inspirational idea to spread some positive change in the world. She decided to blog, and invite others to blog, about HOPE.

So far, there are 52 blogging writers participating in Hope 2012: A Blog Relay. The posts linked up so far are deep-breath awakening and leave me feeling ten feet taller.

Today, there are 53 linked up. How could I pass up an invitation to write about HOPE?

I've never written about what this word means to me. Just the thought of HOPE is a personal, beautiful, intensely private, defined one. No one can tell you what hope is to you; only you know what it means in your life and what it has done for you. I have been fortunate enough to have held hope in my arms at a time where I can say it is the only way I lived through a season in my life.

We use the word hope every day, loosely. We say it when we hope to find a parking spot; we use it more earnestly when we hope we have enough money to pay our bills for the month. There are the moments of hoping that what we've put hours of work toward, we see rewarded.

Are there degrees of true hope? Not for me -- hope can be a positive state of mind, of being optimistic -- hoping we get rain for our dry lawns. Hope can be realistic, knowing we stand a good chance of arriving somewhere on time or getting a piece we submitted published.

But it's the personal experience I've had with a certain kind of hope that makes me feel that hope is not on a continuum, that it's not a dash marker on a spectrum.

It's the hope that comes with desperation -- where you find yourself saved only by the thought of rescue --  that defines hope for me. Emotional, financial, or physical forms of hope; I think of trapped miners, parents with a child in NICU, someone waiting to hear back from the fifth or eleventh job they've applied for in a year. 

For me, it is that hope of desperate belief in something when you have nothing else, that pulled me through one of the blackest periods of my life -- my post partum depression when I became a mother for the first time seventeen years ago. I needed that kind of hope or I wouldn't survive; I needed that hope to hold me up and promise me a tomorrow.

Even though it was seventeen years ago, the graveness of that time in my life makes it feel as fresh as if it were last week. There was a nurse from the hospital who cared for me in the days after I first brought our son home; she sensed something wrong, and checked on me. It was her; the hope of a nurse who somehow saw what no one else could see, saying to me, in the loudest voice possible without screaming, "I promise you, you will get better," that saved me.

I wanted that promise of getting better and to believe her. My God, I was scared enough to. But what was I going to believe? Was it her promise that was my hope? The part of me too scared that I wouldn't get better shouted back that no-- I won't be one of the lucky ones. I was afraid to believe in case she was wrong. But I had to. Through the roaring of giving up in my head, I heard her tell me I would get better; but it was me that had to decide that I either would be or wouldn't be, one of the ones who made it.

I remember that very moment when my son was five-weeks-old and I sat on our sofa, holding my baby, talking to my nurse who came to see how I was -- me, not even able to talk, but only sob; and she understood what I couldn't say. I heard her voice break through the deafening defeat in my mind with the word "promise," and then, somehow through the fog I was imprisoned in, something in my heart clicked on its own, and my pleading soul took on the fight for me and my baby and believed what she was telling me. What I felt was beyond a state of optimism, it was far more forceful and powerful than positive thought or statistical probability.

It was the belief that she was right. I would get better. I had taken that HOPE into my dead heart and made it mine. From then on, I knew I had to wake up every morning and claim that hope for me and my son.

I believed that living spark of knowing that I saw in my nurse's eyes when she looked into mine. I still feel that white hot commitment to hope when my soul took hope at its word and planted it deep, giving it no time limit or ultimatum for when. I accepted hope on its terms and believed in its promise.

Hope gave me determination and became that tangible thing that I clung to when I was barely hanging on to sanity in those earth shattering early weeks of being a new mother. I held onto it by the tips of my fingers and never let it out of my sight. Hope made me sure to look at my child with a smile on my face -- always. Hope led me to the library to find CDs of Broadway show tunes so I could learn songs to sing loudly, happily, earthily, to my child. One morning, as I sang "Oklahoma!" off-key but with my whole heart, my son smiled at me. He was ten-weeks-old, but with his first smile, he showed me how beautiful and indescribable, hope is.

Bit by bit in the days to come, hope kept showing me flashes of gifts of what life is like when hope survives within you.

It is this gift of hope that is flesh and blood real to me. When I speak to New Mothers' groups, I talk honestly about the slow, struggling climb out of the depth and darkness of my early days as a new mother, about the pain of hopelessness. I tell them, in a voice that still breaks from the fierceness of the memory, my true unprettied up story from the past with the hope that they'll believe this seemingly put-together woman standing in front of them, when I confess about the days when I thought I'd never get better. That once, I was right where they are now.

When I look out, teary-eyed, into the faces of the women sitting in front of me, I see them listening -- their desperation for belief in my words so clear, in the same way I wanted my nurse's promise of hope for me to be real -- like it's the only thing we have.

