Life

"Hi, I'm Tired, what's your name?" she said, as they drove into their new town. "What number does this make love?" she asked, turning to her husband. He looked over with a little guilt in his eyes and said "Oh, I lost count after about the tenth one darlin'". She sighed, shook it off and started thinking about all she was grateful for. This was a trick she'd learned and it made the hard a little less then. The guilt she saw in his eyes wasn't warranted. This was her doing. In part, because she had itchy feet. Passed down for generations on her momma's side. In part, because she saw her husband as what he was; a frickin' genius who needed a challenge. He would have "happily" stayed a project manager at Walmart for twenty years if she hadn't pushed him to find his limits. In her defense, they had been a military family before then, and Walmart was his second corporate job. In just a few years they'd already lived in Colorado, Virginia, New York, Arkansas, and Ohio.

"I think I need a Starbucks, one inside of a Barnes and Noble, if possible, please". "Hey Siri, where's the closest Barnes and Noble?" he bellowed into his phone. This was her go-to when hitting the next town. It was home. It always looked the same, smelled the same. It was always there for her; at least between the hours of 9:00am-9:00pm. The only thing missing was her loved ones. Her kids, her friends, her life, her routine. Those were missing, but for the time it took to down that Venti, decaf, soy latte, life was good. And normal. She had no idea what that meant. Normal to her was boring, and she was anything but boring. Her interests ranged from pottery to photography to witchcraft. Well, not really witchcraft. More like nature, sound therapy, homeopathy, essential oils, and herbs craft. In the South though, that meant witchcraft. She hadn't lived with her "own kind" since she'd left Seattle in her mid 20's; where instead of Botox and lip filler appointments, they had colonics and chiropractic care. Instead of Starbucks (ironically the birthplace of), drinking wheatgrass juice was a normal occurrence.

Twenty minutes later, they pulled up to that beautiful building with the hunter green and tan sign, like a beacon, it rose up tall and proud. "Barnes & Noble". It might as well have had their last name stenciled on the front doors. Straight to the cafe counter, order placed, and paid for with the app. She had fought the app for years. On principle. What principle she could no longer remember. One day she realized how many free drinks she could get if she used it. Principle, shminciple. Maybe it was more about not wanting to feed the addiction. She worked too hard at things that should be easy. "Just enjoy the damn coffee already!" she yelled at herself. She had been raised a Mormon, so this was still "taboo". Maybe that was why it tasted so good; yet so bad. So conflicted all of the time. Exhausting.

It wasn't busy that afternoon, so the reward was close at hand. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, that first sip. They started to wander through the store. "Why is this move so much harder than the last dozen?" she asked. "Because we aren't moving with the kids" he said. "We don't have to put up a front for them". She just about lost it. Right there in the mystery section. He was right. No more pretending. The feeling rushed through her so fast, it threw her off balance. Her cheeks flushed and she allowed herself to feel the insecurity, the grief, the fear; it washed over her and it was just too much. And then, it wasn't. There was a new feeling bubbling to the surface. Relief?? She'd have to chew on that later.

One of the many things she appreciated about her husband, was his ability to zero in on the, well, everything. The problem. The solution. The fact. The gist. The everything. This was what she was exceptionally bad at, so they made a great team. Besides the fact that she adored him almost as much as she adored her children, she appreciated this about him. He was the sails to her boat. Her left glove to her right one. Her seatbelt to her car. Essential and irreplaceable. By the way, no woman loved anyone more than her children. It wasn't physically possible. If they claimed to, they had too much un-dealt-with trauma. Her life had been chalked full of trauma. It had made her resilient, empathetic, strong. She'd learned that without trauma, there's weakness, a lack of motivation and that made for rudderless individuals who couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. More importantly, if that trauma wasn't acknowledged and honored, then it would just live in the shadows and fester. And rot. And create chaos in one's life.

She had been raised to not be afraid to look at it. The trauma, that is. Ironically by the same person that caused a lot of it in her life. Her momma. Her incredibly brilliant, charismatic momma who'd been dealt too much trauma. So much so, there just wasn't enough time to process it all. It finally took over her momma's life, character, the very essence of her and swallowed her whole. This didn't erase the many beautiful, priceless memories or lessons. In this way, her momma would live on and spread that brilliance farther then she could have done so herself. She missed her momma. That person she turned to for everything. Grandma's croissant recipe, the name of that town they'd lived in when she was four. That first breakup. How to keep Marigolds alive, which currently thrived at her momma's grave. She hadn't lost this connection until she was in her forties, and she considered herself blessed to have had so much time. Today she would have liked to call her momma. Today she felt just a little sorry for herself. "Go ahead, swim in it til your fingers get pruny" a line from one of her favorite movies, "French Kiss" taunted her. No, she'd not feel sorry for herself long. Shrugging her shoulders and letting the pity party slide off, she turned to her husband and said, "Let's go explore our new town". The Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina.

They were waiting to hear back about a home they'd put an offer on in the Palisades, near the South Carolina border. This was their third attempt. The housing market was not a buyer's friend at the moment. Nothing life-altering, just tiring. Everything left her feeling that way lately. Not enough joy to balance the rest of life she guessed. Well, that was on her and that was fixable. Just, not today. Today she'd do as little as possible. Her husband was flying out for a work trip and she had a trip of her own to pack for. They'd literally pass in the air and miss each other by an hour. People called them co-dependent. They knew better; they just really liked each other's company. As she got older, it meant even more to her to have such a rock-solid relationship. While other's griped and complained about their spouses, she quietly said a prayer thanking God that she had such an amazing partner to do this adventure, called life, with. Was it always perfect? No, but if she was about to complain of the smelly socks he always put on top of the dresser, or the teetering towers of paper, books, and binders he'd erect on his desk, she'd be a fool. And momma always said she'd raised no fool.