did i do it rite?

life is full of firsts- first roll over, first tooth, first steps, first words, first haircut, first day of school, first heartbreak, first school dance...all small rites of passage in their own way.

each is a passage way onto becoming something-

when you have your first period you're on your way to becoming a young lady.

when you have sex for the first time, you've transitioned out of childhood.

when you get your first job you're on your way to financial independence.

when you move out of your parents home you're on your way to establishing yourself as a member of society.

all these things. the basis of a thousand cliches, rom-com movies, how to survive raise a teenager self help books.

we need to know the right way to do things, the right way to commemorate, the right way to mark the passage of another milestone on the grand journey of life.

and there are people that are amazing at that. ALWAYS the right card for the occasion. the fully planned celebration. the poignant thing to say to commemorate the perfect photo finish memory.

and then there's the rest of us.

those of us hanging on by the skin of our teeth, no fucking clue what we're doing or how to make the correct scrap book about it.

you know the mom that remembers every school picture day and then makes an 18 year photo album with all the pictures neatly tagged and chronicled?

I'M NOT THAT MOM.

there's a box upstairs in my bedroom- it's full of albums of school pictures, important school papers, report cards, certificates, award. my mum saved them all those years and put them into an album for both my brother and i.

swim certificates, school papers, pictures, trophies...it's all there

i have a box somewhere with i think a *few* of my kids school papers and classroom pictures. maybe a few classroom certificates or awards. i have one of their impossibly tiny baby boy blue "i was born at mount carmel hospital" shirts and socks somewhere.

honestly not sure which of the two it belongs to.

i've never planned the big, themed birthday party. i think i remembered to put their names in their baby books. i make it to almost all their school events but i'll be damned if i can produce a picture of even half of them.

you know the saying: "no one is totally worthless, you can always be held up as the bad example." 

THAT'S ME. as many cliches as there are for the perfect moments, there's also the cliches of the train wreck moments.

THOSE ARE MY MOMENTS.

losing your virginity: it's supposed to be sweet and tender and that moment with the boy you really like that you've been dating forever. It's supposed to be cutely awkward and that moment you're going to remember forever.

oh shit, i remember mine alright.

16, sophmore year, a guy i had a HUGE crush on that intentionally put effort into forgetting i existed. i found out he was moving and thought i'd try one last time to catch his attention.

the whole thing start to finish was maybe 2 minutes and went something like this:
me: so i heard you were moving.
him: yup.
me: well, if you want to have sex before you leave...
him: ok. take your pants off.
*awkward fumbling and removal of just enough clothes*
him: ready?
me: ow, that really hurts.

and i haven't seen him again since.

no cute awkwardness. just awkwardness. no romance. no sweet tender build up. just enough to technically not be a virgin any more.

then there's the first time i *ACTUALLY* had sex.

followed 9 months later by giving birth.



i graduated college twice and didn't walk in either procession.

i got married at a place called "The Hitching Post" by a minister that had ironed on pictures of his grandkids inside his suit jacket.

my divorce was a fairly simple affair (ha ha ha...he had two mistresses.  IT'S FUNNY PEOPLE).

i moved out and took everything that was either mine at the beginning or that i was currently paying for on credit, filed the papers, and 3 months later a judge officially declared me divorced. no war of the roses. no screaming arguments that ended with, "...AND YOU CAN TALK TO MY LAWYER."

i've been through some terrible rites of passage- attending the funeral of your parent before you're 30 is not a moment i would wish on anyone. 

i'm still not sure i did that right.

is making jokes during the hour and a half long procession about stopping for road trip snacks the right way?

