Stay Calm and Twerk On

Hello.

I feel like I’m back from a long summer, sitting at a wooden school desk with unfamiliar name tags on the surrounding tables, but I can’t read them because my blue coke bottle glasses are in my back pocket.
I’m sitting half on them with my ass positioned to not break them kinda like I’m about to deliver a massive fart. This seems a favorable choice rather than look like a huge nerd terd with glasses on, my first day of school, the year my mom put me back INTO my brothers grade, HALF way through the school year, in MIDDLE SCHOOL for the love of God.

I had straight A’s but she wasn’t ready for High School yet.
I digress.
I’m probably 13.

Perhaps being legally blind and blond worked for me, not being able to see the strange looks and finger pointing helped, although I did have perfect hearing unfortunately.

“Psst. PSST. Where’s your brother? Who are you?”
“Hey. Is he coming back? We have basketball fourth period.”

I told the truth, but as always, a little too loudly.

“He’s going to be much bigger for his grade now, so thank ME when he dunks like Jordan or at least gets off the bench!”

Like now, everyone back then laughed, and like today, I never have any idea why.

I was done with this stupid blog.
Thank God Lola dropped my Macbook, this depressing blog of personal private heart break runs like skid marks across the page, just as embarrassing as what one might discover washing dads stinky underwear.

It sucked, the last few years were painful, plus I have turned a new page, my mothering more alive and healed than ever, Kat and Lola stories are my favorites, so many too tell, plus a new job with colorful hilarious characters.
So, I began to itch to write.

But all the judging voices came to play (Not real ones so sorry to disappoint.)

Then a funny thing happened.
Kat went to fifth grade.

I became her life line for handling mean girls, and seriously, I should be a Middle School life coach.
God, I’ve been dying to write down my true feelings about those little bitches, the things Kat never hears me say.
Yes, I do act like an adult even though I DON’T WANT TO!

Narcissistic mean children with flat chests, cell phones, and clueless parents.
What mean and heinous creatures Middle School girls are!

It is survival 101 and Kat is wide eyed, unsure how to move in their territory.
She has always been highly sensitive and easily hurt, her big and bad attitude a direct front.

And so, I asked myself, how could I teach her to be authentic and real, a girl cool enough to roam the halls her own way with her own style, unaffected by the haters, focused on who she liked and what she thought rather than what others would say…..

If I couldn’t even face my own damn blog?

So for her, I hope to lead with courage, not let others define me or the voices defeat me.

I must be the thing I tell her to go be.

I must be just me, and if I eat alone, get whispered about, get directly bitch slapped or ignored, its gonna be okay.

I may even Twerk just to prove it.

Junk in the Trunk

Auntie Sage once said something to me that she has no idea how it has carried me. She is not a fluffy person, nor does she throw compliments away which is why when you receive one, it lands with a bulk of weight tied to it.

Clyde and Divorcee are both like that, my own compliments are far more like Lola.

I once heard her make a woman gasp when she said she had lovely eye lashes.
I think I congratulate every one in sight I see who has a pretty scarf or a tired look, the thought that I should keep my sparkly thoughts to myself come after I am stuck in a two hour conversation with a stranger, a fact that is either painful or wonderful. It is the best and worst of me.

Anyway, Auntie Sage said she could see clearly in front of me a day I was photographing and writing, living and being, and no one on earth would believe where I had come from, the life lessons that I have overcome.

I would love to believe that is true, and so here I am, not eating Chick fil A to save on gas, opting for crackers out of the vending machine, my stomach eating itself, my heart grateful to have made it the week with two bucks to spare.

I can not complain for I am sitting in my dream, no longer looking at it, but touching it, living it, seeing it form around me, enormous bold bright miraculous shapes of love healing and strengthening me.

I sit in the parking lot of this school and weep sometimes, not sure how I will pay for a color checker passport or light meter or if I will have the money to get contacts, but I know the anxiety will not kill me, or so I hope.

If it does, I went out in flames, so burn me to a crisp, put me in little jars to spread around like party favors, go find a great live band, and let’s have a huge party.
Until then, I will hold on to my dream, to Auntie’s words, to the day I will walk onto a shoot, equipment my own and paid for, art directors that respect and love me, my children waiting at our own house that Divorcee is waiting to drop them off for me.

I will have fluffy pillows, hard wood floors, windows that sun beams through during the morning. I will not even remember the days of being on the side of 285, exhausted, weeping, broken, texting strangers to get me to class.

I will pick out my favorite pair of boots out of many to choose, make art and meet people, laugh a lot, and when someone asks me about the story of life upon meeting, I will smile, say I am blessed, that with God and love, all things are possible.

And I will remember today, as I cry on my bed, my glasses being switched around with my last pair of contacts, my hair streaked whitish orange from a CVS hair dye, the heartbreak I feel over missing my children to go close down a restaurant, the weight of it all I will remember.

It will break me open, humble me, and my soul will shout in just living that anything is possible, that as deep as one can feel pain, one can also feel joy. I choose joy.
I love Junkyards, always have, even as a little girl, I would come home with things people had thrown away, crafting projects and tree houses, believing you can make anything beautiful if you see it differently.

I have been thrown away myself, tossed with mighty force as well as happily owned, captured and treasured for all the right and wrong reasons.

Despite it all, I have never been anything else.
Junk lets other people’s ideas of them believe they are worthy.
Art is already worthy and that is why it stands apart from all the other shitty pieces of creation.
It laces up its shoes, chooses joy when people are pissed the chips are soggy, believes in faith because miracles have paves its way, and doesn’t way to be discovered.
It is already found.

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