Writing Club: Stream of Consciousness

Stream of Consciousness: 

As I was leaving Target I thought about this essay.  How I might be a little embarrassed writing down my random thoughts because one,  I don’t think I think much and two, my thoughts are about the depth of...the depth of…something not very deep.   

Speaking of Target, I don’t know how I even ended up there today.  Maybe because it was Thursday and Thursday means either me or my sister call each other from Target and cry over how many cute items we would love to take home with us and how we will probably only end up with a couple items from the dollar section.

But that statement isn’t true.  Oh I buy my dollar section items but then proceed to add one or two items that are not needed but apparently I can’t live without.   

Those purchases lead to tight chested sadness and chocolate cravings. 

Appropriately enough Pat Benatars, “A total eclipse of the heart” came on the radio on my way home from THAT store.  I sang my heart out.  This tragically romantic song lead me to think of more tragically romantic songs like Toni Braxtons, “Unbreak my Heart” and Poisons “Every Rose has its Thorn”.  Then I thought why not have more tragically romantic songs on a whole CD that I can listen too after my Target trips.  Or while I eat a cookie after my workout.  Or even after I make my bed which I swore I did yesterday.  But now I can’t think of anymore tragically romantic songs because like I said my thoughts run minimally deep.   

I just Googled “A total eclipse of the Heart”.  I guess Bonnie Tyler sings it.  Can you help me think of more songs for my CD? 

One other thought.  In sixth grade my science teacher stopped mid-sentence and told the class that if you pick your zits the puss will create more zits which will spread across your face.  All of us immediately looked at the one kid who always picked his zits.  He was then slowing taking his hand away from his face.  Away from the contagious zit that he was picking.   

I need to know the truth.  Are zits contagious or did my teacher just tell us that so she didn’t have to watch us pick our zits anymore? 

I’m not going to Google that one. 

p.s. there are my thoughts for you.  Unedited. Unspellchecked. Ungramically correct. 

p.p.s.  I will hopefully get to normal blogging soon.

Writing Club Part 3

I was a little nervous to publish this one but I figure I'm not the only one who went through something like this...

 

The moment you knew you were no longer a child 

In second grade I decided that I was going to start swearing.  I was sick of my childishness and thought a little rebellion would give me power.  I remember the morning I said my first swear word.  I was curling my hair in preparation for school and I burned my arm.   

$#*%!.   

Alright, that wasn’t so bad.  It even gave me a little relief.  This would be easier than I thought though I think I stretched the word out longer than professionals do.  I’ll do better next time. 

Later that day a boy, who constantly picked on me, gave me a hard pinch on the arm.   

$#*%!.   

Whew.  This time the bad word came out not as stretched.  My bully heard what I said and to drag out the teasing asked, “What did you just say?”  Embarrassed I turned bright red and mumbled “nothing”.  I quickly turned around and continued walking with the class, being very carefully not to look back at that boy.  I realized in my walk of shame that the words I said really didn’t feel good.  I vowed to never swear again.  I sounded ridiculous.   

I guess rebellion wasn’t adulthood.   

At 15 I had the world figured out.  I wanted nothing more than to find my high school sweetheart, fall madly in love, and get married once he returned on his mission.  I found him in a shy 17 year old boy with handsome features and a contagious laugh.  We started hanging out once our friends informed us that we liked each other.  Sparks flew when we spent Valentines night at his friend’s house playing duck hunt on the Nintendo.  He made fun of how bad I was at the game while he shot the ducks from a great distance, sometimes with his eyes closed.  Our friends snuck away and we shared our first kiss.  After that night we were inseparable.   

My parents advised against having such a serious boyfriend but I knew what we had was different.   After 6 months of dating I started separating myself from my family to rid myself of the guilt.  Interaction with my siblings was nonexistent and my relationship with my parents was informational only.  My friends moved on too.  They went to after game activities and had new crushes each week.  They filled their time in semi-illegal but mostly innocently goofy activities.  I figured if I sacrificed everything I loved for him then our love was real.  

