I love it when I am doing something completely mundane — like wiping debris off the kitchen floor — and some revolutionary thought pops into my head. Maybe it’s even been in there, bouncing around, for a while, and was just waiting for me to be carrying out some mindless task before it surfaces. Nonetheless, it’s really cool when that happens.

So anyway. There I was, crawling around the kitchen floor on hands and knees, a wet paper towel in-hand as I wiped lemon meringue pie from beneath the cabinets. That’s when it happened.

I am totally, 100% solidified in the fact that I know which way is up.

If you know me very well, you realize the importance of this. A few short months ago, if you asked me how I was doing, depending on who you are you would’ve gotten either a vague, obligatory, “good” or, “I don’t know. I don’t even know which way is up.”

So I could have titled this entry, “Free” or “Finally” or “Hey Look At Me, I Feel the Best I Have in MONTHS!” But I didn’t. I went with that title because I think it is important that people know which way is up. If you don’t know which way is up — if your whole axis is all fuckered up — then you’ve got big problems, and it’s time to re evaluate your entire universe (axis included).

That is my completely self-righteous and very personal advice for the [insert time period here....do I really do this that often?].

Know which way is up. And if you find yourself unable to determine that, take the time out you need in order to figure out what’s got the blood rushing to your head. And then, once you figure out what you need to do to reverse your angle, start by putting one foot in front of the other until you find yourself completely embracing your life and all the mundane, revolutionary things about it.

I think Tom Petty summed it up pretty well with that lyric.

Awhile ago I wrote this entry about womankind’s tendency to nurture others to the point of gross self-neglect, and the trouble I believe it can cause for us.

I would like to elaborate more on that because it seems like lately, everywhere I turn there are people either in the midst of or attempting to escape from toxic relationships. I’ve even had lengthy conversations with both men and women who’ve reflected on having these types of relationships in the past.

First of all, what is a toxic relationship? I like to define that as any kind of relation that at some point leaves you feeling drained, exhausted, frustrated, confused, or any combination of those emotions. Warning signs in the beginning are so easy to ignore because, inherently, you are all kindsa caught up in the romantic element; the commonalities, the shared perspectives. Inherently, though, cracks will surface, baggage will appear, insecurities will come out to play.

The fact of the matter is, EVERYONE is insecure. Everyone has self-doubt and even some measure of self-loathing. It is not these states of being that make us vulnerable; in fact, it is the choice to ignore them that causes us to become vulnerable before we even know we are.

How you cope with your own insecurities is a huge indicator of how you act in a relationship.

If you lean too much on them, you are the blameless victim who has an excuse for everything. You are weak in that you will take the blame for hurting others quickly, citing your past, your upbringing, your whatever-gets-you-sympathy. You will wallow in your failures until you completely stunt all self-growth. You are great at making up and making right, but your chances of success always hinge not on your own measure of success, but the measure of success you expect from your partner. As long as he can keep you straight, you will walk the straight and narrow. For him. Out of “love”. Your selfish need for validation drives you to continue your failing relationship and it is in exchange for your literal soul that you receive the empty validation. Tick for tack, you input your energy in exchange for the rush of feeling wanted, needed, validated. But it is very temporary. For you, relationships wind up being boring and obligatory, and eventually you decide to seek out your next second-person validation.

If you fail to acknowledge your insecurities, you are a projector of insecurity. You are the type of person who, instead of dealing with your crap, makes everyone else around you feel insecure by being in some (or all) ways superior. It is this method that ensures you stay protected from harm while enjoying the benefits of companionship. The more insecure your partner becomes, the more energetic and on-top-of-the-world you feel. Because you don’t know what it’s like to be in a healthy relationship, you find your satisfaction by inadvertently sucking the life out of your loved ones. What you do not realize is that the people with whom you interact inevitably become tired, bored, and feeling under appreciated. It is this reason that guarantees almost every romantic relationship you have lasts less than a year, unless you are “fortunate” enough to find someone who genuinely believes he/she has no other options. You can never evolve or change or adapt, because that would require you to deal with whatever issues you’ve stuffed so far down inside of you that you actually believe they are beneath you. In the end, your own fear of failure is your own undoing.

