Against Overwhelming Odds

Every time I've started a blog, it tends to come to a screeching halt a few posts into it.
It isn't that I don't love writing.

On the contrary, I'm a writer.

I mean it. I AM a writer. I write all the time, all day long. By the time I get around to writing a blog post, I find myself sitting there.

What? You expected more to that sentence? To be honest, so did I.

I find myself sitting there. I sit in front of the computer and stare at it. I don't write. I just stare blankly at the empty screen before loading Pinterest or Facebook. This goes on for months.

Give me a topic and I can write for hours. Give me a blank screen and I'm totally screwed.

Here we go- launching a blog... again. I mean it this time. I really do.

I totally don't eat blue food.

Viking thinks he can distract me from the fact that he gave me a blue Spree by pointing out someone with apple-esque cheeks.  He used to joke that I had an apple-esque butt.  Yeah.  Not happening.  Nothing in nature is blue and edible.  Nothing.  Before you start trying to list things off, let me stop you.  Blue items in nature tend to be toxic.  Blueberries are not blue.  They are purple.  Feathers aren't edible.  And blue bugs are toxic to most animals.

I don't eat blue food.

I joke that it is because blue food is some Orwellian plot to mind control the world... but no.  It is just gross.

That Time I Went to Goodwill

I go to Goodwill often. I won't lie, I go to a lot of Goodwills often. There's just something about digging through the lowest dregs of trash that humanity thinks is worth saving that makes me very happy. (Likewise, I enjoy junk yards and roadside rescuing from garbage piles.)

Some of my very favorite treasures have come from Goodwill. Then again, some of my least favorite treasures have come from Goodwill. It doesn't matter how many times I remind my children that I will not buy them anything, the second they depart my side, every other word is "Mommy look at this!"

And the funny thing is knowing that I'm the type of person that goes to Goodwill looking for specific items. For example, last week I left Goodwill with a coffee cup commemorating Keebler Pecan Sandies. I actually went looking for it. I also found a beach ball for nickel. Upon taking it home we discovered it had a hole in it.  I've currently got it in my craft room for the vinyl. (I have plans.) I have found doll eyes with no dolls; I have found Barbie dolls formed into inappropriate friendships with stuffed animals.

No matter how odd the Goodwill, I continue to seek out my own white whale: Frampton Comes Alive.  Someday I will have enough copies to vinyl my backsplash with the best.

It will all be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

At least they weren't serial killers with a good cover story.

My forays out into the world often leave me wondering how much I can say before people begin running away.   I suspect that my problem is at least partially attributed to my children.  My children are not exactly normal.  In fact, it has been noted, that my children can be a bit annoying, loud, and evil. At home, we deal with their situations with a lot of sarcasm.  Most people don't understand that when I'm being sarcastic to my children this isn't done out of any dislike.  I do not truly mean I will put them up for adoption-instead I mean they may need to cool their jets.  To add insult to injury, I have to take my children everywhere with me. I am a home schooling mom. We school 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Even the most mundane tasks tend to be an educational outsourcing.
Once in awhile I luck out and meet another homeschooling family. Sometimes our kids do not get along, and sometimes it is ore that the moms that don't click. I routinely live in fear what I will be one of those strange homeschooling moms that live in total isolation. Luckily enough, I had the opportunity to meet up with another homeschooling family who's snark levels matched my own.

We got together to take our children to the beach. Her family was only in town for a few days and we had spoken online. Typically with online relationships when you have never met the person in real life, you run a great risk of the person being some kind of serial killer or other psychotic monster.  Although, to be fair, they probably would be thinking the same about me.

However, for change, no one was a serial killer. We are managed to get along. We all wanted to have fun, and get sandy and jump in the waves.

We returned home: safe but sunburnt, alive but exhausted, and looking forward to the next time we can meet new friends again.

Sometimes, the Words Just Need to Escape.

     If I were a Catholic (or religious for that matter), this post would probably start something like this:  Forgive me Father (*shudder*) for I have been negligent.  It has been nearly two years since the last time I engaged in the written word.  However, since I'm not Catholic (or, well... "religious" in the sense of the word that most use) the beginning of the post would have to change.

     I haven't been writing.  I can say without fail that everything... EVERYTHING... in my life began to suffer the moment I locked the words away inside me.  I have always known what to say.  Then one day, I just stopped.  I stopped talking.  I stopped expressing.  I stopped doing everything that made me, well, ME.  Sure, I still knit and sew.  I still cook dinner and fold laundry and play with my kids.  I still teach them reading and math and how to tie their shoes and where the esophagus is but somewhere in there I was missing from the equation.

    Perhaps, I have been scared of being alone.  My words tend to be seen as some sort of mental assault by other parents.  I don't judge or condemn with them, so I never understood until it was explained to me:  I make them feel lessened because I "talk fancy".  Fancy?  What is fancy about a well-constructed sentence?  What is fancy about knowing the difference between "pacific" and "specific" or "they're" and "their" or any of the other hundreds of things I'd always considered normal?

     So I shoved the words away.  I stopped writing the novels, blog entries, poetry and other articles that were "fancy".  When the words started in my head, I'd lock them up tightly and go knit a scarf.  Or make cookies.  Or plant a tomato.  Or try to teach my kids how to throw a football.  (For the record, they weren't interested in football.)  I made every attempt to be as normal as I could.

     But it doesn't work.  Locking the words away makes me feel like a fraud.  I think that somewhere, somehow, people recognize that I'm hiding something from them.  The words had been contained to 140 characters or less- attempting to blend in with the mundane social media stream- and I had no real voice.


No more.  I'm sitting here now, typing; the cat stares at me accusingly.  She knew the words were in there.  I suppose I knew it also.

It feels so good to be me and empty my brain again.