I told myself that I didn’t care.  Our relationship was more important and I had a genuinely fun time with him.  He spoiled me with gifts and I gave my emotional self completely to him.  I loved his family and they treated me like a daughter.  We had a bright future ahead of us.   

After almost three years of dating he left on his mission.  The short months before his mission were rough and it was a bitter sweet moment when his plane flew off to a foreign country.  He was gone and I set there crying in the airport while his future wife comforted me.  He was gone and it left me completely empty.  All my time and energy went into him.  Now I was left to fill it with what?  I went back to normal high school activities but still felt empty.   

Apparently sacrificing wasn’t adulthood.     

So I did what I thought was my only other option.  I found another boy. 

I tried to recreate what I had with my first love.  This second love came from a broken home and I wanted to be one of the people that showed him what it was like to be loved.  He was oblivious to what I was offering so I gave him what was left of me.  Desperate for a response I did whatever I needed to create another deep relationship.  It seemed to be working and for two years we continued an unhealthy relationship.  I finally became fed up of being weak and called it quits.   

I guess fixing someone wasn’t adulthood. 

In a couple months span my first love came home from his mission, my second love left on his mission, and I met my future husband.  After a couple of dates with my future husband I knew he was the kind of person I wanted to be with.  I quickly invested my time into becoming the type of person that deserved someone like him.  My future husband and I were not dating seriously when my first love came home.  I was extremely distant from my first love.  After a couple nights of spending time together I briefly told him I didn’t feel the same way towards him and gave him no further explanation.  Truth be told I was extremely embarrassed about the way I handled life while he was gone.  If I told him goodbye maybe my mistakes would disappear too.  It allowed me to keep my darkest secrets tucked away. 

I started dating my future husband with a clean slate.  We fell in love and after a year of dating we were married.  I stayed mum on my past relationships and it clearly affected our first year of marriage.  It was obvious to me and my husband that I didn’t have much to give him.  The time and energy I spent in past relationships tainted what could have been a new and exciting time for us.  I finally opened up to him about my frustrations and what I thought I was going to be.  We shared many raw conversations that expressed our regrets and uncovered truths of our past.  We hurt each other’s feelings more than we wanted to but it was necessary in the healing process.  As time went on our relationship became exactly what we hoped it would be.  I slowly felt liberated from my past. 

Apparently keeping everything tucked inside wasn’t adulthood. 

Three years later I found myself sitting in a Bishops office with my husband next to me and our two little girls on our laps.  Our Bishop asked us how we were doing and we gave our response.  He then turned to me and with a smile and kind eyes he said “It sure has been neat watching you mature these last couple of years.”  I stared at him for a moment thinking “Doesn’t he know I’ve been mature since I was eight?”  I kindly said, “thank you” and as he continued to talk my mind raced, his voice moving farther in the distance.  I saw my life flash before me and I witnessed how naïve I was.  Why did I ever think I knew better?  It started with my innocent rebellions in elementary school and ended with my self-sacrificing loves in high school.   

His humbling compliment helped me see myself for what I really was and who I was actually becoming.  All of my mock attempts at adulthood were really just a fight against God.  Since marriage I had learned what it really meant to be obedient and for the first time had actually done it.  Obedience equaled growth.  I realized the naïve sparkle in my eye had turned into a knowing empathy and grace.  The once bleached hair and tight figure had turned into a faded roundness that understood the purpose of a body.  My all-knowing mind and heart finally realized that it didn’t know everything and needed some major work done.  I realized in that moment to be an adult we had to be like a child; Obedient to what God wanted for us and not obedient to our own desires.  

God has a funny way of teaching us.  He lets us make mistakes and protects us along the way even though we don’t deserve it.  He taught me in that small office that if we are willing to make small and sometimes big adjustments he will bless us with anything pure we ever wanted.  And he did. 

Writing Club Part 4

Do you have a superstition?  What is it, Why do you have it, and how do you follow it?

