"Getting older's not been on my plans"

 Owen Hayes,   When I was a little girl on my birthday, Nanny would always recount to me my birth story. It was something I always looked forward to and always received without fail. It has been several years now since I have heard it, but could probably verbatim retell. As you get older, I plan to continue this tradition. I know that if I tried to tell you today, you would mumble something (maybe yell a little) put your hands down by your side, tilt your head down and walk away uninterested. So, instead I thought I would just share with you 2 of my favorite things about you...   1. Your magically infectious smile.           I never knew how good the feeling would be to have someone run up to you and just want love. I didn't think I could be someone's "favorite." Perhaps because I didn't understand it. Yes, I was your Uncle Andy's favorite, and I was your father's as well...but this is different. When you look at me, either when I pick you up from Nanny or

 There is only so much you can take. Only so much you can handle before you just can't. Anymore.      What is strength? How can one quantify it? Can you really be strong physically and have no emotional or mental strength? If so, how do you cope? If not, how do you balance? It is innate in us to give of ourselves. To something...whether it be family, friends, work, or just ourselves. But, we give what needs the most. Or, what we think needs the most. And it drains us. Completely.     I would venture to say, most of the time it is easy, and, if not easy, then manageable. But, what happens when it isn't anymore? I remember feeling this exact way when I was working at my last job. I would go and go and go and go...and then find myself on the verge of breaking. This past month has been the hardest for me in some time. Why? I don't think I can pinpoint exactly the reason, but I feel it. I feel the over-bending and the near-shattering of myself.     A week or so ago, I told a clo

   Yesterday, Bee and I celebrated 4 years of marriage. 4! *Insert wide-eyed emoji* To some, that is minutes, a blip on the radar, a drop in the ocean. To us, it's everything. Our whole beings are wrapped up in the very thought of the other,  and I wish it no other way.    This year, the traditional gifts are fruit and flowers. 2 wonderfully fragrant, and refreshing things. However, they are alive, and they die. They must be enjoyed. They must be used for the betterment of ourselves before they pass.    With the birth of our son, we have had so many new and different challenges. Last year, we became tough like leather so as to weather the never-ending storms that pelted our lives. This year...we find ourselves having to become more malleable and sweet. Fragrant even for our little to be embraced in.    This has been more difficult for me. I tend to get hard and forget that the most important things are needed to be felt with an open heart and a fluid mind. I tend to be more leather

  Someone asked me last week if my life has changed being a mother. I responded rather flippantly with something like, "I understand more sleepless nights and perhaps shorter patience." But, this week has caused me to look a bit more introspective.   This Holy week was too reminiscent of the last, at least of me not being at Mass celebrating the Triduum, the 3 most holy days of our liturgical calendar. But, last year, Covid was beginning to take over the world, and unbeknownst to anyone but me, at least what I thought to be true, I was pregnant.    Here we are, a year later, baby Owen almost 4 months old and Covid finally getting more under control thanks to those of us who take things seriously.    But, what has changed since I became a mother? I understand a little more now Abraham's sorrow and fear when he led Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him. I understand a little more now the pure happiness that showed on the face of the prodigal son's father. I understand

  Me: "So, we can't use condoms."   Bee: "Okay."   Me: "And, I don't do birth control."   Bee: "Ookaayy..."   Me: "So, I would imagine that me being so regular in my cycle that we are going to get pregnant pretty quickly."   Bee: "Gotcha..."   Me: "Oh, and no sex until we are married."   Almost 5 and a half years ago, a conversation very similar to this took place between me and white boy. I felt it important to lay down everything I wanted, needed, and expected in a relationship due to the fact that I was done chasing and giving in to men. I figured if he stuck around then there was something worth pursuing.    With conversations like this, he never flinched. Not once. I think he might have been skeptical at times, perhaps to see if I would relinquish my, "You have to come to Mass with me. There is no choice, and our children will be raised Catholic," harsh expectations. But once I realized he wasn

   It fell off sometime around the middle or maybe it was the end of week 2...the shriveled up remnant of the tie between my unborn child and me. I kind of always thought it would be a momentous event: "Call the papers! Call the masses! Owen's umbilical cord fell off." But, it was a quiet moment. Sometime around 230 in the morning. It was just me, and I thought, "Huh, so this is how it happens." I open his onesie to change him and there it sits on his belly...no longer attached. I saved it in a little box so white boy could see it in the morning.    I was told by more than several people that once Owen was born it would all be worth it. That all the pain all the madness that came with labor and birth would all float away when he was placed on my chest. Well, I didn't get that. I didn't get the first moments to hold him to see if I could feel the ebb of pain and turmoil as they left my body. It wasn't for least 45 minutes, as I laid there to get stitc