So this is the New Year

When I was a kid I was told by various people what the best years of my life would be. They were usually college, occasionally high school, and even once middle school. Whenever I work with kids now I tell them it keeps getting better.

2014, you were great and full of wonderful changes, but 2015 is even more exciting. With a baby and possibly a house, with another year of my Masters program, with being able to see both sets of parents in one year, I can't wait. It's going to be amazing.

Never settle for last year, or the years before being the best. Each year has something to offer, even if it's hard, even if it hurts, it still can be even better than the last.

Happy New Year and welcome 2015.

Dear Mother

How did you know to sing to us?

Each night before we slept,

Keeping nightmares at bay.

How did you know when I needed help?

Trying to climb over rocks,

Trying to catch up to everyone else.

How did you know to let me be?

Sleeping under blankets on the couch,

Cocooned in warmth and safety.

You knew when to laugh

And when to hold.

You knew how forgive

And when to scold.

Now there is this tiny creature

Growing inside of me.

And I do not know how

To be the mother I am supposed to be.

How will I know when to stay

And when to let them go?

How will I know the right way to love

And how to help them grow?

I am so afraid that I cannot fill

This role I have been given.

One that you seemed to do

Without doubt or indecision.

Maybe all I really need

Is to remember how you helped me through.

With guidance and care,

I hope to be as great a mother as you.

Morning Snapshots of a Loving Husband

In the morning, when he leaves, he smells of coffee as he kisses me on the cheek. Barely awake, I see snapshots of him, a photo book of his morning. He wraps me in blankets which I have tangled into an incoherent mess in the night. I look up to see him moving the fan and closing the blinds so I can get a few more hours of sleep. He has already showered, he has already made coffee, he is all ready to go as he bends over me and whispers, "Hey, I'm heading to work," so I will know where he has gone when I wake.
I barely remember these moments. I only see them as fragments, still a dream. I do not thank him as he goes, I do not remember when he returns home, and yet, every morning he wakes to kiss me again.

Be Whole

Normally, I fly.
In flying there are separate sections, there is sadness at leaving, peace in the midst of an airport, and joy at arrival. While all these things mix interchangeably, flying over the land there is a separation from the leaving and the coming, from the sadness and the joy.

This time, I drove.
In driving there was loss each second as I watched the landscape fade away into unfamiliar, re-familiar, darkness, and light. Every minute was filled with a goodbye: goodbye Riverside, goodbye California, goodbye heat, goodbye western mountains, goodbye, goodbye. And every minute was filled with hellos: hello snow, hello family, hello old friends, hello flat flat Midwest fields, hello, hello.

Everything was felt more deeply as we drove. Anticipation mounting over the 33 driving hours, sadness declining over each new state. And while the pain was greater, the joy was greater too. As if the two had made a bargain to replace each other with the same amount the other had left. Like the sun rise after a night with only a sliver of the moon, like the sudden downpour of rain after months of drought, like the height of a mountain after the depths of the valley. This is beauty, this is tranquility, this is the juxtaposition of life's ups and downs knocking all at once.

And as we drove I heard my tires say, "be whole, be whole, be whole" with each rotation. "Be whole" in the sadness, "be whole" in the joy. "Be whole" in the loss and in the gain. "Be whole" in the memories of the past and the hopes for the future.

"Be whole, be whole, be whole."

Five Pounds

“I want to lose five pounds” I tell my husband and he shakes his head.

He shakes it because he knows that I really mean I want to be skinny. And five pounds this month, does nothing to change the five pounds more that I will want to lose after, and the five after that.

There is no contentment to this cycle. There is always more to be fixed.

He knows this because he knew me when my cheeks sunk in, and I could buy smalls even in Taiwan sizes, and I had size zero jeans. He knows that even then, I wanted to lose those five more pounds. Always five more pounds.

What he doesn't know is that I still have those size zero jeans, hidden in the back of our closet for the day that I will be able to wear them again.

“You know I think you’re beautiful just the way you are?” he whispers to me and I look away.

I look away because he has to say these things to me. Because we are married and what else could he say, he knows better than to tell me he wishes I looked like someone else.

My soul has always swum with discontentment, and the more I think, the bigger it gets. This perfection is impossible to attain.

He knows better than to say that he wishes there was a gap in between my thighs, and that I never had rolls when I sat down, and that my neck was longer. If he said these things that I’m sure he is thinking, he knows my heart would break. He wants me to lose those five more pounds.

What I don’t know is that he threw the jeans out, because he doesn't want to see me try to be that small ever again.