Learning to Speak Truth.

On Friday I auditioned (via google hangout, because I couldn't make the in-person auditions on Saturday) for Listen To Your Mother.  It's a series of performances - all around the country - of local writers, mothers, sons and daughters who perform public readings on the topic of Motherhood.

I consider myself an amateur writer.  Public speaking, however, has never been my strong suit.  But after seeing Kate Hood's frequent postings on the show, I decided to check it out many months back.  I watched recordings of previous shows, I read what other people had to say about the experience, and I thought maybe I had something to say.

Years ago I wrote about an experience with Number One Son, and in the interim of the last almost-decade (!) it had come back around to me with even more meaning.  SO I sat down and recounted the original experience, along with how the meaning of it has changed for me over the years as we have struggled to understand him and how to best help him.

Public speaking terrifies me.  That's putting it as mildly as I can; having been raised a Mormon, it was required once every year or two that we stand up in Sacrament meeting on Sunday and give a "talk".  I remember (what little I have not blocked out) my young voice quavering while my legs, behind the podium, shook uncontrollably.

But this - Motherhood - may just be the topic that could overcome my anxiety. Because it is important - because other mothers out there have to be struggling, too, to cope with a child whose future they can't begin to decode.  As I was working on the piece, and reading aloud to myself in the mirror and trying not to notice how tired my eyes look or how many new gray hairs are sprouting in the inch-long roots - (Because who has time to color their hair anymore?  No? Just me and my mouse-gray follicles with the occasional splash of silver?) - as I watched my lips form the words I started to realize that whether or not I ever deliver this message publicly, I needed to hear it myself.

My brain started to absorb what my heart already knew - and this piece was written, absolutely, by my heart.  Whenever my head started to get involved in the writing process, I started to panic.  Was it too personal? Was it fair to talk about my child to strangers this way? Who was I to think I had anything meaningful to say on the topic, anyway?  Somewhere along the way, I had learned to believe it was not okay to share my truth - to "air my dirty laundry".  That was the voice in my head telling me this was too personal to share, that I should lock it away in a drawer and forget the whole thing.

I ignored my brain and wrote from the heart... and as I stood alone on the cold tile of the bathroom floor and heard the tentative sound of my own voice, my brain started to catch up, and the anxiety melted away. This is my story - a small piece of what Motherhood means for me.

I don't know if I will be selected to share my words with other people. I'm not sure I know how I will feel if it is.  Whatever the outcome, though, I am learning to speak my truth - even if it just means speaking it to myself in the quiet of the master bathroom.

A Perfect 10.

Ten years ago I started this journal - first as a way to record life events for myself and for family.  Over time, it evolved into a way to share and partake in a community of bloggers and, especially, women who provided the digital equivalent of an informal "salon" in the intellectual sense.

Today I am starting it anew.

Ten years ago I was a newly-wed and a new first-time mom, living in a two-bedroom apartment in suburban Northern Virginia.  Money was tight but we were young and invincible, and I was naively certain that the biggest challenges of my life (of which, to be fair, there had been several significant ones) were behind me.

Today, I am a stay-at-home mom to 4 kids - 3 boys and a very spoiled baby girl - living in suburban Denver.  Money is still tight but we are no longer so young.  In 2011 I was diagnosed with a Mood Disorder.  In 2012, my husband was diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.  Our eldest child continues to defy diagnosis, but has a collage of features from the Autism Spectrum and likely Mood Disorder.  The challenges we have faced in the last 10 years have been, at times, more than we thought we could survive, but I am no longer naive enough to expect that the hardest days are behind us.  I fully expect that the biggest challenges may be yet to come.  This no longer terrifies me.

In the last ten years I have learned that I have a deeper well of strength than I would ever have believed possible, and a network of friends and loved ones standing at the ready to cushion my fall.  I have learned that my marriage can survive the crucible of life; for better or for worse are no longer esoteric concepts, but the realities of a life together that we continue to build and nurture every day.  I have learned that I can be imperfect, even fractured, and still be a worthy soul.  I have learned that our imperfections are what make us real.

My name is MeL and I am a mother, a writer, an artist, a baker, a cook, a yarn geek, a great friend, a terrible dancer, a confirmed weirdo and (I hope) a pretty decent person.

Ten years is forever and a blink.  If you were with me for any of the last ten, I thank you and invite you to continue this journey with me.  If you're new here - Hello! It's lovely to meet you and you look spectacular today.

Wake Up And Go

It's... been a while.  Things have changed around here.  Actually, the "here" has changed around here.  We moved last summer from our small town home outside DC to the urban-ish jungle of Greater Denver.  Oh, and we had another baby! A GIRL one!  Apparently we finally figured out how to make those!

Clearly my articulation is lacking at this moment in time.  I want to make rash promises about how THIS time I'm back for good, and THIS time I'll be full of wit and wisdom and fabulous insight, but we both know that would be premature.  I propose we take it slow.  We can get to know each other again (or for the first time) little by little.  We've both changed, right? I mean, now I'm a mother of four.  I'm still running, still cooking, and still really, really bad at laundry. I have  special needs child, a husband with epilepsy (Surprise! I'll tell you about it some time!) and a lot more gray hair.

I'm also still pretty nuts, but hopefully in a good way.