I beg them, in the loudest voice I can without screaming, never give up, never give up HOPE.   

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pass along the HOPE 2012 torch. Blog about hope, ask others to blog about hope. Ask them to ask others. Let melanie know of your post, and link it up here. 

Then set some quiet in your day aside to spend reading on melanie's site about what others have to say about what hope is in their lives. Let's recognize and celebrate how hope has held us up or pushed us through. 

Write your stories, share them with us. We can't wait to read what you have to say. **Melanie Crutchfield will gather up little snippets from people who wrote about hope, so make sure you link back to her as the originator of the relay.

**Update: Friday, August 10: At last count there are 81 posts in HOPE 2012, and at least 196 people invited. Closing ceremonies on for Monday, August 13, so there’s still time to write if you want to! Go write, you crazy people! Write!

Blogging For The Love of It

Getting ready to leave for BlogHer '12 and feeling the squeeze; lining up dinners, figuring out clothes, scheduling what's a Must Do and who is a Must See over the next five days.

And that's just for my three children left back home.

To help you get a feel of what I'll be doing with my time once in the Big Apple, I'm excited and honored to be on a BlogHer panel for The Personal: Blogging For The Love of It. 

If you'll be at BlogHer, please come join a roomful of us who blog because of what it brings to our lives and how it's enriched our days. I know it's done that and more for me.

Click here to see the line up of BlogHer '12 presenters and :brushing imaginary lint off shoulders: I'm the fifth one down. *a cool little thing happens when you float the cursor over my picture*

Thank you all so much for being a huge part of why I know I will always live here online. Keeping this blog has been life changing for me and to say it has turned into one of the most unexpected joys in my life is an understatement. Because of your love, support and encouragement, I need to say Thank You. Thank you for reading my blog and linking to it on twitter and FB and passing it on to others. I humbly say I love every post I write here as well as the ones I've written for the other sites I'm fortunate enough to have opportunities with. These people believed in me and offered me a chance to stretch what I knew of myself, and because of that, incredible things* came my way.

I am humbled and grateful to be a part of your lives.

Life can be funny -- the parts that don't hurt, anyways -- if we write it down, even if what happens doesn't make sense to us. It may make no sense, but reading the words to the narrative of our lives helps us see the moment we're in.

All of you are 99.9 % of the wind in my sails and the strength behind my voice.

I appreciate you and can never thank you enough times.

Signed,

verklempt

*Part of 2011 Listen To Your Mother cast in Madison. Wisc. Part of 2012 The Moth cast, where I read live with Molly Ringwald. 2011 BlogHer Voice of The Year for Humor, where I read in San Diego.

We're Just Visiting

What does a little girl think, when she sees her family continue on as if they don't even realize they're in America? Why don't they even want to try and fit in with Americans?

What thoughts and answers pop into a five-year-old's head as she notices other families staring at her at the beach, curious about what her family packs and takes for a day in the sand?

There can only be one reason for this determined behavior... we are just visiting. My post today at TikiTikiBlog -- where I'm proud to be featured monthly.

TikiTiki -- cultura, color, y sabor!

A Latina blog celebrating Latin culture

ICYMI Monday Ed.

This week's internet had so much good stuff: hilarious, sweet, interesting, unique findings. I am loving this In Case You Missed It series because I get to share some of the greatness out there with all of you.

As I read posts during the week, I know right away which ones have to be on my ICYMI list. I truly hope you have time to click on one or two:

--One of the internet's brightest, Ann Imig, and her post, Sprung: about that first moment after years of living breathing doing MOTHERING and The Kids are one day all gone at the same time -- away at camp -- and you have hours, hours spread out before you, that are yours. Funny, funny, and bittersweet as I recall how lost I felt the first time my kids were out of the house for summer. *oh wait that's someone else's life, mine are still here. every second

--From a very funny woman I met on twitter, Kathy, of Diary of a Return-to-work-mom, and what mommy porn is to her: it's the sound of her house being cleaned by a cleaning service. So funny.

"We’ll tell all we know of suspect, but I’ll try not to use his name much. History should remember those who died, not their killer.  --Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) A post from Morgan of The818.com on the sad, senseless Aurora shootings. There were many, many posts written on Aurora, but the job Morgan did with her words on her site, sat in my heart for a long time.

--Finally, via BuzzFeed: reminding us to never give up on our dreams. 82-year-old Jacqueline Murdock, who's dreamed of being a model her entire life, and now is. She was recently hired by Lanvin for their fall collection. The photos of her are beautiful.


Happy reading!
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**Summer wearing you down? Looking for spark/inspiration/commiseration? Stop on over and check out my weekly parenting column at milwaukeemoms.com .