When people think of Thanksgiving, they think about all of the great food that they get to endulge themselves with, and the awesome day full of football, or hanging out with their family and friends; I associate Thanksgiving as the time of year that you sit back and count your many blessings.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year, as I did last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. I am most thankful for my family and my friends, without them I would be nothing.  I am thankful that I was blessed with four beautiful healthy children when there are others that would give their life just to have one.  I am thankful that God chose me to be the mother of these unique children as they have each touched my life and changed me as a person, in their own little ways.  I am thankful that I have a job, when others are struggling to keep their heads above water waiting for work to arrive.  I am thankful that I have my family within a moments reach, when there are others that only see theirs on holidays such as this.  I am thankful that I have my health, as there are others my age that are starting to experience health problems.  I am thankful that I have a home, even when it’s a mess — I have a home that is lived in and loved by the people that are inside it; there are others that dream of having a room to call their own, and I have an entire home. 

The thing I love most about Thanksgiving is that is no such thing as it being to materialistic and it really gives you the opportunity, if you take it, to reflect on all of the things that you have to be thankful for.  We take for granted all of the things that we have in our lives on an everyday basis, but on Thanksgiving, we have an entire day to think back on all that we have done, all the moments that we have shared, all of the accomplishments that we have succeeded at, all of the failures that turned out for the best — and we remember to be thankful.

We grew up a little bit differently than the world in which our children are.  Things were at a slower pace back in those days.  Reading Scott’s comment made me remember being about four years old and my dad sitting me on his lap in the front seat of his blue Chevelle so I could take my turn to “drive” the car.  He of course also was smoking with the windows up.  I can remember the first FM radio that he installed in the car, just under the 8-track tape deck.

We watched television shows like “Ripley’s Believe it Or Not” and “The Brady Bunch”, “The Facts of Life”, “Different Strokes”, “Growing Pains” and “One Day At A Time”.  Bugs Bunny didn’t have a high powered laser beam . . . he used a double barreled shot-gun that he stole fair and square from Elmer.  Dora didn’t teach us Spanish, Speedy Gonzales did.  The Jetsons never attacked anyone with their telekinesis powers and the Flintstone fought like our own parents did.

Cartoons were for Saturday or Sunday mornings, television shows were an after dinner treat.  Other than that, you played outside.  We rode our bikes everywhere — or roller skated on the sidewalks and streets.  You went to Shaler Skateland or the Chesarena on a Friday night.  Guyasuta was like a second backyard. You knew how to get to falls and you didn’t mind walking through the creek to get there. We hung out “on the hill” during high-school football games and drank beer up at Stateland.

Our parents worried about us being teenaged parents or getting busted for underage drinking.  They didn’t have to worry about drive by shooting or sexual predators on the internet.  When you had a beef with someone, you called them out on it — maybe grabbed them up by the back of their head and beat the piss out of them . . .you didn’t take a knife or a gun to school with you.  A good prank consisted of taking your dissected frog and sticking it down into someone’s backpack or locker — we didn’t make up fictitious people on the internet that caused that person to kill themselves eventually.

We trick-or-treated door to  door, without our parents — without people driving us block to block.  We smoked weed up at round-top and the biggest worries were one of the neighbors calling the police.   We didn’t buy packets of heroin from people at school.

I know that I have stated on many of occasions that you cannot go back — but when it comes to our morals, the values that we want to instill into our children and our communities, we need to go back.  One day at a time, one family at a time . . . we need to bring back what we once had.  Technology has led us to give up on the people who we once to used to be.

My mom always had her “phone book” on the top of the cabinet by the phone.  It included all of the phone numbers and addresses for all of their friends, neighbors and family members; it also included all of the phone numbers and addresses for all of their kid’s friends as well.  That phone book has been since replaced by a cell phone contact list and using the internet to “look people up”.  We need to go back, for the sake of our children; for the sake of our future sanity.

Technology was supposed to make the world a better place, however it lessened the people who live in it.  Children killing children, girls viciously attacking each other’s emotional well-being, people forgetting about who they are and where they came from.

