A Wonderful Life

I stole the title for this post from my brother, from the email subject line for his beautiful message about Papa. It's been really difficult to process the events of our wedding weekend, everything that happened being so heavy, so meaningful, so joyful and then so sad. For the record, November 7th, 2015 will forever be one of the best days of mine and Adam's lives. Aunt Dana kept saying, still keeps saying, "It was magical." The gorgeous mountain view, saguaros sprouting up everywhere around us, our Nebraska-native friend wanted to play "Whack-a-Mole" with them, it was such a sight. Tucson has been such a part of me for my whole life, I had forgotten for a second to notice the sheer, unique beauty.  Aunt Kay wrote the most perfect, personal and loving ceremony I have ever heard, let alone been a part of, and Adam was tearing up a little from the very beginning. I didn't until Aunt Kay said, "Don't look at me!" I couldn't look at Adam because the desert sun shone right in my eyes. Tucson lit up below us at dark, Katie the photographer running around like a chicken trying to get in all of the photos before light faded. People say the photos are so important because the memories will fade, but I know they'll never fade for good. This was one of the most poignantly emotional weekends of my life.

Erik wrote so well about Papa. How Papa did admire his piano playing. It doesn't make me jealous. It was so funny, even to me, that time not long ago at Christmas I think, Papa was bragging about Erik to some neighbor he'd caught on his fishing line, and I was sitting there, too, either in the garage or the living room, and he said, my grandson, oh boy what a scholar, such a beautiful piano player, and here's Bethy, she's just a schlooser! Never could figure out the best way to spell that. No one has quite the way of talking that Papa did, what a colorful man. I used to be so scared as a little girl staying at Placita North Fuente, see, I always clogged the toilet. It was a terrible little toilet, and I didn't want Papa to get mad at me. I'd have to run and find Mimi or my mom to help. I think one time it happened right before Mimi and Papa were going to drive us to the airport.

I especially loved when Mimi and Papa would come to Colorado, usually for mine and Erik's September birthdays. I'd request a meal for Mimi to make, the unforgettable year that I made her slave away all day while I was at school, she made homemade fried chicken. Was that the last time she made it? What a spoiled girl was I, am I still. Papa loved Buster and vice versa, just like Rockie. It was so exciting getting home from school to Mimi and Papa in the living room. I love having these memories. They make me feel so happy, even as tears spring to my eyes, because Erik's right...maybe what's special about them is we know that we can never go back and live them again.

Papa loved his family in the most steadfast and devoted way a man can, and what a wonderful family we have. There are no better times for me than when we're all together. What I picture immediately is all of us in Tucson - Christmas Eve at Aunt Debbie's, a fajita cookout at the Groll house, singing "We Need a Little Christmas" loudly and horribly to Uncle Larry on the phone. Playing Scattegories at Mimi's, Papa yelling at us to keep it down over Fox News blaring. Chicken tetrazzini and Texas cake. Cheese and crackers, white wine, Papa's bright orange cheesy spread, every night a party.

It's like our motto:

"Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering." -Ida Scott Taylor

I think we've always done a darn good job of this. Thank you for accepting Adam into our family with open arms and making our wedding day so wonderful, so perfect. I love you all forever and ever.  

"It's YOUR day."

Adam proposed at the keyhole of Devil's Backbone in Loveland and this was not perfect. It was 97 degrees without shade and I had a hangover. Let me second that complaint with a certainty: I love Adam and he is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Girls grow up dreaming of perfection. I think this is fairly universal in America. Many dream of a tear-jerkingly romantic proposal and stunning, huge wedding where everyone turns, stands to look at how beautiful they look. I've been raised primarily by my mom and her sister, my Aunt Kay, and I admire and love them infinitely. Their dreams are far more practical.

Try as they might to teach me, I am not a practical girl. I have intense mood swings. I rarely dress up but resent being told this means I am not someone who would wear a traditional wedding gown. "It's just not you." I regret every decision I ever make at least slightly, because I never stop thinking about other options. I'm not excited about getting married. I'm devastated like we all are. My mom is run thin. She told me yesterday Kay having ALS had dropped to number three on her stress list after the facts that I'm getting married and we don't know how to plan it and her dad is in a psychiatric ward after falling on his head.

