The Chair

I have this chair that belonged to my grandmother. It’s a terrible almost crushed velvet in emerald green. The arms are well worn and the head rest is covered in years of White Rain hairspray from when she would rock in it while drinking her umpteenth cup of coffee for the day. It was her favorite piece in her living room, and it has now become my favorite piece in my living room.

It was given to me shortly before my grandfather’s passing. As dying people do, he was giving away the less meaningful or not previously claimed items in his possession and gifted me the chair a long with a well loved vanity and two retro end tables. I hadn’t really wanted the chair but he insisted I needed it even though I already had been given my mother’s wooden rocker. I brought the green chair home and sat it up next to one of the end tables in my living room and soon found myself sitting in it frequently. It didn’t take long before I was rocking Robbie in it at nap time. It was comforting. It was almost like having my grandmother there with me, as if she was somehow getting to be with her great granddaughter and I during those precious moments.

Sometime later I moved into my current residence and the chair found itself neglected and covered in unfolded laundry and toys. I had completely forgotten its power and warmth until one evening Josiah was fussy and I was struggling to calm him on the couch. I shoved everything into the floor and took to rocking him. Soon he was softly snoring in my arms. Since that day I have rocked him at almost every bedtime in the chair while telling Zach that we can never get rid of it.

Tonight after putting Josiah to bed, I gathered Robbie up in my lap and rocked her to sleep for the first time in a few years. As she nuzzled her sweet little face into the crook of my arm and drifted off peacefully, I thought of my grandparents and how they couldn’t have known that the chair would make its way into my home and be used to comfort my babies when they purchased it over two decades ago. I thought of my grandmother with her chipped white coffee mugs filled to the brim with microwaved instant Folger’s and a napkin pressed to the bottom of the mug, gently rocking while resting before she would go out to bring the cattle in to milk in the afternoons. I thought of countless hours spent cross legged, computer in my lap, with my phone resting on the arm softly playing music as I typed out stories, read, or studied. I thought of my husband and children and how I want this chair to be significant in their memories when they look back. I thought of how something so ordinary can mean so much, which lead me to share my feelings with you, Dear Reader. If you don’t already, I hope that some day you find an everyday item that has great sentimental value and you reflect on the emotions and memories tied to it.

The Cross

Happy Sunday Dear Reader. I'm crabby this evening. Tomorrow is Zach's birthday, so I baked his cake earlier. Do you know how hard it is to bake a cake when you can't have any? Gestational diabetes is stupid and I miss carbs.

Anyway.

After my sappy last post, you learned just how dramatically my life has changed over the course of the year. I had originally planned on writing more about that today but I'm just not feeling sentimental and mushy. Instead I'm just going to tell you about a moment in time I keep replying in my head.

In my hometown there is gigantic white cross off the East side of the highway. It sits in the middle of an open field that was clearly farmland at some point and has since found itself the future home of a Christian learning center and proud holder of said cross. The piece of property is the typical heartland beauty, fence rows lined with scrubby trees, Bermuda grass growing in wild patches, handfuls of little weed like flowers are scattered over the area. It's simple and still somehow breathtaking.

When that cross was erected, I remember being in awe of it's beauty and being ashamed that my little town would support such an obvious waste of funds that could have gone to the school or some charity. I was just torn emotionally on the landmark, but I still found myself driving by it with Robbie and telling her why it was there and what it meant.

I should mention that at the time, my relationship with myself and any form of organized religion was quite strained. I wanted to believe in God, but I felt like I was standing outside of the fence while I watched other people find themselves and their faith.

I wasn't part of the crowd. I was uninvited.

On one particularly bad day I was driving home from my mother's house when something just hit me. I wanted to disappear, to end all of my struggle. At the same time I was passing that cross. I couldn't help but notice the line of trees on the fences and I thought something along the lines of how it was a perfect representation of my life. Forever kept on the outside. Never getting to cross over and join the crowd and always lonely. I was so angry with God and myself and the world. How could I just be pushed to the side like that time after time? Why should I be forced to carry such hurt in my heart constantly?