We need to take our children to the park without the cell phone in hand.  We need to pile up the leaves and jump in them and make snow angels uninterrupted.  We need to remember that cartoons are for Saturday and Sunday mornings and were never intended to be pre-school teachers or built in babysitters.  We need to go back . . . one day at a time.

As much as what I hate explaining to people about how I landed myself a single mother of four, there are a few people who know all the dirty details.  Only one of my co-workers knows about the “tell all”, and only because I knew her before I became a co-worker.

Most people just see me as the 32-year-old single mother of four; twice failed in life.  That’s how one of my bosses at work viewed it when she kiddingly (or at least I think she was) spouted out to me “after two . . . you know it’s you”.

These words have seemed to haunt me lately.  I am the type of person that would give you the shirt off my back if you needed it.  I would go without, so that other could have.  I would go to the ends of the earth for those that I love and care for.  Of course I am not flawless by any definition of the word.  I am open (obviously) and honest (ditto), intelligent, funny, witty, and charming.  And while I’m tooting my own horn — I’ve never had any “complaints”, if you know what I mean.  So why would it be me?  How could it possibly be me?

Then I realized that it is me.  I’m too nice, too naive, too giving, too caring, too forgiving.  Now, don’t get me wrong, cross me and the “mean Mimi” comes out and once I unleash the bitch in me . . . well let’s just say it’s not pretty for anyone involved.  I may not be Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart, Stepford Wife or Mother Theresa, but I take care of my special one to the best of my ability.  They have never felt ignored or unloved.  There has never been an uncomfortable silence (except for maybe a few times when the infamous question was asked “was it good for you” — LOL), because I’m more than comfortable with expressing myself with words.

So I will take partial blame for the fact that it might have been me.  However, what I have found is that I seem to attract “single (never married)” men in their 30’s.  What is so wrong about that, right?  Let me tell you what is wrong about that — the fact that they are single, never been married before and are in their 30’s means that they have major commitment issues; as in they cannot commit.  Now, of course the majority of these men have an ex-girlfriend or an ex-fiance of say, five years or more, but that only reinforces my statement in that they cannot committ.  If you don’t know after two or three years whether or not you want to spend your life with someone, then you may “think” you are in a committed relationship, but in reality, you are “in a relationship” with someone because that someone fills the space in the bed beside you until you can bide your time in replacing them.  You are waiting for someone better to come along, and most likely that someone better did come along . . . for her, not you.  So now you are left, single (never married) and in your 30’s and your only options are young girls in their 20’s that might let you take them out and spend all of your money on them, but they really don’t appreciate the extra ten pounds you’ve put on, the receding hairline, the protruding ear-hair, the grey chest hairs or the fact that you prefer to watch the 10 o’clock news so you can go to sleep earlier.  You will do for now, but the second Mr. 25 rolls around, you are history.  Your only other option is the divorced single-mom in her 30’s and she’s not in the mood to play games.

Now certainly, there are a few exceptions to this rule; just as I am an exception to the “single-mother” rule.  I am not looking for a sugar daddy to come in and take care of me and pay my bills or take over as the parent to my children.  I work full-time, I pay my own bills, I do well for myself.  I will say that I do miss having someone to do the grocery shopping for me, because I hate grocery shopping (he loved it) and avoid it like an STD.

So, the way I see it — I have about four more years to wait until all of the once happily married normal men re-surface as “36, Divorced w/children”.  And yes, those “single (never married)” men will all still be there . . . only older.

So maybe the saying of “after two, you know it’s you” should be changed to “after 30, you have issues”.

On my car ride in to work this morning Joni Mitchell was blaring on Bob “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?”  This is my topic for today.

When I was much younger, there was a hillside of trees up on Front Street in Sharpsburg.  We used to call it “the woods”.  If you went into the woods and all the way to the top, you were at route 28.  We loved to go and hang out up there.  We spent many days building club-houses and tree-houses and forts and trying to smoke those long banana looking things from the local trees.  We all just hung out.  It was a blast.  I can remember there being a really steep path that went right up through the middle of the woods.  Sometimes the guys in the neighborhood would ride their bikes up into the woods and then take off down that path, which if  you are a local kid reading this, you would know that meant you were headed straight for a guide rail that overlooked the big empty lot up above the dead-end of S. Canal Street.  I can remember the day when one of our friends went flying down that trail on his bike and was hit by an oncoming car, there was blood everywhere.  He’s deaf in one ear because of that incident.  We didn’t wear helmets back then; shoot, most people didn’t wear seatbelts back then!!

