love | BulgingButtons

March 3, 2014
by BulgingButtons 4 Comments

Stuck on Hope

My boy ten years ago.

I have this writing assignment that I have to do. It’s way overdue. In fact the course ended. Still, I want to do the assignment. My teacher is a friend and amazing writer herself. She has been overly patient with me. Maybe I need a swift kick in the rear to get it done. I WANT to get it done. I just can’t seem to do it.

I think I’m stuck on the prompt. The focus of the class is using the experience of parenthood as a framework for writing. The particular prompt I’m stuck on is “hope.” It seems too big. It seems too vague. How on earth do I even poke a stick at this one?

I imagine that the idea is to form some sort of concrete response to the prompt as it applies to my son. I tried this approach, but it seemed stilted and dishonest. Yes, I have lots of hopes for him, but they all came out as a kind of bland pablum. I couldn’t bring any passion to the piece. It worried me.

Am I a bad mother? Do I truly believe the things I wrote? Why wasn’t there any fire to the piece? It could have been written by any parent for any child. It didn’t seem connected to me or my son at all. In fact, it seemed as impersonal as a piece of trendy wall art picked up from the local craft store. You know the ones with the pithy sayings? Of course you do. You may even have them in your home. If you do, I’m sorry for not agreeing with your design aesthetic. Live, Laugh, Love. Yeah, right. If only it were that easy. Some days it just isn’t.

What it boils down to is this, I hope he knows, really knows deep in his core, that I love him and that I’ve always done the best I could for him. I hope he understands that although I mess up in a hundred different ways every single day, I believe that the choices I make are ones that will ultimately help him to be a successful person. I hope he figures out all the stupid stuff that life throws at him, and I hope he manages, somehow, to get his grades up so he has as many options for his future as possible. I hope he understands that he has options. Maybe that’s not personal enough, but it feels pretty personal to me.

I hope that boy grows to be a man that the boy can admire. I hope he remembers his worth and his sense of kindness and his playfulness. I hope he navigates acne and braces and learning to drive and making smart choices without too many permanent scars. I hope his life is rich and fulfilling. I hope he loves and is loved deeply. I know, it’s starting to sound sappy again. I can’t help it. I love that boy. I hope, no matter what comes his way, he always remembers that.

December 21, 2013
by BulgingButtons 12 Comments

Windshield Wipers and Love at Christmas

It doesn’t rain much here, but when it does it often comes as a deluge. The usually hot dry climate is rough on items made from rubber, and they don’t last like they do in other areas. That’s especially true of windshield wiper blades.

Two days ago there was a huge cloud in the sky. Giant. It was one of those ominous looking ones, all grey and threatening. I received a text at work from my sweetheart asking what year my car was. Huh? I sent him the information and carried on. We had tickets to a holiday concert that evening, and I wanted to make sure I got home in plenty of time to get ready. He had gone in early that day and was already home. I soon forgot about his question and wrapped up my day.

When I arrived home he asked me if I wanted to go with him. It was about an hour before we were scheduled to leave for the concert. Go where? To get wipers of course. Oh. Sure. We hopped in the car, drove a short distance to the auto parts store, and were faced with a wall of wiper blades. The nifty little computer thingie there told us which ones were correct for my car, and we found them on the wall. Not the cheap ones, though. He wanted me to have the really good ones.

We normally go places in my car. His is a sweet little gas guzzling, more or less two seater, high milage sports car. Mine is a gas sipping (ok, maybe not, but way better than his) sedan with plenty of room in the back for my gangly teenager. He noticed the last time it rained that my wipers weren’t really doing their job very well. He saw rain on the horizon and wanted to fix the problem. He is a doer. He doesn’t talk things to death. He acts. It’s his love language.

Have you read The Five Love Languages ? It’s brilliant. I don’t know about any kind of scientific basis for it, but when you read it, it makes sense. When I was newly divorced and taking a hard look at myself and what kind of person I was, and what I was looking for in a future relationship, I found this book. Call it pop psychology or fluff or whatever you want, but I read it and took something away from it that helped me to understand some of the relationships that I have in my life, not just romantic ones either. It helped me to better understand the dynamic between me and my mother, for example. We don’t speak the same language, love or otherwise, but gaining a little insight certainly has helped me to communicate with her better.

Back to the wipers. He put them on the car, and off we went to the concert. Sure enough it started to rain. “Merry Christmas, baby,” he told me, “these are your stocking stuffer.” I do love this man, and I love how he takes care of me, but clearly he is not a “gifts” guy in the language of love! With each silent pass of the wipers I will hear, “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas…” and know that I am loved.

November 29, 2013
by BulgingButtons 12 Comments

Behind the Curtain

“Ignore the man behind the curtain!” The Great and Powerful Oz bellowed as smoke and flames shot into the air around his enormous translucent head. This command struck sheer terror into my heart. Not Dorothy, though. She marched right over to that curtain and yanked it back, exposing the knobs and levers and fraud of a polished showman. She was far braver than I am.

Sometimes I worry that if I ask too many questions I’ll expose something ugly and raw that I would rather not know. I don’t agree with, “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” as national policy, but on a purely personal level I have used it more times than I would like to admit. I’m not proud of this cowardice, but I do own it.

I was raised in a family that kept secrets. As far as I know, I was the biggest secret of all. Nobody was supposed to know that I was adopted, least of all me. I might be scarred. I might be ruined. Or, worst of all, I might turn out like my birth mother, who was obviously incompetent or worse. She must have been, or she wouldn’t have found herself in a position to give up her baby. Me.

It took so many years and so much preparation to finally gain the courage to peek behind that curtain and ask, in so many words, “was I adopted?” It’s an easy question, really. Basically a yes or no would do. What I got in response was, “Would it matter?”

Yes. It matters. It matters that my entire personal history has been a lie. It matters that somewhere out in the world there are people with whom I share a genetic tie that, in spite of the lies and omissions of truth that began the day I was born, cannot be denied. Until my own child was born I had never laid eyes on anyone who was related to me by birth. I had never before seen myself in anyone else, and it was a strange experience indeed.

So, yes, it matters. I wish you had come out from behind that curtain years ago. I wish you would have trusted me with the truth of my existence. I would have loved you still.