A Whirlwind Birthday Weekend

It was a whirlwind birthday weekend filled with work, family, friends and David.

We slipped away for the day to Headlands Beach for Beachfest among thousands who were enjoying the vendors wares along the sidewalks, flying kites, watching professional sand sculptures, kayaking, boating and playing in the sand.

Live music filled the air and it made a perfect day-escape!

Our bikes go well together on the back of his truck and with my new bike, all-inclusive with necessary accessories, we both officially look like professional bikers. I LOVE our new hobby!

Warrior Dash is in two weeks so I need to step my workouts up to another level.

School starts in three weeks for Brooke.

I feel the familiar sense of "Have I done everything this summer I wanted to?" In reality, it is beautiful in Ohio through October; however, I need to list the things I want to do and plan them wisely.

Being in my 40's truly is quality of life. My girls getting older and all of us experiencing new freedoms, my home established, a new career embraced, life is now about simply maintaining, enjoying and not needing.

Life has become the theme of summer. What haven't I done that I want to do?

I am in the window of life being established and my focus is on experiencing new things, going places I've never been, making the most of everything with a strong focus on health & fitness.

It is almost as if life has been the journey filled with having a family, working, building a home and filling it, raising children, establishing a career and a lot of hard work ... to finally making it to the destination of "Ahhhhh ... I've arrived!"

Still young and active, quality of life phase, I embrace you!

Turning 44

I am turning 44 years old in two days and with every birthday, it is a checkpoint in life for me.

Every year at my birthday, I buy something for myself or I do something pretty kinda out there. At my birthday, I have bought a house, bought a sporty car, pierced my belly, pierced my belly, pierced my belly, pierced my belly (Yes, I've pierced it 4 times! My skin just rejects it.), I've taken a spontaneous road-trip to the ocean, I got a tattoo and believe me, the list goes on ...

This year I bought myself a really nice bike for our biking adventures. Definitely a part of the health & fitness lifestyle we have embraced.

Oh! I just lost 20 lbs in the last 5 months and now that I've shocked my metabolism and my body is being so responsive, I just keep losing more and I am excited to see how far I can take this. It has become an unanticipated, unexpected, happily embraced new season in life.

Turning 44 also has other unanticipated body changes, called hormones. For six months I've had right breast pain and quite honestly, I was fearful in getting a mammogram on the grounds that my lifestyle has no time for health set-backs or uncomfortable procedures IF in fact it was a serious issue. The longer I waited, I pondered if irreparable damage was spreading through my body.

My cure for life is, denial, keep moving, be healthy. Thus, my same thought pattern when I tore my medial meniscus two summers ago according to the MRI and orthopedic surgeon, so I went out and bought a pair of good running shoes to cure it.

My mammogram came back normal, thank you Jesus! What I did learn is due to my age, because my ovaries are slowing down producing hormones, it is very common for women my age to experience tissue pain.

Nobody talks about this stuff, so I am.

I'm good with tissue pain. That is the easiest outcome and that's why God made ibuprofen!

I confess, turning 44 years old on Saturday has be secretly thrilled I still have no crow's feet!  That's right, no sign at all of wrinkles around my eyes. Thank you, Olay!

Moisturize. Moisturize. Moisturize.

I remember I couldn't wait to turn 40! I was excited and "Oh my gosh!" just remembered that I had my uterus removed as a pre-birthday gift to myself in preparation for 40's and fabulous!

I'm not kidding when I say I do nice things for myself for my birthday and I will not share the not-nice things I've done.

Birthdays are milestones in life.

Always a checkpoint to make sure I am where I want to be in life. Work hard, play harder. What haven't I done that I have always wanted to do?

I am happy.

My girls are both doing fabulous in spite of Brooke's rough year that has life back to normal and Mariah just losing her dad. Mariah just graduated and Brooke is entering high school next month and I am embracing my new freedoms now that they are getting older and more independent.

I did find a career of significance that challenges and stimulates me. I also just received a certification that empowers me to run restaurants, which is another unexpected twist in life. One that intrigues me.

It is mid-summer and I embrace and bask in all its glory.

Then there is love.

I continue to fall more in love with David.

I love knowing that while life happens, I continue to fall more deeply in love with him and our life together. He is my best friend and the one I cannot imagine life without.

He is my future.

Love is exhilarating. Love is tough. Love is magical moments. Love is sometimes not being each others favorite person, but that is when love is a choice, a verb, an action word. It is the overriding factor in our choices and the magical powers of healing.

As I turn 44, I am absolutely enjoying life!

44, I welcome you.

