Despite having a great weekend, a better life now than before, Helen's revealing and provocative post got me thinking.

It's amazing. When you get a bit stronger, how much more you realize you have to deal with.

Forgiveness. What is it, really? What does it mean to give it - and receive it?

I tangle with the weightier concepts, the overlays of God and Jesus and women and men and trust and mess and relationships and betrayal, then all of a sudden, I am sliced to the heart with memories and this sudden heartache.

Like it won't stay in the box, the one I laid it all to rest in so long ago.

If I forgive you, and we work on getting past this, can you guarantee me it will never, ever, happen again? Can you? The question is a trap, you know. I want you to say yes. To promise yes. As I promise it to you. As I dream of Before.

But we know that what you can do once, you can do again, I can do again, and will do again. Part of my trust knows this. Lies to you. Wants everything to be all right even as it clutches its brokenness.

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Have you ever wondered, if people could watch your life like it was a television show... what your ratings would be?

What kind of show would you be? Would your home be the primary set? Or the local coffee house?

BlogHer is doing a workshop about how to re-invent a blog after the initial reason you started it - ends. I've been struggling with this for years.

I began a website when CD and I were getting married. I shudder to remember the little animation I coded, that made my dress twirl. That I didn't embed Midi music must have been the intercession of a compassionate deity. That site? Won an award.

After I got in the habit of living out loud. I sorta... didn't stop. I've journaled my whole life. This was just a new interpretation of that.

I remember the first person who ever signed my "guestbook". I had never met her in real life, yet she was interested in reading about me. And me, in her. Despite our subsequent life changes since, we remained, virtually, friends.

I began an anonymous blog in a moment of crisis. I had a great job. Challenging, rewarding. I worked from home most of the time, always engaged with room to grow, and had a great team that I loved working with.

And yet?

I was unhappy.

Because as much as I loved my career and everything it meant - I never had a single day when I went to bed thinking I had done right by my son. I told myself it was just guilt. I told myself it was the universal complaint of working parents. I reminded myself of the amazing life my son had.

And then, I cried.

We cannot reason our hearts.

I quit and took on a new life, with wide open eyes. Homeschooling, living on a shoestring, keeping house, cooking dinner, paying bills. I signed up for this woman's army and Hoo-rah, I don't need or expect it to be easy. I stand behind that decision as one of the best I've ever made.

But it's played hell with me as a writer. Hell.

When you stop being mad, and put out the fire in the living room and the marriage and fill in the hole of your life with the whole of your life, well....

Thank you for listening the past month. I know I went quiet for a few days here, but I have not been away. I have been here, re-reading. A lot of very bland, and silly posts. But a couple of goods ones, I think.

I'm not Friends. I'm not Lost. And I've never even been to Las Vegas.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't things left worth saying. Or that this writer can't write them. Here.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 05:31 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Well said. The interesting thing about life, even as a SAHM, is that there will be another transition, another concern, another adventure. And it's all "good material."

Posted by: Hexe at February 19, 2009 01:17 AM (M9pAu)

2 Almost all of the blogs I read are just from 'regular' folks. They're not usually struggling with Big, Important issues (at least, not any more than all of us are); it's the style and the tone of their writing that keeps bringing me back to them, and to you. When I try to explain this to people in my life who aren't personal-blog readers, a lot of them don't get it, but I've recently started paralleling you all to Erma Bombeck. She wasn't in any startlingly unique life circumstances, she just had the skill and wit to write about the everyday with insight and humor. Thanks for being a new Erma.

Posted by: Alice at February 19, 2009 04:05 AM (8Xs3q)

3 A lot of good old posts, I'd guess. And I'm looking forward to many more. Thanks for keeping it up!

Posted by: nic at February 19, 2009 09:21 AM (honoN)

4 I read several blogs to keep up with friends, but yours is the only one I read for entertainment. You have a unique style that I really enjoy. I'm working my way through it - and I'm in the middle of '08 - you've kept my attention! Keep on writing - you are still really good even if you feel stuck.

Posted by: Laura at February 21, 2009 05:20 PM (PBwDz)

5 Nice post. I have many thoughts, but here's the one to-the-point enough for the comments section: You should really try to make it to Las Vegas.

Posted by: Shannon at February 27, 2009 08:23 AM (yFOwv)

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About 8 weeks ago, I got a call. I wrote this, and now it's time I think to share it here....

It was late spring just about 15 years ago. I headed to England with $350 in my pocket, an open-return ticket, and a new journal tucked between my spare jeans and the extra underwear in my backpack.

Long story short, I ended up dating a Coldstream Guard. Who invited me, one summer evening, to a dance. I found a little black halter dress in a thrift store and twisted up my hair with an antique rhinestone clip. But like Cinderella, I had a curfew - the B&B I was living at locked its doors at midnight.

And like Cinderella, I lost track of time. I realized it with a panic. One of the more senior men, Ian, had a car and offered to drive me across London.

We raced, but not quick enough. I rang and rang, and eventually realized I was stranded.

"What will you do?" Ian asked.

"Get a hotel room," I mused. I had an emergency credit card stashed, well, somewhere. I knew I couldn't stay at the barracks, and all my contact numbers were up in my room - on the wrong side of that impassive door.

"Dressed like that? With no luggage?"

"What's my alternative?"

"I'm headed home for the weekend," he said, opening the passenger door with a smile. "You can kip with me and my family, if you like."

I nodded slowly. It was uncomfortable, accepting a ride and the offer of a place to stay from a near-stranger. He had ginger hair and a big laugh and that's about all I knew of him. I wondered if I was going to end up in the pages of the newspaper, with the headline 'Unknown Woman washes up on Thames!'

