So it turns out that pockets of quiet are becoming more possible in the evenings!  YAY!

If there’s anything I miss about blogging, it’s figuring out how I really feel about life.  Would you believe that after writing such a raw post about my father’s abandonment, the thing that got me most wound up was the part about my brother?  I had no idea I was angry until I was literally typing it out, all twitchy, trying not to shake.  I love my Joey.  Actually, I love my Shmoey Oey Joey.  That’s what I call him.

Speaking of rage, let’s talk about Shepherd.  Lord help me, this child!  

If you must know, yes.  Yes, I did hang my life-size Christmas advent tree up before Halloween this year.

“Why?” you ask.

Because I had a perfectly good nail on the wall, just wasting his gifts and talents, waiting for the opportunity to transform from eyesore to awesome.  You all know me and Christmas. (If you don’t, they don’t call me the Christmas Kraken for nothing.  You’ll never see candy canes the same again, here.) It’s over the top.  The last three years though?  Not so much.  This will be the first year in a while that I’m A) not moving a salon out of my kitchen and into a garage, B) not nauseous and pregnant, or C) not exhausted with a nursing baby.  With 24 pockets hanging on the wall, waiting to be filled with inspiration, wonder and meaningful intention, little did I realize I’d be struck most soberly moving into this holiday season.

Somewhere between mulling over Christmas caroling and family service opportunities, it hit me.  It finally hit me.  My oldest is finally five.  I was five.  I knew this day would come, I just didn’t realize it’d come so quickly.

…I had no idea what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend.

Sitting in the front row of church this Sunday, I squirmed as Pastor Ed denounced violent acts and racism of any kind.  He expressed dismay over “recent acts in Charlottesville,” but I literally had no idea what he was talking about.

What happened?  What did I miss?  Why doesn’t the Skimm start emailing news on the weekends?

Later I searched online and found a few articles outlining the sequences leading up to a young man driving a car into a crowd of people.  I don’t know about you, but I avoided any links to actual video and went straight to the comments, immediately seeing that already further division had begun.  There were cries of misunderstanding, anger towards groups as a whole, blame and more blame.

After bathing my brain in angry commentary, I felt racist for not knowing what was going on.  I felt racist for not wanting to know.   I felt racist for hoping that the media was somehow spinning this.  I felt racist for taking so long to say anything.

And the longer I waited to speak up, the more I felt like my silence would be construed as a nod of approval.

So let me speak up.

So my family and I are sitting in an Orlando airport.  We’ve just experienced Disney as a family.  Actually, we experienced a lot of moments as a family, and Disney was just one of the special treats along the way.

Back when I was about two months pregnant with Shepherd, Brian and I sat through a timeshare presentation.  While I like the concept of a timeshare, we weren’t (and aren’t) in a position to invest in that commitment.  We’re paying off debts and, at the time, were also bracing ourselves for a four month maternity leave.  Even though we declined (and declined… and declined…) the timeshare, we were still entitled to this trip for having sat through the presentation.  They covered the round trip airfare, the hotel and a day at the Magic Kingdom!  I tried to schedule this as close to Brian’s birthday as possible and it turns out that late January is a perfect time to get away from NoVa’s cruddy weather and enjoy life in the 70’s.