Endless Love

“The only things I regret, and the only things I'll ever regret are things I didn't do. In the end, that's what we mourn. The paths we didn't take.” 
― Endless Love

“All I wanted was what I'd already had. That exultation, that love. It was my one real home; I was a visitor everywhere else.” 
― Endless Love

“I knew from the start that I loved her and knew, as well, that I would never fall back from that love, never try, never want to.” 
― Endless Love

“You're all I care about," I said. "No. And me. The person I am when I'm with you, the way I see myself and know myself. That person who lives only when I'm with you.” 
― Endless Love

“I never felt so large and important as I did when being in love was everything. I saw you walking a foot above the earth and I remembered that was where I used to walk.” 
― Endless Love

"If being in love is to be suddenly united with the most unruly, the most outrageously alive part of yourself, this state of piercing consciousness did not subside in me, as I've learned it does in others, after a time. If my mind could have made a sound, it would have burst a row of wineglasses. I saw coincidences everywhere; meanings darted and danced like overheated molecules. Everything was terrifyingly complex; everything was terrifyingly simple. Nothing went unnoticed and everything carried with it a kind of drama.” 
― Endless Love

“No pain could match the emptiness of separation, no agony rivaled the unreality of not being with her.” 
― Endless Love

I love love stories. I love the passionate dialogue written in some movies and know behind the scenes is a writer who knows real love. Believes in love.

I love when real love is awakened from bland mediocrity.

The kind of love that makes a difference.

Health & Fitness Gadgets

Some days I fall in love all over again.

David texts he is on his way to pick me up to run the Monument after work and we go do this thing together. Both of us want a healthy lifestyle. Both of us crave health & fitness. Doing it together makes it perfect.

We have a routine. He says, "Let's ..." and I am ready. Simple.

He is a bit more complicated and I have different terms I hurl his direction when I sit waiting while he pulls out every gadget Dick's Sporting Goods and Best Buys offers that falls under health & fitness.

We cannot simply go for a run or a bike ride when there are so many statistics that can be monitored.

Who rolls their ear buds perfectly back into their original case?!  Everything has its perfect place.

O.C.D.

I patiently wait. I really don't mind, especially if it makes him happy.  He makes me happy.

We run the steps in our own routines and meet to walk around the park in between sets together. I like to knock him off balance and hip bump him off the sidewalk when he is tired, which inevitably opens a can of whoop-butt on me. He always wins.

This handsome boy is my best friend in the whole world and I love our life we are building together.

Some days I fall in love all over again and today is one of those normal, magical days.

We Rode 29.3 Miles!

A new record for this girl! Yesterday, David and I put our bikes up on his new bike rack and hit the towpath for an afternoon excursion.

We rode over bridges, rivers, past a cow farm and a Revolutionary War reenactment.

We rode and rode and rode on a path we had never taken before taking in all the sights, open to new destinations.

It was when we hit the 15.0 miles, hot and sweaty, we decided we better head back.

It made for an intensely, active afternoon away ... exactly what I was needing.

Oh Mid Summer, How I Love Thee

Oh mid summer, how I love thee. Let me count thy ways ...

Sunshine
  Open windows
     Warmth
         Fresh air
           Birds chirping
             Hummingbirds dancing around honeysuckle
                Motorcycles
                   Outdoor music under the stars
              Walks in the park
           Patio drinks by the water  
         Always something to do outdoors
      Riding the towpath
   Ice cream cones
 Grilling on the patio
Barefoot and sandals
  Headlands Beach
      Those incredible Monument steps
         Fireworks on a warm summer night
           Light and healthy meals of salads and fresh fruits
              Sitting on the swing on my patio
                 To lay in a hammock in the shade of a large tree
             Fresh mulch on completed summer flower beds
          My hibiscus ready to burst into 10" red flowers, a new one each day
        A freshly mowed lawn
     Sunlight until after 9
   Endless playtime  
To bask already in summer and still have much summer left.

It's Here ... That Moment in Life

It's here ... that moment in life. The destination that was seemingly lifetimes away where you knew it would eventually happen, but getting there through the long, arduous journey, the quest lost its vigor.

Often, when a divorce happens it is absolutely normal to look forward to the day when you no longer have to put up with your child's other biological parent. Years of sharing parental responsibility with someone you cannot be with makes for a couple of long decades.

I used to imagine once my girls reached adulthood and communications were no longer necessary, it would be their weddings, the birth of their babies and special celebrations with grandchildren would be shared with their dads.

Honestly, I longed for those days of very limited contact.

Never did I imagine this.