"The thing is, it's a bit of a drive," he said as we headed onto the M1.

"It's far?"

"250 miles, give or take," Ian laughed.

It was nearing dawn when we finally got to Darlington. My gut was full of butterflies. Ian had proved to be a complete gentleman on the trip. Dropping the military persona, he told me stories of how his 3 children had been born and what they were like. And especially about his wife, Susan. How she'd saved lives when they'd lived in Ireland, by noticing something 'off' about a car parked on their lane. It had turned out to be a bomb. They'd lost everything they'd owned when it had gone off, but not a soul was hurt because she'd had the presence to sound the alarm.

I wondered what she would make of her husband showing up at all hours with a blond American in a dress down to here.

I needn't have worried.

She pulled the door open with a merry smile and offered me tea. Her husband looking at her like she was a hot cross bun and he hadn't eaten in days. By the end of the weekend, it was a done deal. Like Sandra Bullock's character in 'While You Were Sleeping' - I was in love with whole family. Ian and Susan and their kids and friends. All of it: their home full of happy noises and the smell of tea cooking, the greenhouse in their back garden filled with pots of dirt and bulbs, and the barbecue where Ian liked to char three kinds of meat while chomping on a cigar. I was in love and grinning and giddy.

As Ian ushered me out on Sunday, for the long drive back to London, Susan made me promise to return. And after my long, hot London summer had ended, I did - eventually moving in with them for several months.

Even after I came back the States, we stayed as close as we could. Exchanged phone calls and Christmas cards. I have pictures of the kids growing up. Clippings, and letters tucked in a box.

When Susan left me the message the other night, I knew. You always know. It's that tone of voice, you know?

I think I was crying, even as she told me.

Leaving the Darlington F.C. game, Ian had a bad fall. He died in hospital later that night, probably of a massive heart attack. He was only 53.

He leaves behind the sweetest woman on Earth, 3 great kids, a brother, and countless mates, co-workers, and former brothers in arms - as well as a desolate dog who is still waiting for him by the door.

He was the kind of guy who wouldn't leave a soul stranded, even if it meant hauling them 250 miles. The kind of guy who would bring a stranger home to his family, and make them welcome. There are too few people like that.

And now, there is one less.

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It's dark and windy outside. And still, surprisingly, warm.

I head down the sidewalk away from the library. A bag hanging from my hand, weighed down with a few new books that I'll probably won't find the time to read.

My car is behind me. Nestled into a parking space between two SUV's, up against the railroad tracks. And though the car keys jingle in my purse, I keep moving away. Into the night.

A gust lifts my hair, a mist sprays my face. The hems on my jeans are long and dragging; damper with each step.

I don't know where I'm headed.

An old Sting song is echoing in my mind. Memories of a time before. When I belonged to no one, and nothing. I cross over the street. The streetlight is flickering and dying. The buzzing noise entrances me for a long moment. I look up. In those thick clouds is a moon full and just as fickle. It won't stay on for me.

When I need the light, it's never there.

Breathe deep; the world smells like something from a memory.

And I'm washed clean.

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I have spent almost my entire life north of the 40th parallel. CD grew up around the 74th, and although surrounded by a warm channel of water - I think we can all agree, that's damn cold. The farthest north I've lived is about the 53rd, and....nope, CD still wins.

Boston, Chicago, Buffalo, Toronto, Detroit - these are the cities of hugging about the 41st-42nd degree of latitude. And having spent some time in all of them, I can say what they have in common...4 real seasons, deep cold in winter and blazing hot in summer. You get the full spectrum around here, which is somehow deeply satisfying to my soul.

One of my favorite things about this level of North is the Chinook Wind. It's like the world saying "ok, you gonna get your ass frozen off for 4 months - but we'll give you a nice day in the middle there, to keep you from going absolutely out of your freaking mind."

Although too far East to get the real snow-eater, we still get that day or two of a "false spring", of improbable warmth. A soft wind seems to sweep the snow away, bringing dripping puddles of mud and short sleeved shirts hastily dug out of the closet.

Today was it.

Bright sun, gusty breezes, pokes of green grass in February. A little miracle just at the moment when we are all so sick of winter that we want to cry.

I woke up early, with a full schedule ahead of me. They'd been promising that today was the day - and as I stepped outside around 7:45, the snow had already half melted away from the lawn.

We've been telling Bear since he turned 8 that we would change around bedrooms with him and get him some 'big kid' furniture. So, catching the sunshine in a jar, we raced over to Home Depot. Bear had to choose from the palette offered for the no-VOC paint we were using. (It comes in 65 organic pre-mixed tints) He shocked both of us by choosing an aqua color called "Summer Dragonfly" from their 'Waterscape' shade.

"Really?" we asked, our eyebrows inching up to our hairlines.

"Yes," he insisted, firmly.

You know how it is. The Chinook Wind comes blowing in, and you push open all the windows. The neighbor boys come over. You empty out the room, patch and fix the rough spots. Take down the curtains, and roll on the new paint.

Then, suddenly, everything is new. And possible...

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After I started this blog, I began thinking that eventually I would move over to my own domain. So I reserved the domain name "CorporateMommy dot com" through a friend.

In 2007, I forgot to renew it on its expiration. When I went to try, I discovered that a squatter had taken the name and parked it. Meaning - they didn't want to do anything with it themselves, just re-sell it to the highest bidder.

For a $12 name, they were asking thousands. Pirates. more...

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