One day, we were told we could no longer play in the woods.  They tore the woods down and built townhouses in their place.  They stole our place to play.  They stole our paradise and put up 3 bedroom one car garages in its place.  The woods are gone forever, but the memories of playing in them are as vivid today as they were when they first tore them down.

The lesson in this story is exactly as it is entitled — “don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”.  You cannot go back.  You cannot put the torn down trees back into a space of land once it has been cleared.  You can never rebuild that club-house the exact way that it used to be.  You can never attempt to see if the grass is greener on the other side and then decide that since it was not, you want your grass back — because your old grass has grown and isn’t interested in having you walk all over it again.  Your old grass now belongs to someone else that will appreciate it more than what you did.  And since your old grass is smarter than you as well, she told your new grass all about how you tried to come back to your old grass.  You cheated on your newer, not greener grass — and now that patch of grass knows all about it.  Have fun walking on pavement buddy.

I, however, am ‘walkin on sunshine’ and please let me tell you — it does feel good!!

Take just a moment to experience my happiness . . . jam with me for a few to Bob.

How fitting was it when I turned on the radio and Bob Seger was blasting away at Night Moves?  That song brings back so many great memories for me.  We stole away every chance that we could — I would say I was playing cards at a friend’s house, he would say that he was going skiing with a close friend, and off we went!  One of my most favorite pictures that I have is one of me in a hammock away on vacation together.  It’s a memory that I keep close to my heart — not because it was the first time I had ever given head before — but because it was the first time that I stayed up all night snuggled in a blanket with the one that I loved … just to watch the sun rise.  If you consider the lyrics the song is quite moving . . .

“I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the night moves
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in”

I cannot begin to explain how many times I have sat up and wondered: wondered about the choices I have made in my life, questioning some of my split decisions — words that cannot be taken back.  And autumn is always closing in.  I am getting older, and wiser.

When I pulled into the parking lot at work this morning, Jason Mraz was on the radio singing “I’m Yours”.  It was on the radio the night we had our first date.  How weird is it that the song is playing as often as it did an entire year after it came out?  But then you consider it’s lyrics …

“Well you’ve done done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill but you’re so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks
and now I’m trying to get back
Before the cool done run out
I’ll be giving it my bestest
Nothing’s going to stop me but divine intervention
I reckon its again my turn to win some or learn some

I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I’m yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart and you’ll find love love love
Listen to the music of the moment people dance and sing, were just one big family
It’s our God-forsaken right to be loved love loved love love

So I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I’m sure
There’s no need to complicate
Our time is short
This is our fate, I’m yours”

That’s some pretty heavy shit.  To say “wait a second — you may have quit on me, but I’m not giving up ’cause we were destined to be together, and just like Bob Seger said, autumn is closing in”

I slept like a baby last night after the conversation that I had with my best friend Darby.  Sometimes I swear she knows me better than I know myself.  It was easy for her to say “whoa — you will regret it”.  She was right.  Why should I settle for any kind of ultimatum? 

I am a shot and a beer kind of gal.  I’ve danced on bars, I’ve sang “Crazy Bitch” at the top of my lungs completely out of pitch.  I sing out loud at my desk at work to music that is only in my head — I twirl in an open field when the breeze tickles the tops of the grass and softly blows the hair away from my face.  I look up to the sky and smile at the sunlight.  I skip through parkings lots and down the hallways at my offices.  On Fridays, casual days — I do cartwheels for my coworkers.  I will bust out “the Carlton” when the mood gets thick with uncomfort.  I snore when I’ve had too much to drink, and apparently I fart in my sleep when I eat something not too great for me.  If I could be in a sitcom — it would air on the USA Network . . . because I am a “character”.