I haven't been able to feel much of anything about being engaged. Aunt Kay will officiate. This was a no-brainer. Expediency is required. The ideas are flowing and I'm drowning in them to the point where none of them sound right because nothing is right in a world where people get ALS. Aunt Kay told my mom she would just be the fun aunt at the wedding drinking too much wine, of course she would, but she is ordained because of ALS, because of Cindy and Linda, and she is the only one Adam and I could imagine writing our ceremony. That is all so full of love, of meaning, but I. I'm sad. Adam and I will get married at a time that will just be so...real-life. There's no fantasy about it. It will be nothing any little girl has ever dreamed about for "her day." Our jobs are unstable and stagnant, in my case. My family is in the midst of our greatest struggles and sadnesses.

I have never believed in fantasy. I actually never believed I would ever meet somebody. Here is the dream, girls: a man who loves you unconditionally to spend the rest of your life with. I have that. I have Adam. Through it all he has never faltered, never stopped loving me for who I am and who I want to be. I used to think our wedding would happen at some penultimate time in our lives: great jobs, maybe a house and a dog, ready for anything. That's not going to happen. We are going to have a deeply important ceremony with a deeply important person. And we are going to stick together forever. It's NOT my day; it's the start of our lives together. It's not going to be easy.

Another Poetry Writing Attempt

"My Thoughts on Politics and Gum-Spitting"
Open-mindedness is a comforting identity to hold on to
in the midst of hating Christians for what they believe in.
I scroll through social media and get so sick of obnoxious
honesty, everyone intent to say, "Look, I'm being myself."
I sometimes spit my gum on the sidewalk and hope that
no one's looking because then they'd decide something true
about me that I'm not proud of. I don't hope that someone
steps on it, but I am honest, too, and the truth is, I'm not
even thinking about that at all after the tasteless blob is
finally out of my life. If I saw someone do the same,
I would be disgusted by the laziness and apathy of it all.

Observations

"The street where I grew up"
Went to get the mail and
saw a dead squirrel, two
women walking big dogs
and talking about the people
whose lives seemed more
exciting than theirs, a man
on his porch swing going
back and forth with wishes
and regrets, the neighbor
who always waves hello, and
I sang a song in my head about
the repetitive steps of dreams.

"First Love"
These girls
sit
and wait for the familiar
Bing!
Ba-da-bing?
Jubilation trepidation,
the beating of their hearts
and the relentless
hoping
dwelling
excruciating
pain of having to wait
until, again -
No. No. No.
It wasn't
what they heard in their heads.

"Freedom"
I bought a pink stuffed
bear
and gave it to the little girl who
stared up with those eyes, so
the next time you tell me I am
not who I am supposed to be just
answer me this:
Why do I always miss the bus even
when I show up exactly when I am
supposed to be there?
I can't even begin to
bare
the burden of someone
else's messed up schedule.
For god's sake the next time you
need somebody to
water the flowers while you're gone, ask
the responsible bald eagle who doesn't take
cream or sugar or any of that fake crap.
It's better to be safe
than unapologetic.

"Changes in the Weather"
This storm is making our jobs a heck of a lot
harder than the boring, clear paved roads of
a cloudless sky. Flurries never fall straight or
predictably and with this wind I can't see a damn
thing. I seem incapable of not running around just
completing tasks. When the sun comes out it is
inevitable not to feel the pressure to get out, futile
to attempt avoiding the pleasure of a beautiful day.

Diary of a Millennial

You don't have to believe in yourself all of the time, you know, it's ok to be this normal kind of person, uncertain, jumpy, hyper-critical of who? You, of course. Nobody else. Everybody else is doing just fine, amazingly well, actually, in your eyes. You've had a full week of actual productivity, or that's what it feels like, and now you're worried because you're starting to feel a little too sure of yourself. Three interviews in a row and look at you now, making money. It's like you're a real-life-actual-member-of-society, substitute teaching for engineering technology, three charming teenage boys designing things on computers in front of you, not needing you at all, but enjoying the fact that you're here instead of their geeky teacher who they will grow into some version of in the future, enjoying that it's you instead of him because he is not nearly as impressed with their clicking-around-making-random-shapes on some program called Solid Works as you are. Because you don't understand what the hell they are doing. And you let them alternate between clicking around on Solid Works and clicking around on some game with big tanks shooting things because being the cool sub makes you feel appreciated in some small way and that is of the utmost importance to you, to be appreciated.