Not surprisingly, you are a perfect toxic companion with the aforementioned blameless victim and when it’s over, both of you move back into being blameless and learning nothing.

I don’t really know what the balance is. It’s something I’m working on, always mindful of these days. I can say that acknowledging my insecurities as a main player in whether or not my relationships fail or succeed is a great starting place. Not using them to excuse my actions. Not allowing them to overcome my ability to rationalize.

Anyway. Here is where it gets good.

If you find yourself in a relationship that is making you feel tired, weak, exhausted, needy, guilty, not worthy, etc….please reexamine the entire thing. If you are mostly happy in the company of your significant other, but find yourself almost in a panic when you’re alone…please reexamine your own ability to face your insecurities. If your relationship takes up too much of your day, your life…it’s not healthy. If you begin to think back to the beginning of your relationship and you remember feeling much happier than you do now…get out. I think too many people stay in relationships simply because they so fear the process of breaking up…but you know what? I have come to believe that if it’s not right, you will begin to feel much better. Almost immediately.

If any one of your relationships is easily summarized in two paragraphs — if, once boiled down, all your relationship substance can be depicted in bullet-pointed regrets — as I have just done, then this is for you.

Don’t be a hapless victim to a vampire who feeds on your every goodness because he or she cannot cope with their own. Do not neglect any healthy habits that bring you joy in order to spend time with someone you’re not sure about in the first place. Don’t waste a second of your time on any one relationship that causes you to have to worry about intentions, commitment, or potential for success.

Don’t measure your level of relational satisfaction in increments of scrutiny and criticism. Do not lower yourself to the standard of ever thinking you have defeated your demons. Don’t waste your time with a partner who, by feeding your ego, gains the validation he or she thinks she needs from you. Don’t fall repeated victim to your own foolhardy attempts to pretend that life happiness comes from holding yourself and your loved ones to unattainable standards for success.

Does a successful relationship take hard work? Yes, but the rewards should be ever-present. If you’re too exhausted to recognize anything fruitful, then it’s a safe bet you’re giving too much of yourself to whoever or whatever cause you likely believe in more than yourself.

Love does not equal subjection. Personal happiness is an attained state of being, not something you stumble upon in the dark. Validation starts with you.

I accompanied a group of first grade students to music class today.

Within a few seconds of entering the room, I noticed a bag lying on the floor next to the teacher’s podium.

It is as if my brain is a magnetic field for those shanked, European pink satin pieces of art. Like a true enthusiast, I snatched the pointe shoes out of the simple black linen bag that housed them. I began examining them with vigor.

They looked like a pair of performance shoes. The box was not very soft yet. They were not darned and there were very few rub marks on the outside arches and inside toes. The inside lining was not stained with sweat or salty shower water or dried soda or baby powder.

The theme of today’s music class was fantasia. The students were given a piece of blank paper and a marker, and required to listen to several short pieces of orchestral music. As the music played, they were to jot down whatever images came into their minds. Most of the students concocted stick figure images playing instruments. Some drew music notes and one drew an image of a flying Iron Man.

As Carnival of the Animals evolved through its lighthearted composure, my mind wandered to my old world. My old, all-consuming, all-music-and-rehearsal-and-costuming-and….lovely world of dancing.

I used to wear my ballet tights beneath my school clothes, so that when it was time to change out for dance I had less time to dress and more time to warm up. I used to prop my ankles on barres and bend and flow and move like satin in a breeze to the sounds of the simple pianissimo tunes that either emitted from my instructor’s tape deck or existed only in memorized rests and beat counts inside of my own trained head and heart.