I can pull off the very most elegant evening gown dripping with diamonds and a three hour up-do.  I have introduced internationally renowned people at seminars and black-tie affairs.  But I’ve never given up who I was to do these things.  You see, the shaw may be covering the tattoo on my back; but I would happily drop it slightly behind the podium so the Chief of the division could have slight heart-failure.  And while these penguins were conversing about how great they all were with one another and their prestigious wives . . . I was out back drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette with the catering service staff.

I don’t know why for a moment I forgot who I was or what I stood for — but I did.  I am “an American girl“.  I will shoot for the stars and dream another dream and live my life like it is heaven on earth — and I will listen to classic rock while jamming out in my car and playing the air drums in traffic dammit.  And although sometimes my heart causes me tears “In my mind I’m goin’ to Carolina“.  So when I forget about the character that I am, sometimes it helps to just sit back and remember myself sitting there wrapped in a blanket watching the sunrise.  Or sitting shot-gun in a truck listening to the radio making small-talk as we pull up at the destination for our first date.  Or “leaving on a midnight train to Georgia” that was really a blue Chevy S-10 Blazer doing a complete u-turn in the middle of I-79 because we passed the exit.  But most of all — it IS OKAY for me to every once in while sit back and think “wish you were here”.

Balls to the wall my friends — if you see something you want, go for it.  The worst that can happen is that you end up with what you started with . . . nothing.

***Rated R***

He curls up behind me, gently lifting my hair up and away.  I feel his lips so soft against my neck that it tickles my baby hairs right before he clenches his hand in my hair. He grasps a handful of it as he pulls my head back and aggressively bites my neck just below my ear where he knows that I like it.  His mouth moves across the back of shoulder and then around the front to my collarbone.  His mouth gently reaches mine with a slow drawn kiss that makes my eyes water.  He brushes my cheekbone with his thumb, his hands still in my hair slowly start to wander the grooves of my body — but his mouth never leaves mine.

His kiss extends back down to my neck, then my collar-bone, softly between my breasts, sweeping across my belly and my pelvic groove.  My heart is racing, my one hand entwined in his hair – the other with a slow soft tickle down the nape of his neck and onto his back.

The anticipation is killing me, my heart is pounding out of my chest, I am panting, I am ready — FUCK, I am dreaming.  HOLY SHIT.  I was in the middle of the best foreplay in my life and it wasn’t even real.  Damn I need laid.

Have you ever watched something on TV that made you think someone was reading your mind or wrote that particular episode just for you?  I mean, these things are written months ahead of time; how did they know?

I can’t remember when the last time was that I actually sat down and watched TV.  A good friend recently told me that “it’s okay to take a day and do absolutely nothing, to just watch TV and play with your kids, to remember what it is like to be a human being and not a super-mom for just one day”.  I did that tonight.  I took just one night for myself.  I didn’t cook, didn’t clean, ate on paper plates, helped my older ones with their homework, colored with the little ones, played hide-n-go seek and was comfortably lounging in enough time to watch Jeopardy. 

It is what it is — I am who I am.  I am a passionate person.  I get offended, I cry while watching movies, I feel moved when I read a good book, I remember things as if I were still there, I get hurt, I get healed.

Many of you know me, but you do not really know me well enough to know me.  I am the way that I am, because I am who I am.  I am the type of person who really puts herself out there, and when you take the risks that I take, you have the wonderful opportunity to experience life in every aspect, but you also have the pain that you must endure when these risks don’t pan out.

Mark Twain once wrote: “Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt.  Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.”

My best friend Val once wrote “you have to love like you’ve never been hurt”; I think that Val already knows that I have no issues with dancing like nobody is watching, or singing like nobody is listening (sorry guys!), and I do truly believe that I live my life like it is heaven on earth.  I take the time to appreciate everything in this world that God has gifted to me — but to love like you have never been hurt takes a lot of courage.  I have done it many of times, and the amount of times that I have been hurt has superceded my level of courage.

My dearest Darby, my Dunks, my courage and strength, my confidence and pride; my best friend.  What you have taught me is that it takes balls of steel to seek out revenge, but taking the higher road takes integrity.  You are my level — the one that has always kept me straight. Even when reverting back to life like it was in 1997 seemed like a good idea, you reminded me that life in 2009 is far more adventurous and rewarding.