DON'T GET YOUR KNICKERS IN A TWIST. we didn't actually stop. too many logistics in stopping a 2 mile long procession for snacks, even if the store was having a 2 for 1 sale on doritos.

besides. we kind of all decided giving a ulogy with dorito dust on our black clothes may be a little uncouth.

we weren't monsters.

well, maybe i'm not a total monster, but i am the person that joked about once and twice baked ashes from the same family being different colors as we spread them in the ocean.

same family, different colored ashes. you can look if you don't believe me.

i don't do things the right way. i never have.

i don't have the cute stories wrapped up in a bow.

i'll be the mom at graduation *just* remembering i forgot to send out senior pictures and announcements.

i'll be the mother-in-law that forgets an heirloom gift for the bride.

i'll probably get my first letter from the AARP and get a paper cut that lands me in the hospital some how ending in a hip replacement.

maybe there is no RIGHT of passage. maybe that's why the spelling is wrong.

back to basics

a few weeks ago the ladies of my book club encouraged me to sign up for a weekly writing prompt.

and so i did (i promise, i'm working on this weeks prompt).

THEN, like the true assholes they are, these amazing women bonded together and signed me up for a winter writing intensive course (be ready for a deluge of posts in december!).

jerks.

WOULD YOU JUST STOP BELIEVING IN ME AND ENCOURAGING ME ALREADY??

they presented me with THE PERFECT CARD:

it is filled with the. most. supportive and AMAZING notes that made me cry and snot all over my self, and they were of course right, it would have been better at the restaurant across the street instead of at the book fandango surrounded by strangers. BUT THERE WERE FREE BOOKS AND A HANDSOME AUTHOR SPEAKING.

SO.

to my ladies: (huh, that sounds creepier than expected)

to the ladies of "read me" (less creepy. better)

i present to you, my first short story. written, illustrated, and bound by yours truly circa 1986.

note the staple marks on the CORRECT side of the pages...well, correct when you're 6 and left handed anyway...


without further ado, The Little Bear, by Sherry Miller

i will have my actual writing assignment up later today.

thank you to all of you who read this weird little corner of the internet. thank you to those who believe in me and encourage me to write. i'm getting there.

it's a mystery

in a strange moment of bravado, i signed up for a weekly writing prompt email.

yesterday the first assignment arrived, early in the morning giving me plenty of time to get started and write something amazing and poignant and creative.

but i just stared at it.

i'll just take some time to think about it.

which i did. honestly. all day. i even bought new journals. and a new pen.

SEE HOW PERFECT THEY ARE FOR ALL SORTS OF CREATIVE THINGS??

i even went to a nice, quiet bar for a drinking and writing session. write drunk, edit sober, publish posthumously, isn't that how it goes?

and i did. i wrote. i wrote some starts, some ideas, different directions i could go.

but i keep coming back to the same one. the same idea. BUT I DON'T WANT TO WRITE ABOUT IT. it's the hardest. it's the most real. it's the most painful.

it's also the most dark, the most depressing, the heaviest one.

I DON'T WANT TO START OUT A NEW WRITING TRACK ALL SAD AND MOPEY!

but i keep coming back to the same idea and there's something to that trust your gut thing. so. here it goes.

this weeks writing prompt:
"write about a personal riddle- fact or fiction- something you will never know the true meaning of."

i don't know how or why my dad died.

i'll never know. 

i could ask a LOT of questions.

i could rattle some pretty high up cages.

i could get into some DEEP, DEEP conspiracy theories.

but i'll never know the truth. i'll never know how. i'll never know why.

for anyone playing a little catch up, in August 2010 my dad died in a house fire. total loss. 3 people killed. house was gone. everything was gone.

BUT WAIT- DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY YOU DON'T KNOW HOW YOUR DAD DIED? YOU JUST SAID HOUSE FIRE.

yeah. technically a house fire.

3 people: my dad, his wife, another young state trooper staying with them while he build a house.