I used to stand in front of my stove and watch my own reflected feet, either bare or en pointe, as I recalled the most difficult sections of my upcoming performances. I used to dance my way down the carpeted stairs in my home; always teetering on the bottom step in order to stretch my calves. I used to fret over proper costume fitting and proper stage direction and timely breaking-in of new shoes. I used to endure my instructor’s stern (and sometimes passionately frustrated) directives. In French, of course. I understood a hand-gestured version of a real-life step or position and I stood with my teacher and my fellow students and practiced entire recitals using this hand-represented version of the real thing.

As a dancer, my craft was not a hobby. It was a way of life.

The slow climb of a leg into a vision of a croise 3rd position arabesque; the swwwisssh-click sound of sole against wood that indicates perfect orchestration of a chasse transition into the start of a beautiful series of pique turns:muscle memory developed through thousands of attempts and dozens of dress rehearsals. The injuries. The blisters. The calluses. Indications of dedication.

The seemingly natural adaptation of theatrical element in application to a performance, a character, a mood. A downward-cast glance at just the precise moment of ending a particularly prideful tour jete, right arm held high and confident above postured shoulders, mouth curved in a purely superior half-grin, on a face that sits atop a long and graceful neck…all of it shadowed perfectly by stage lighting. Without all of the elements of character, it’s just a girl in white. In conjunction with the craft of dance? Odette. Giselle. Sasha. A member of the corps de ballet who is serious about getting attention.

A dancer.

I used to dream about dancing, both in my most boring of algebra classes and in my most deep of sleeps. I remember the smells of the studio, the stage. Sweaty Vanilla Fields perfume. Baby powder. Blood. Tears. I remember the sights backstage. Dancers in stretch positions, legs propped surreptitiously on the backs of chairs. Makeup. Stage moms. Frantic instructors and assistant instructors and understudies and prima ballerinas. Rooms filled with tiaras and tulle tutus and stain bodices. And oh, the flowers. Every girl’s dream.

Every dancer’s dream.

And then music class was over, and I was quickly brought back to the reality of first graders and blue Crayola-markered stick figures brandishing violins, flutes, snare drums. I was quickly returned to reality, like a scene from Back to the Future.

I still have my last pair of pointe shoes. They sit, sweat and chocolate stained, on top of my armoire jewelry box. I see them every day but on most occasions that their sighting actually inspires a memory, it is of the hard work associated with being a dancer. Not-so-much the nostalgia. It is likely that that memory is fore-fronted by my adult tendency to dwell on the hardships associated with success.

I was thankful for that twenty five minute trip down Nostalgia Lane. I have been so far removed from that part of my life for so long and today I was reminded just how big a part of my childhood dance was. Perhaps it’s time to pass it on in my own way. Maybe little Andrea Berg’s daily insistence during our meetings in the lunch line (“Miss Taryn, when will you teach dance again?”) is beginning to pay off.

I feel justified in posting this, because I have not been shouting from the rooftops that I ran my first marathon last year. Marathon running has a way of working on you, though, and you find yourself reflecting on different aspects of them weeks, months, years later.

This post will be all about the hard core shit nobody really talks about. If you are feign of heart, do not continue reading this. You can think of this as the Bad and Ugly of marathoning.

*It hurts. I mean, it fucking hurts. Days later, weeks later even. I didn’t walk right for a week. I didn’t walk right with assistance from Motrin for two weeks. One thing I have learned, and even though it is controversial, is that on my next 26.2 mile run, I will bring a race belt. Packed with mild pain meds.

*And tampons. Because guess what. The morning of my big race, just after topping off my bowl of oatmeal, I started my period a week early. I had to borrow a tampon from the waitress at the restaurant. I had to put said tampon in my sports bra. I had to run off the path and change my tampon in the woods on top of Ester Dome because this is not the kind of marathon that has port-a-turrlets in three mile intervals for runners’ convenience. And then I had run another 12 miles. If that did not make you puke, it made you respect me. As well you should. (You are also allowed to think I’m a little bit crazy.)

*I got blisters under three toenails and had to lance them with a sewing needle. Blisters are something I believe every marathon runner contends with. That and losing toenails, which also happened to me. They are all back and pretty now, but it was a rough time for a few weeks there. It’s hard to paint your toenails when you have none.

