100 Truths

1. There are many look before you leaper’s in the world… although I’m learning with my years, I still prefer the sink or swim method!
2. I tuck the covers beneath my feet at night… and in between my knees.
3. Making my bed in the morning is daunting,
4. So usually I don’t.
5. I’m daddy’s little girl.
6. It’s true, I used to leave hate notes for my mother, underneath her pillow at night… just wanted her to let me live with my dad… I always signed them “daddy’s little girl”.
7. Through sheer determination and persistence, I finally got my way (6 years later).
8. I have come to love my mother very much in my adult life.
9. She is the one of the boldest, most audacious women I have ever met.
10. She has shown me what it’s like for a mother to love a child.
11. She loves dancing, garage sales, cooking, laughing, and telling stories that make people laugh.
12. My dad loves tea, gardening, wood working, camping, fishing, and telling jokes that are so corny, they don’t usually make you laugh.
13. Except I do… every time.
14. I’m currently fascinated with getting to know them as they were before they had us kids.
15. I can hardly remember my parents together; it’s hard to believe they were once in love.
16. I come from a rather hearty and obstinate pair:
17. Two hippies that decided to move to the remote wilderness and live off the land, like Laura Ingalls Wilder-type folk!
18. (I read all the Little House in the Prairie books when I was a kid).
19. They were REAL hippies, the kind that read the Mother Earth News to learn the most humane way to kill chickens for their own consumption.
20. They lived with no heat or running water, BY CHOICE!
21. This explains a lot about me.
22. I was balancing my own savings account ledger when I was 8 and making my own doctors appointments when I was 12.
23. They taught me to be resourceful and self-sufficient.
24. I started a business two years ago… it’s proven to be the greatest challenge I’ve ever known.
25. Why don’t more people teach their kids these things?
26. My dad still grows weed in the basement…
27. He used to smoke with my brother.
28. My brother died 2 years ago of a heart attack.
29. I miss him every day.
30. He left behind a lovely wife, two baby boys (whom I absolutely adore), and a lonely teenage daughter who is now learning to find her way in life.
31. He was the one person in my family that made me feel ok being there.
32. No one has ever made me laugh like my brother did.
33.  I smile every time a light bulb burns out… I think it’s him.
34. It’s silly, I know, but it’s these little things that help me cope.
35. I have a sister too.
36. She’s brilliant; although she’s younger than me, she makes my life look like a mess.
37. I don’t ever want to lose her; I wish I could see her more.
38. I like to cook…except when someone expects me to cook them dinner.
39. I think food is pretty.
40. I turned vegetarian when I was 16.
41. High school dissection traumatized me… the association was all too real.
42. My parents’ reaction was to make me “buy all my own food and make all of my own meals,” their tactics to dissuade me didn’t work.
43. I’m still vegetarian, (I could eat black beans and plantains everyday)!
44. I hold my ground.
45. I was born and raised in the Midwest,
46. But I’ve grown up on the East Coast.
47. Life in a city is so rich, so real, so raw…
48. It’s a truth worth knowing and a love that’s hard to explain to those who don’t.
49. My parents will never understand…this makes me sad.
50. I often feel guilty for choosing this life over them.
51. I love them more and more every day.
52. It’s hard to watch them grow old.
53. True confession: I love drinking a glass of wine in a hot bathtub while listening to Latin music.
54. My body is built like a Latin woman.
55. Perhaps this is why I feel the urgency to learn Spanish!
56. I hated my body so much when I was growing up.
57. Nobody looked like me in the Midwest!
58. Finally I’ve embraced my curves… so too, have many men.
59. One in particular I still crave.
60. He was the kind of lover you only imagine exists in your dreams…
61. Sometimes it seems like it WAS a dream.
62. I feel lucky to have known what it CAN be.
63. I wish more women had a chance to experience that kind of sex.
64. I would do him again, if I ever have the chance!
65. I’ve been in love only once, truly.
66. He and I were everything I thought my life was meant to be.
67. Until the rage inside of him, was beyond what I could shoulder.
68. It wasn’t my responsibility to take that pain.
69. No one should be scared of their partners, ever.
70. Finally the ugly inside him ate up the good in my eyes.
71. We are done for now…
72. I still love to hear his voice.
73. But I will never go back to the person that I became with him.
74. I’m much happier now, than I have been in many, many years.
75. I’m trying new things… walking with confidence in my shoes again.
76. Exploring a different side of my sexuality…
77. A bit confused…I’ll confess,
78. I like men, but women are so beautiful… I think I like them too…
79. But I’ll figure it out.
80. I love to write, but I’m scared to show it to people.
81. I miss art, it’s something I’ve never fully let myself do.
82. Writing seems so personal; it’s hard to expose your deepest thoughts to the world.
83. Blogging seems like a promising cure for my dilemma.
84. I hope you like my blogs. (If you don’t, that’s ok, I don’t actually know you).
85. I will try my best to write honestly.
86. I’d like to travel the world and write a book about children…
87. To experience life from within other cultures… always wished American’s had more meaningful culture and traditions.
88. I hope I will someday.
89. I adore kids… they keep my perspective fresh and remind me of who I want to be.
90. They dig me too.
91. I don’t know if I’ll ever have them.
92. I was pregnant once, when I didn’t want to be.
93. I couldn’t do it.
94. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
95. Eventually I was glad it happened.
96. I tried to get pregnant once, and we couldn’t.
97. I’ve raised enough kids in life already…
98. Perhaps that’s enough.
99. I’m getting older now, perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.
100. I’ll continue along my path in life just as I have, wandering the side roads… It’s been a lovely journey so far; I trust that there is so much more to be found along the way.