You go back and forth quite frequently, telling yourself silly affirmations like, "You'll be ok, lots of people struggle in their 20s," or lambasting your failures and shortcomings with a brutal lack of empathy, yes, a lack of empathy for yourself, because lots of people struggle in their 20s but not in the lame ways that you have. Then you step back and realize how entirely selfish it is to think this way, that your own life and thoughts and things that have happened to you consume so much of you. But what else can? Your thoughts are always with you.

You stepped into the office on Monday with vague confusion. "I think I am in the right place. Am I?" You were. Please, have a seat. You got to read the entirety of David Foster Wallace's commencement address, This is Water, before he called you in. Balding already, he shouldn't be. Jeans. A flannel. You found being interviewed by a person in a flannel to put you at ease. Actually, lately, being interviewed does not seem to bother you at all. What's the worst that can happen? You know that for you, the worst that can happen is different than it is for most normal people. Ironically, this makes you interview quite well, and the chances of the worst happening - a job offer - tend to go up dramatically. The woman having a meeting with him before your interview had one of those appearances so strikingly different from what her voice indicated (you listened to their whole conversation, her voice sounded vibrant, confident, energetic) that you are still pondering it, thinking of a description of her you could tell people. She wore gray knit sweatpants. You have never considered wearing gray knit sweatpants to a workplace. Too daunting. What would the people think? You think it is ballsy. Maybe everybody does. She had mousy brown hair - uncombed - glasses that might fairly be called spectacles, and she was about 100 pounds overweight. You admired her. She was just in there agreeing to the terms of her new position, a house lead, her working hours to be from 7:30pm-9:00am. You do not yet realize those would be your hours, too. The interview is about to begin. The way he asked the questions was in the most un-obvious way ever. He would mumble, run his hands over his head, chatter repeated apologies for making you wait for so long countered with defensive assertions of his tiredness and only the second month on the job and hectic, unorganized pile of work he walked into. Then he would start muttering things about the clients you would work with and all of a sudden in the same monotonous muttering tone of voice a question would be presented and he would go silent and look at you expectantly. Oh, there's the first question! You've been waiting for it. "What do you think this job will be?"

You come home from these interviews on some cheerful, pleased-with-yourself sort of high, giddy with the notion that somebody could think highly of you. The next day this all comes crashing down with the reality that somebody expects something out of you. And you are not sure if those expectations are entirely a possibility for you to fulfill, what with your arsenal of self-doubting internal chatter, which has become quite prolific since you graduated from college almost two years ago.  

You pack up your bag and go to the rec center where you swim for an hour with that persistent monologue still in your head, stroke-stroke-breathe, stroke-stroke-breathe, feel your arms pulling you more than your legs propel you, try to consciously kick at the same time as you breathe, turn this into a metaphor for your life, feel ridiculously clever, chuckle at yourself, blow bubbles up to the surface of the water, press your fingertips firmly on the wall when you've finished your last lap and stand up. It's quieter now, because you can hear other people's voices.

At night, you get some sort of peace talking with your boyfriend, telling him you don't know, probably you are not the kind of person who can work night shifts. He thought it was ridiculous because he knows how you are in the middle of the night, afraid of everything, so it was impossible to imagine you taking care of other people at those hours. You want to be tough, but there is the little voice that tells you that you are not. You toss and turn for hours and will yourself to not take the sleeping medicine, not tonight. That can be your tough thing for today.

In the morning you drive to your interview or your substitute teaching job or Walgreens to get that prescription, wherever, and if just the right song is on you start believing in yourself again. Just the right song makes you feel like you can do anything. You aren't where you thought you'd be at 24 but you're not sure where you thought you'd be anyway. You want to help people. You like craft beer. You're good at writing notes to people you love. You have legs that can run or ride a bike or hike a mountain and whenever you do these things you do them with a smile. You love your family. You want to be the kind of person who thinks things will work out in the way they are supposed to work out. You are intuitive, passionate, and ernest. You are a millennial.