Their premature deaths are earthly concepts and it still feels surreal.

It's here ... that unanticipated moment in life where both dads are gone.

No longer held to live in close proximity of them for our children's sake. It isn't the hallelujah celebration and relief I anticipated, it is purely the end of one season that felt like a lifetime, as a whole new season in life is about to begin for all of us.

Today just feels like the very first day now that the long week of the funeral is over.


   

The Funeral

The funeral service was filled with family, friends, church friends and friends from decades ago and my little girl sat in her spot in the front row in front of me.

Mature far beyond her years, looking beautiful in her black dress, she was truly a class act.

Graciousness and hospitality became her, especially in light of the situation.

The invisible cord connected and I stayed within embracing reach for the moments that took her breath away.

The most dreaded and the hardest was the reality of Eric's casket being carried to his burial site and the moment she walked to the casket with her white rose.

We are all glad today is over.

My Mariah is a very strong young woman and I couldn't be more proud of her.

Autopilot

All of us seem to be running on autopilot.

Mariah running on a million thoughts, prayers, love and attention by everyone is keeping her mind and life busy through this week as her dad's funeral is taking place. Greeting countless people at calling hours, smiling in conversation, hugs and hearing condolences keeping her mind going full-speed while remaining polite and gracious, others acknowledge her loss.

Brooke, balancing the difference between her own dads death and Mariah's dads while finding her equilibrium that it is far different and 2-1/2 years of dread to find she isn't reliving her own dads experience has been her relief.

Me ... I'm carefully watching over both my girls. Keeping my finger on their pulses making sure both of them are handling his death in a healthy and safe way.

It wasn't until I was quickly changing after work for calling hours did an elephant feel like it was sitting on my chest. Suddenly, it felt hard to breathe.

The reality is, while life is truly running on autopilot at the moment, I am entering the 2nd funeral of my child's father.

Life throws twists and turns we never anticipate.

Mariah's Daddy Passes

Two and a half years ago, as we reached the one-year anniversary of Brooke's dads suicide, Mariah's dad was diagnosed with ALS/Lou Gehrigs Disease.

Loss upon loss, we learned to live through trauma then faced another trauma which became the suffering journey of ALS that took Mariah's daddy's life yesterday.

Eric held on for Mariah and slipped away 20 minutes after she arrived at Hospice yesterday. I was at work waiting for her phone call to see if she wanted me to spend the day with her there, when I answered the phone and she was sobbing saying he passed.

I felt like I was swimming through muck and could not get to her fast enough knowing she needed me immediately.

In all reality, I left the rescue mission within 5 minutes, but in the 5 minutes was getting coverage of the meal ministry for the night, notifying my team, handling Brooke who was working with me for the day as she was grieving, rescheduling my 1:00 p.m. appointment and try to get the heck out the door.

One of my staff called my cell phone to call off and I remember as she continued to blabber on about her sick kid and all her doctors excuses for not being at work, I shut her down. Good grief, I told her I was racing to my daughter and my ears were bleeding listening to her sub par excuses as to why she cannot work.

Like I said, I was swimming through muck to get to my daughter who was facing the hardest moment of her life and I couldn't shake off responsibility fast enough.

After the tears and talking through all the details, the three of us, Mariah, Brooke and me slipped into the comfort of routine by being home, our refuge.  I stayed at home to be present, cleaned my house and mowed my yard, because that keeps me busy and brings balance. Brooke played XBOX and Mariah laid on the couch to watch television and napped. She was exhausted.

My brother, mom and dad came over to see Mariah and we visited on our patio. Mariah felt covered in love by family and friends with a million messages.

David came and we had dinner together as a family, laughed and enjoyed conversation. David being able to tell Mariah little things about herself when she was little and fill-in the blanks of her memory to the stories when he was her Sunday school teacher and they (Mariah her dad and David) went to the same church once upon a time.

I love that I knew David in my youth. I love that David and Eric were friends and he remembers Mariah from her birth to when she was approximately 8 years old ... until last year when our paths crossed again. How comforting it must be for her to hear stories as she is my nostalgic one.

Two and a half years of ALS was a long journey knowing her dad was dying. His passing has brought her peace that she feels guilty over, relief his suffering is over.

Raw moments are a part of death and once the funeral is behind us, my little girls life will be much different.

Two and a half years seemed like such a long time, now it feels as if it was a blink.

Mariah touched her daddy's hair because his skin was growing cold and told him it was okay to go. He waited for her.  She said "Good night" to her daddy because goodbye means forever and she knows she will seem him again.

3.11.69 - 6.30.14