1:15ish am: a phone call to 911 that the house was on fire and they were trying to get out.

none of them made it out.

of a 2 story house. with plenty of windows to crawl out of.

with stairs that literally led straight out the front door.

with a large basement slider for the officer staying down there.

an officer who had just graduated first in his academy class for physical fitness.

not only did they not make it out, they had to use cadaver dogs to find the remains and then dental records and bone marrow to identify the bodies.

how could they make a call but not get out? not even one of them?

how could a fire burn so hot and so fast that in the short time it took agencies to respond they had to use dogs to find the remains?

how could the complete and total house be GONE. not a cross beam, not a joist, NOTHING left, but the garage 5' away is still standing and the grass in the front and back lawn didn't even singe?

they investigated.

by they i mean a bunch of acronyms.

people with a few tricks up their sleeve.

like one of the guys that investigated the oklahoma city bombing.

and no one knows.

no. one. knows.

no gangs took credit for it. no accelerates were discovered on scene. no household appliances were under recall.

i waited a year. i waited until the gag order was released off the case.

i waited until the investigation had been completed and released.

official report said: "NO KNOWN CAUSE."

i'm sure someone knows. i'm sure an investigator somewhere has an idea. i imagine somewhere there's a file with more than a cover sheet that says "NO KNOWN CAUSE" with a stack of black papers behind it. 

maybe i haven't asked the right person.

maybe i haven't asked the right questions.

a mystery is only a mystery because we haven't asked the right question yet.

and i could ask questions. i could call my brother over and over asking if he knows something i don't. i could ask the people that were there in town while they investigated. i could dig around and find old coworkers, old commanding officers. i could demand to see files. i could...the list goes on and on.

but it won't change the ending of the story, will it?

even if i get the answer it isn't like the prize would be my dad coming back to life. if i ask the right person the right thing and get the key in the lock and get nicholas cage to follow the trail to the secret underground cave in mount rushmore my dad isn't going to be waiting at the end of the chase for me.

and what would i do with the information?

what if it was a gang hit? am i going to vigilante and take on the mexican drug cartel?

what if it was the illegal immigrant drunk driver that came back after being deported and threatened my dad and threatened me and my dad took out a restraining order againt?  am i going to find random guy and ask for him to be deported, again, since it worked so well the first time?

what if it was some conspiracy theory game plan tied to the younger officer just getting off service as security at the governors mansion? am i going to wade into whatever cover up already got three people killed and go all olivia pope scandal on them?

whatever happened, why-ever it happened.

i don't need to know. it's my mystery. it's a part of me. it's a part of my story. not all stories have a happy neat tied up ending. this one didn't.

what i DO need is to go forward from where that story ended.

i'm working on loving my house that my dad provided for me.

i'm working on being ok with knowing there won't be new memories. there won't be my dad walking me down the aisle. there won't be any more christmases. there won't be my dad at my kids graduations. there won't be four generation pictures with great grandkids. there won't be family reunions. there won't be the scary "meet the parents" moments.

but there will be moments of knowing my dad is never gone.

there's moments of chewing on my knuckles while i'm driving when i'll suddenly start laughing remembering my dad doing the same weird thing.

there will be calling my teenager "son" when i'm particularly frustrated with him the way my dad used to do to my brothers.

there will be the reminder every time i get my hair cut that my dad was just starting to grey at 55 and there was no sign of thinning on the horizon.

there will be times i look in the mirror and see an expression that is all too familiar.

there will be endless, obnoxious crying at john denver songs from now to the end of time.

there will be me saying "yup, my legs go all the way up to my hips" like my dad once said when  he noticed my gangly stork legs as a teenager.

i will call my boys both fuzz nuts until they're grown adults with children of their own.



i don't know. i won't know.

maybe some day i'll take my giant dog that looks shockingly like scooby doo, get a mystery van and go investigating.

or maybe i'll just  have some scooby snacks and sit on the couch staring at my dog imagining we're going investingating.

i think the second option is more likely. it has snacks.

uniforms

this is going to be a rant.

i'll just get that out of the way now.

this is going to be a one sided, opinion heavy, curse word filled, angry, mean, probably offensive to some, rant.

now that that's out of the way...

listen up fake ass bitches:

WHEN YOU SAY YOU LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING? 

i am SICKENED. absolutely sick. hateful, mean, angry sick when i hear about women who think it's "so hot" to date a soldier, cop, firefighter, EMT because they "love a man in uniform" only to break up because they don't like the job, it's too stressful, the hours are shitty, deployments are too hard, whatever.