My superstition is “knocking on wood”.  I don’t know why I started it but whenever I brag about something {usually my kids finally sleeping through the night} my stomach gets all tense and I feel like I just jinxed myself.  I quickly find some wood, give it a couple of knocks, and feel instant protection.  Don’t know why I do it…

When I was thinking about this prompt I thought it would be fun to create a story.  Here is what I came up with.

FANNI FROM THE TREE

I didn’t come to earth the same way everyone else came to earth.  There were no storks.  There were no birds.  And there were absolutely no bees.  I hate bees.

Most babies in our town came to earth in a hospital, all except for Tommy Burch.  Tommy came out in his families corn field.  His mom was slaving away picking ear after ear of corn.  Her stomach got really tight.  She bent over to catch her breath and POP out came Tommy.  She caught him real quick and cleaned everything up.  She debated if she should keep working but decided to call it a night.  The town talked about it for days.

My story is different.  I’ll begin where it started.

I was born on a warm summer day.  The birds sang happy songs and the sun shone through my mother’s bedroom window.  My mother watched the sun rays dance on her wooden floor.  But that is about all she could do because her heart felt heavy and her eyes were wrung dry.  In her arms she held a lifeless baby boy.  Born the same day as me but too early and too quick.  The doctors said there was nothing they could have done.  So my mother sat there holding my brother, watching the sun rays, and thinking about nothing.

My father walking in and nodded to my mother.  She nodded back.  They walked out into the field where a wooden box lay next to a deep hole.  My mother hugged my brother and traced her finger over every inch of his face, memorizing him in that moment.  She then handed him to my father where he kissed him on both cheeks, one for each breath that he took.  He gently laid him in the box, which lay in the hole, which was covered by the earth.  When the earth was back in place my mom went back to her bedroom to stare at the sun rays.  My father stared at the earth he just put back in place.  He had to listen to the birds with their happy songs and the more he listened the sadder he got.  Then his sadness turned to anger and he grabbed his ax.  He started chopping at that three that had all the birds singing their happy songs.  Chop, Chop, Chop, and then Silence.  The chopping kept all the happy songs away so my father kept chopping until the whole tree fell over.  The tree fell, the birds flew, the dust settled, and my father caught his breath.  My father heard the last noise in the whole wide world that he thought he would hear.  The sound of a baby crying.  The sound of ME crying.  He ran to my cries and found me snuggled up in a big crack of the tree he just cut down.  When the tree fell it split strait down the middle.  And in the middle of the middle was a hollow shape like a cocoon.  That cocoon is what I was now kicking and screaming in.  My father picked me up and my cries softened.  He ran his fingers through my thick auburn hair and scanned my perfect pink wrinkly body.  What he wanted to do was race inside to my mother with me held high in the air screaming, “We have a baby! We have a baby!”  But that not being the best idea he took smooth quick strokes to where my mother lay in her room.  He placed me in my mother’s arms and told her where I came from.  My mother’s dry eyes cried tears she didn’t think she had.  They named me Fanni after my Grandma who planted the very tree my father found me in.  My mother said it was the best and worst day of her life.  The worst because her heart was broken into a million pieces and the best because I pieced her heart back together again.

I don’t mind that I came here differently than everyone else.  My parents tell me that their heart will always ache for the loss of their little baby.  But they had faith that they would have a baby of their own and here I am.  My Father always jokes that I am his lucky charm.  Whenever he needs fate to fall his way he gives me a knock on the head.  He says most people have to find a tree to knock on for good luck.  But all he needs is his little “Fanni Tree” and life is exactly how it should be. 

Writing Club Part 2

Writing Prompt: You are a Serial Killer. What shows do you put on your DVR? Why? 