The bottom line is, the real ego-boosting aspect of running a marathon is that not only do you work your ass off in order to complete one, but it is a truly humbling experience. I cannot wait for 2011 race season.

Last night I was in bed, thoughts like mind diarrhea. I looked at the clock; it was 11:53 pm. My mind was just racing and it was probably because of the oral steroid course I finished up yesterday. Nonetheless, my thoughts were keeping me awake. Thoughts of things I need to say and express and…get off my chest. In the midst of all of this thinking, I realized something. I have been suffering from a pretty severe bout of writer’s block for about six months. It is evidenced by the fact that my blog posts are somewhat schizophrenic. They go from pretty much meaningless, to rambling about things you probably really don’t understand, to recipes. I have not had very substantial things to write about for a long time.

This might not be of any importance to you, the reader. For me it’s a different story.

I am not a crafty girl. I don’t scrapbook because the amount of small pieces and paper scraps involved in scrap booking causes me to sweat. I don’t even allow play dough or moon sand past the threshold of my home. I suck at cake decorating, have very little interest in sewing…Look, I can’t even claim to be a great hairstylist. As long as my girls’ hair is brushed and free of peanut butter, I’m usually content.

Writing is my thing. It is my craft. It is what I wake up in the middle of the night and do. Under normal circumstances, I am always crafting a blog entry, a novel idea, or a way to find myself among the pages of some magazine someday.

Under normal circumstances.

The last six months have been anything but normal in my world. Because the details are too damaging to my loved ones, I will spare them. Because the happenings have been too confusing and difficult to dissect, I will not mention them. I will only say that the initiation of contact with a very important woman yesterday has brought on this entry. She, and very few others, may be the only people who truly understand what I am about to write. She and a few others may be the only ones who make it through this entire entry. The rest of you might just find something of worth in it, or you may just be confused. But you will ponder, regardless.

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It begins at a very young age for us of the female variation. Whether we believe in evolution or are hard core creationists, women nurture. It is why we play with dolls and feel drawn to infants. It is why, when my daughters spot a woman breastfeeding, they are mesmerized.

It is why, as teenagers, we often wind up in love/hate relationships with our girlfriends and our boyfriends. We simply cannot fathom being angry enough to never speak to the object of our anger again. We find ways to forgive and forget, because what if that person needs us again.

Nurture can be counted on to cause us to take 3am phone calls from our distraught sisters, girlfriends, daughters. It is why we fight for relationships past the point of fruition. Nurture can be blamed for a lot of our propensity to stay with a man (or a woman) despite the fact that he or she is projecting every single one of their insecurities onto us.

We can take it. We are women. We nurture.

Except often times, we nurture everyone else around us and we forget about ourselves. We neglect our own simple needs for self-reflection, time alone or with friends, time to just….be. This is a dangerous practice and I am going to tell you why.

Self neglect. I’m not talking about neglecting your fitness regimen. I’m talking about neglecting the act of checking in with yourself. Paying attention to your feelings about you. Are you satisfied with yourself? Tough question. Are you satisfied with your relationships? Your friendships? Your partner? Your sex life? These questions are like giant old oak trees with thousands of branches and twigs. As a woman, though, and a nurturer, you can ask yourself these simple questions and usually your gut feeling will give you the answer you seek.

When we neglect these matters, we become vulnerable women. Still nurturing, still caring, still rearing our children and going to work, and answering 3am phone calls from our sisters. But we are going through motions without self-reflection. We are going through motions.

I often refer to the treadmill as the hamster wheel. Something that sits in one place but somehow has the ability to make us move. That is what I am going to refer to my brain as for the indefinite past. The hamster wheel. Motionless and moving at the same time. Not profound but able to function. Uninspired.

Enter new relationships. People that caught me off guard. Made me feel amazing. Made me feel validated and fresh and gilded in the finest gold. People who told me things about myself that I wanted to hear. Needed to hear. Before I knew it, I wanted to spend every waking moment in the company of these “friends”. I wanted to talk to them forever, because they made me feel so…alive.