Flash forward to present day. I have clearly dealt with many of my issues, and I'm doing much better mentally thanks to hard work and a whole lot of love and support from Zach. But that day still nags at me. I can hear the thoughts in my head. I can see the the cross and the trees kind of blur as I drive past. I can feel the same anguish. I just can't get past this small paragraph in my story.

Last Sunday at church the message was good as usual, but it hit home for Zach. Something resonated with him and he had a moment that was absolutely heartbreaking and healing all at once. It was something I had never experienced or witnessed before. He just simply let go.

If you've ever seen this happen before, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Something just changes in the room. It is serious and inspirational, and most likely at least a handful of people will cry. It's very intense and basically indescribable.

I know you're thinking that I just jumped topics here, but we are coming full circle. Seeing my husband experience something so personal and monumental has weighed on my mind greatly. He was raised in the church, so this is nothing new for him. But when you are someone who is new to the fold, it has a much deeper impact.

What if seeing that brought the cross memory to the forefront of my mind because it's time to just simply let go of all of my baggage? How does one even begin? I have so many unanswered questions and I am searching for answers, but what if that was my answer? This is something that is going to take some pondering, praying, and a lot of coffee to figure out. But maybe, just maybe, for the first time in my life I am on the path to being a whole, healed, soul.

Ahh, Sunday Morning.

Good morning, Dear Reader. It's a lovely Sunday, AND I FINALLY HAVE A DAY OFF FROM WORK!!! I was even able to sleep past my typical 4:45am wake up call, without the help of a sleep aide. I don't know if you can hear it but, there are angels singing songs of rejoice in my honor. It is glorious.

You know what isn't glorious, though? Sleeping next to your toddler.

Per her usual routine, Robbie woke up at 5am, got in our bed, and we all tried to rest peacefully. And at first we managed this. But then I started dreaming about the book I've been reading. (Gary L. Stewart's account of trying to find his birth father, and discovering his father was the Zodiac Killer. Super creepy, but I can't put it down.) Being that I am quite the sissy and couldn't return to sleep, I laid beside my sleeping toddler, quietly, when out of nowhere, the smelliest of smelly toddler feet smacked me right in the face.

Unsure of what to do, for fear I might awaken my child, I just suffered and suffocated under her toes and foot stank. It was awful. But it gets worse. Soon I found my face being crushed by BOTH of her stinky feet. Unable to stand the stench anymore, I rolled over to face away from her. At last I could breathe, and I was beginning to tire, so I decided to go back to sleep.

I'm certain I was starting to snore about the time the kicking to my back began, so I am sure I deserved that. But what came next was unjust. In my half asleep haze, I rolled back over believing I would cuddle with my sweet sleeping baby. But there were no cuddles to be had. Oh no. In place of the cuddles that should have been, my child gave me the gift of possible decapitation. She slashed her arms through the air, coming down directly on my windpipe. Still in fear of waking of the child, I tried to cough and sputter in to the blanket. My attempts were spurned by my child's head butting straight in to my chest. Such action surely left a bruise on my sternum. In my head I screamed in pain, but only bit my lip to keep from crying out and awakening the storm that is my offspring.

Blankets and pillows began to fly as my little darling pelted me with anything that was within her am's reach, and I began to realize that the entire time I believed my child was sleeping wildly, she was in fact very much awake.

I was hurt and insulted by her mischievous behavior, but I was unwilling to get out of my warm bed at the time, so I continued pretending to sleep. It was not long before I was found out, and demands for cereal and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse began. Defeated and battered, I limped into the living room to provide the solution to my child's demands and begin typing this for you, Dear Reader. In the event that I should pass away due to my injuries, or am suffocated by my toddler's beloved blankie at nap time, please remember me as I always was, dramatic, sarcastic, and over caffeinated.