My job

Unconventional

Riding beings of this world

 who shouldn’t be here

at least I don’t think they should be

I don’t like to believe anyone loves them

 

My favorite

Death by poison

I watch them

Struggle

Shrivel up

Fight for air

And then

Nothing

 

If that doesn’t work

Fast enough

I remove limbs

One

By

One

Then apply pressure

Slowly

Firmly

Snap

Nothing

 

Sometimes I save

Unique killings

To remember the experience

There is a way

To store things

Without

Stench

 

After a full day

I need rejuvenation

TV always helps

Preferably

“So you think you can dance”

 

I watch only

The judges

Specifically

Mary Murphy

Her voice

Chalk on chalkboard

Nothing makes

Me want to

Kill more than

That voice

 

So I fast forward

To her

Cackle

Rewind

Cackle

Rewind

Cackle

RAGE

 

Suddenly

My phone rings

No doubt

Jobs

For the next day

I’m ready for it

I tap accept

In my most

Professional voice

I say

“Serial Killer Bug Extermination

How may I help you?”

Writing Club Part 1

I’ve always been captivated by my daughters eyes.  They have taught me lessons of God, Heaven, and Life that I believe could not have been learned elsewhere.

On this particular day, my two daughters and I lounged in the nursery, cooped up from the summer’s deadly heat.  My oldest daughter walked around in just her diaper.  Her usual attire.  She carried all of her dolls and stuffed animals into the other room to scatter sporadically.  After she finished I assumed she would grab the baskets full of clean laundry and move them into another room.  She would then throw the clean attire up into the air, shout “it’s amazing”, and let them fall on her face like we do with the grass and fallen leaves in our front yard. 

My youngest daughter had just woken up from a nap.  She was still crawling around her bed, sucking on the bars, and talking sweet baby talk to herself.  I lay on the ground next to her crib with the familiar tightness in my chest.  It was a feeling I had become all too familiar with since becoming a mom. 

I tried to cover the discomfort within me by carefully deciding what paint color should replace the bright blue that now covered the walls.  Why did I ever pick that color?  I’m sure once I told my husband that I was painting the room again he would make fun of me for decreasing the square footage in our home.  Despite the teasing I would receive from my husband I decided on a creamy yellow to cover the walls.  The decision didn’t take away the tightness growing stronger in my chest.  What if I tried to decide what to hang up on the bare walls?  What if I finally dressed myself for the day?  What if I browsed the internet for creative ideas? No, No, and No.  None of these activities helped my anxiety in the past.  Why would they help now?  I decided to just stare at the ceiling and find different shapes within the texture.  Maybe thinking about nothing will make me feel nothing. 

I struggle with postpartum depression.  On a scale from 1 to 5, I’ve diagnosed myself as a 3.  I would feel great amounts of anxiety and numbness but always felt like I had a small amount of control over it.  Control in the sense that I didn’t require medicine.  I also had a husband who kept my mind in check and who didn’t freak out at my crazy thoughts.  To put it simply it took a lot of work to be happy.  Too much work when I had a healthy family, a comfortable home, and a stable job that allowed me to be home with my girls.  To make matters worse I felt extremely detached from my daughters.  There was numbness there when I took care of them and it made me feel guilty.  I knew I loved them but my depression threw up a wall that I sometimes couldn’t climb. 

                As I laid there staring at the ceiling I gazed over at my daughter staring down on me from her crib.  I stood up and started talking to her.  As I spoke to her her eyes caught mine and fixed my gaze.  She stared at me for what seemed like hours.  As she did so I realized she had no reason to look away.  She had no insecurities or regrets that would cause her to fidget or look elsewhere.  I found her confidence liberating and vowed to have that purity and strength return within myself.  The tightness in my chest softened and was replaced with warmth that told me everything was going to be ok.  It told me that my sweet daughters and I had limitless potential.  It taught me of a loving God who was the only one with the ability to take away my pain.  No paint color or creative project could do that for me.  I felt blessed that my daughter was an instrument in teaching me of his love.  The five seconds her eyes held mine gave me strength.  I immediately took her out of her crib and held her in my arms.  I kissed her chubby cheeks and tickled her side forcing out a squeal.  She nuzzled into my chest and we walked off to find her sister probably hiding in the laundry scattered around the room.  I couldn’t help feeling the rest of the day that my daughters were not just a physical extension of me but that their eyes were the windows to my soul.