Every once in a while I had a gut feeling that I ignored. “Too good to be true.” “Addictive.” “Possibly unhealthy.” But in the company of these people, I so easily forgot about the warnings. I forgot about other things, too. Homework, healthy meals, house duties, sleep.

I began to feel an undulating plethora of emotions. Excitement, elation…then worry, fear, anxiety…then excitement and elation again. Never secure, never safe, never positive. I began to tell myself that it was “just me”. I have trust issues. I have a jaded past. I have Daddy Issues.

I began to blame myself. In my attempt to nurture and feed myself and these relationships, I was telling myself that it was MY FAULT when I had a bad feeling. My baggage. My issue.

Meanwhile, the people with which I was in unhealthy friendships with were prospering. Feeling “on top of the world.” Feeling like I was so good to them. It was so strange how the roles so quickly reversed in these relationships.

Turns out, the only baggage I was suffering from was the inability to self-reflect. To tell my husband truly and calmly that I was unhappy. To loosen ties with the people in my life who projected too much of their own personal baggage onto me. The people with so many issues that they simply could not contain them and had no choice but to subconsciously unload their issues onto me in the form of insecurity, blame, lack of trust, and unwillingness to be honest.

I spent so much of my life expending, expelling, and exhausting myself that when these few key people came into my life, I was one hundred percent vulnerable to them. Quite possibly some of worst self-inflicted damage I have ever done to myself. And the thing is, some of these people are not bad people, but have simply made a life for themselves out of fear…of failure. Of their own self-reflection. Of change.

In the midst of all of this, the head of which likely came sometime between October and early December, I got an email from a 20 year old girl. She said to me, “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.” At the time, I thought the remark was kind of condescending coming from a girl nearly ten years younger than I.

Last night her words came back to me. This small phrase. From a young, impressionable (albeit strong) woman. A woman, like me, who is hard wired for nurture. These words from her will forever be in imprinted on my mind because they are real and valuable and tangible. They don’t come from a person who wants or desires anything from me. They are the same words that I think about so many women I know and although her words did not reach me at a time in my life when I was ready to hear them, they certainly came back to me when I was ready.

I am now focusing on bending without breaking, and moving with purpose. I’ve lost some people along the way that, for now, I do not have the capacity to cope with. I have gained some unlikely and unconventional perspectives. I have learned the power of simply choosing not to foster the relationships that give me “gut feelings”. I have taken on the very difficult task of decidedly not blaming myself for the unhealthy things I’ve done.

How I know that I am on the right path? Because my writer’s block has lifted. My craft has returned to me. My passion for something healthy and full of emotional release is back with a vengeance. My One Most Powerful Tool has come back to me, for me to nurture and craft and mold and watch evolve.

And I could not be more sure of all of these things than I was at 11:53 pm last night.

Since the year before last, I’ve participated in the Facebook Thankful Things Updates: the annual tradition of using the first 25 days of November to declare in a status update something that you’re thankful for. You know, because there is always something to be thankful for.

Except this year, there wasn’t.

I did the obligatory thing and posted marginally funny updates about vodka and kids; a few serious updates thanking various advocacy elements and a few to my closest friends.

I was not thankful for anything this November. Thanksgiving day was one of the hardest days, and definitely the hardest day to date of this process. Together with Maurice, I cooked a beautiful, glorious meal and when it came time to eat, I had no appetite for any of it. My kids were jovial and lively and scampering, and I watched them eat. I watched my whole day, and my whole life, from a distance of about a million miles. I watched my actions of the last twelve years, three years, one year, six months, as if I were re-living them through the eyes of an onlooker…maybe an angel.

Then I gave it all up. I gave up the guilt and the blame. I just…. let it all go.

People keep telling Maurice that he should just allow me to fall on my face. It’s funny; those remarks don’t sting. I think that perhaps those people are right. Perhaps my best therapy is the ability to fall from grace, land on my face, and pull myself up by my own bootstraps.