LISTEN YOU FUCKWITS: "loving a uniform" is a fucking fetish. go to a god damn costume shop and cream your panties all you like.

if you date a man in uniform, KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.

do you want to know what that means?

it means the job is stressful, the hours are shitty and deployments are hard.

you want to date a cop? guess what, that means missed dinners because a shift went long when they had to scrape a human being off a highway after a drunk driving accident.

you want to date a firefighter? that means worrying each call that a backdraft doesn't happen, a structure doesn't cave in, a tree doesn't shoot off like a bottle rocket, the fucking wind doesn't shift directions.

want to date a soldier? that means months alone while they're on deployment. that means regulations, rules, codes. that means being at the fucking whim of the US government.

it ALL means dealing with some form of PTSD at some point. it means shitty, and i mean SHITTY days of coworkers dying, dealing with the worst of humanity, things that can't ever, ever be unseen.

even on the BEST POSSIBLE DAY it means going to the aid of people who are having a shitty, shitty day. the cops and firefighters don't respond when everything is going right. soldiers very, VERY rarely are deployed to places where things are peachy keen jelly bean.

i am SO SICK of hearing:
"we got divorced because she doesn't like me going on deployment."
"we split up because she didn't realize how stressful the job is."
"i can't be with him because he misses all the important events because he's on shift."

AS IF ALL THAT ISN'T ENOUGH, they get to deal with public opinion, lack of resources across the board from pay to supplies/necessary personnel, stigma, macho-ism (the thin blue line is a thing) AND, the cherry on the fucking top: increased risk of  suicide.

it's shifting, it's starting to change. there's a huge push to let soldiers know they can ask for help dealing with what happens in the field, but there's still a lot of stigma. it's still a hard thing for cops and firefighters.

i mean, for fucks sake, even fucking trump decided to open his shit hole and vomit out that "...military suicides happen to troops who 'can't handle it'."

you know what? THEY CAN'T.

THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT.

NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO. THIS IS SOME GRADE A FUCKED UP SHIT THAT NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO DEAL WITH.

ESPECIALLY not alone. we need to help them, have help available to them.

no one should have to deal with scraping another human being off a roadway. telling a child their parent overdosed. pulling a charred body out of a burned building. watching a fellow soldier be blown apart inches away. 

BUT THESE PEOPLE CHOOSE TO TAKE THAT RISK.

and the very, VERY last fucking thing they need is to be dumped on. by politicians, by partners, by ANYONE. they don't need someone with a fucking megaphone mouth calling them weak or bashing them on the 5:00 news. they don't need a dear john letter in the middle of combat. they don't need to return home from deployment to a voice mail from a divorce attorney. they don't need someone who walks away because they miss dinner or have been working long shifts.

they need support systems. stigma free help. partners that don't run away when the "hot uniform" feeling wears off.

i'm the great-granddaughter of a constable. i'm the granddaughter of a cop. i'm the daughter of a state trooper. i'm the sister of a sheriff's deputy. i was married to a volunteer firefighter. my mom ran dispatch for fire crews for several years.

i have blue blood back 4 generations.

guess what that means?

it means divorce (or several). it means being glued to the tv dreading a phone call when you hear "officer involved shooting" on your brother's shift and beat. it means getting a few precious hours with your dad during your one week a year because he's working. it means stopping and sending up a prayer during the hot beautiful summer weather because you know fire season is happening. it means knowing mom will be gone another 4 weeks because they don't have enough crews to get a line around the fire. it means waking up at 4 am when the pager goes off and making sure boots and gear and coffee are ready to go out the door. it means making 100 sandwiches when the red cross hasn't been able to respond. it means bawling your eyes out whenever and where ever your hear amazing grace on bagpipes because you've been to too many funerals where that's played.

you want to love a fucking uniform? good. great. go to fucking spirit halloween store and love them all you want until store employees ask you to leave.

you want to love the person IN the uniform? that's a whole different story.