I am not ignorant to the talk. I know what you’re all thinking: I am going to wake up one day, and realize that it was all for nothing; that I had every woman’s dream in the palm of my hand and that it was my own heart that would not allow myself to live it. The fact is, I spent more than twelve years attempting to accept every woman’s dream, and I was never satisfied. Does that make me selfish? Deceitful? In some ways, yes. But what do I accomplish in staying? If it’s the lesson of true happiness that I need to learn, perhaps the only way I’ll learn it is by making a regretful fool of myself. Perhaps making myself the regretful fool is the only way to let go of being the resentful fool. If I am going to tempt fate, then I am owning up to the possibility that my spinner could land on “regret”. I will tell you, though, that it is a whole lot better place to be than in the throes of resentment.

Maurice and I are not bitter people. We are people with wounded hearts, who tried and by all superficial standards succeeded in making something of a situation that was broken at the start. We are fighters, we are lovers, we are good, solid, giving people and parents. Everything that we have done, we have done together. No one and no rumor will ever come between that; just as we remained unscathed by such things during our time together. No one and no rumor will ever detract from the truths about us or our relationship, as it was and as it is now.

So. I need to list a few things I am genuinely grateful for today. It’s funny how the simple act of giving up on negative emotions can bring gratitude back to you.

1. Neil Young, “Heart of Gold”
2. Lack of online social networking
3. Gay rights and special education advocacy…because advocacy is the act of bringing awareness.
4. Strangers who smile at you in the grocery store
5. Healthy food
6. ….and I am totally beaming today because I did 7 whole, consecutive pull-ups.

Last night I spent about an hour (during class time, of course) categorizing old blogs that had yet to be categorized.

I went all the way back to the beginning of February, and had to stop.

I really was good at playing Charades, and now that I’m not anymore, I’m not sure I’m good at this. I keep getting emails and messages, even on my better, happier-tuned posts, asking if I am okay; if we are okay.

We are not okay. I am not okay, okay? This is too damn hard. Things have to get done, words have to be said, people have to be confronted and avoided and handled with care; my stomach has been aching for weeks. People that I don’t want to talk to are circling like vultures; people I do want to talk to are….not around. People whose understanding I never doubted have let me down. Nobody ever said that when you make the decision to get a divorce, you will be so utterly alone in the world. I think the statistics associated with it cause most people to assume that it’s as common as goulash as a hot lunch and as easily carried out as tossing said goulash in the garbage. (I work at a school now, by the way.)

Well, it isn’t.

If all you want to hear from me is happy, funny, light-hearted banter about daily activities, you are either going to have to bear with me or be on your way. I am going through Hell; while I am sure that someone else’s Hell is probably balking at my own personal Hell, I still need the allowance to be sad, and angry, and hurt, and bitter, and whatever other negative feeling you may or may not want to read right now. It’s all part of giving up my act.

I am old because I can’t stand the open-air meat market vibe at night clubs anymore. I am old because in my current stage in life, that atmosphere actually scares the hell out of me. I am old because I’d rather sit around in a smoke-free environment and have actual conversations that you can actually partake in without actually having to yell over the other drunk people. I am old because I’d rather deal with a liquor hangover any day, than the sinus issues associated with smoke hangover. I am old because I’d rather be home, safe, with my kids and various friends and family, eating good food, being warm and comfortable, than I would constantly running around trying to fill a void through avenues of empty communication with random nameless people that I will likely never see again.

I am old because I am afraid of doing things I never got the chance to do. Somewhere between the ages of 19 – 29, I grew out of that longing for being wild and carefree. Even though I now face the freedom to make stupid decisions and do stupid things within reason and be completely unaccountable for them, I have lost all desire to put forth the energy in carrying out a single one of them, or recovering from them.

Does that make me old, or just a grown up?

When you are done with something, you probably have already realized you’re exhausted. You’ve put in every effort and you know you don’t have another ounce in you to continue to try doing something that brings you nothing but pain. I’ve never felt that way about running; I sure have felt that way about people.

When you are tired of hurting yourself and hurting the person you’re done with; tired of putting in effort that is misguided or misunderstood; just plain tired of being misunderstood, you are in a bad place. So even if there are other variables that make giving up a risk, you give up; but then you find that it isn’t that easy. People have questions and speculations and suspicions. People want to know why, what, when, where, how, and WHO. The answers are not that finite in your own mind, and as much as you want people to understand what you’re going through, you eventually come to a place where you just cannot care what anyone else deems as your reasons for giving up on a person or a relationship. There are those that will bear with you, and then there are the ones that will find that too difficult a task; those that will find personal insult in things you may do or say during a time in your life that is almost all-too-difficult to empathize with.

I’m done with explaining myself, I’m done with apologizing and hoping that people understand why I’ve made the decision that I’ve made and any subsequent actions as a result of that very difficult decision; I’m done worrying about how my actions affect others. I’m finished with trying to justify to others my intentions for them and for myself. I’ve spent 15 years of my life trying to evolve to WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK I SHOULD BE. In that process, I have lost myself. I’m not about to venture into or maintain other relationships where I will inevitably be constantly explaining myself and justifying myself and apologizing for myself. If I cannot be loved for who I am — flaws, scars, insecurities — and if I can’t be worked with through those things, then I’m not going to spend my time trying to justify myself to those people or those relationships.

I have a lot to offer the world at large, but I am not a whole person. What I have realized in the last three years is that in not being whole, I am still lovable and perfectly capable and deserving of goodness, trust, and respect. I’m not settling anymore for anyone who wants me to put forth efforts beyond what I can give. I’m good and honorable, even in my imperfections, and if I can’t be “good enough” for someone else’s expectations of what a person has to offer in a relationship, then I can be damn good enough for myself, my kids, and my family. THAT is what matters, and THOSE are the people who will take me as I am.

I realized something today. I was in the middle of registering with my university’s online math homework program, and Kody was in my ear about signing is saxophone practice sheet; the twins were drawing on their legs with my ink pen, and I realized that Joshua needed to do his reading homework — after which I needed to sign his reading slip and remember to put it in his backpack. Simultaneously, I was reminded that Kyleigh needed to study spelling and I still had to pay bills.

It occurred to me then…How have I not gotten lost in all the fine details that dictate my life? All of the small things that, if not done, create a domino effect of failure?

Right or wrong, the answer is spite. Everything I have ever done — every single accomplishment, every achievement — has been in spite of something.

I gave birth to my first son when I was seventeen, in spite of the fact that I was not ready to be a mother.
I became a wife at the same age, in spite of the fact that we knew we were fighting the biggest statistical uphill battle existing in America.
I raised a child and worked full time at the age of 18, in spite of the fact that my husband was in Saudi Arbia. Repeat that about a dozen and a half more times with all of his other work obligations.
I got pregnant with twins despite the fact that twinning exists nowhere in my family history.
I walked out of a year-long battle with heart problems healthier than when they came upon me, in spite of the fact that I almost died.
I can run six miles at a sub-10 minute/mile, and my heart actually performs better at a running pace — in spite of the fact that I’ve suffered two heart attacks.
I came out of the deepest, darkest depression with a new perspective on my life and my purpose, in spite of the fact that at one point, I was on the verge of being suicidal.
I enrolled in university, took on a full credit load, and have enjoyed a 4.0 GPA for the last two years, in spite of the fact that the only semblance of a high school diploma I obtained was a GED. In spite of the fact that I have five kids. In spite of the fact that suck at math.
I’ve come out of numerous foolhardy decisions and endeavors, in spite of the fact that they made me feel shameful, or stupid, or vulnerable. I like to think that a good mix of spite and humility helped me out with those situations.

Maybe spite is not the most humble motivator, but it has gotten us this far. Beating the odds and defying the statistics has brought me and Maurice 12 years; it has brought me personal accomplishment beyond what that 17 year-old knew she was capable of.

And you know, doing things out of spite beats the shit out of doing anything through a sense of obligation.