To my Darling: It is what it is.  Take me as I am; broken and bleeding and in need of repair — but repairable.  I understand that you are not one for risky adventures, but I promise you that if go out on that limb, if you stand on that ledge, I will be right there beside you; dancing like nobody’s watching; singing like nobody’s listening, living life like it is heaven on earth . . . and loving like I have never been hurt before.

No, this is not chapter I — but this time of year reminds me of him so much, I just couldn’t leave him out.

When the leaves have all started to fall from the trees and the ground is decorated in brown and red crispy reminders of the glorious sunsets and foggy mornings just days before; when the sun shines brightly but you can distinctly smell the snow coming in the air, then it is time to remember Geoff.

Geoff was a friend of a friend of my best friend.  He came to a football game one night to watch my best friend and I cheer.  We hung out shortly after, and then they had to go home.  He was the only one of us old enough to drive at the time – he was a September baby.

He was supposed to pass along my phone number to Brad, another friend of theirs — but he never did.  I was just finishing up washing dishes one night when the phone rang, my phone line, but my dad answered it anyway.  He explained how Darby had given my number to Chris to give to Brad and how Chris gave it to him instead — and how he just couldn’t pass it along.

Geoff was something else.  We made plans for that weekend, he was going to come and pick us up.  He  shows up in long black shorts with white long underwear on underneath, and a black t-shirt with a long sleeve white shirt under that; his wallet had a chain attached to it.  He was so not my type – but when he smiled it melted my heart.

We never really did anything other than hang out in parking lots a whole lot. He let us take turns driving his car, it was a red Pontiac; his mom’s car.  We were at the high school in the parking lot and it was a beautiful day outside.  The air was cold and the wind was bitter, but the sun shined down upon us and the dew droplets on the fallen leaves were glistening; you could smell the snow coming in the air.  We walked without a purpose hand in hand.  That was the first time I had realized how tall he was — when he pulled me close to him and my face was in his chest; the wind had just blown fiercely and he held me to keep me warm.  When the wind had stopped I felt his cold finger below my chin as he raised my face to his and he kissed me for the first time.  It seemed to have lasted forever.  Something cold and wet hit my face, it had begun to snow.  We both looked up and he smiled and he laughed and we danced and twirled — that memory forever sits in my mind like a cherished dance in the moonlight under a star-lit sky.

Geoff was from Mt. Lebanon and when his parents found out where I lived, they forbid him driving to see me anymore.  They said it was too far for kids our age to drive ourselves to see each other.  They did, however, allow him to take me to the Valentines Day dance — we stayed for about 10 minutes!

We continued to sneak to see each other with many great memories in-between until his parents put a permanent end to it by sending him away to Kiski-Prep school.  We remained pen pals for years, even years after he graduated and went off to college . . . until one day my letters started to come back as undeliverable.  I frantically called his mom to get a new address, she gave me the same address that I had.  I called his dorm room, his roommate didn’t speak English very well — he said that he had moved out weeks before and he didn’t have a forwarding address for him.

Some of our mutual friends have claimed that when Geoff had received his inheritance after a relative passed away that he got into trouble and mixed up with the wrong crowd.  I had never known him to be that way.

I never had sex with Geoff although I knew that he had wanted to.  In my mind nothing could surpass the memory of the first kiss and to top that our first time would have to be something sensational — that opportunity never arose when we were a couple and after we had been apart for so long the times that we did get to visit with one another were spent gabbing like school girls on a Monday morning fourth period bathroom smoke break.

The first kiss will always remain in my mind as a memory of why the crisp air is not always such a bad thing.  The memory warms my heart.  There was only one picture that ever existed of the two of us, the first Christmas he came home from school in Utah; my first ex destroyed it one night along with a lot of my memories of my younger years.  But nobody can steal him from my mind or my heart.  It is November — can you smell the snow in the morning air?  Can you feel the crisp breeze upon your cheek?  Can you still feel the soft lips of your favorite first kiss?

Wherever you are Geoff …. Pittsburgh, Utah, Fern Gully — you are forever in my heart.

Even though it was an extremely hot day outside, they closed my large solid door to shield the babies from seeing what was happening right before their very eyes.  I remember being escorted over to a couch although I do not remember who it was that picked me up off the floor.  “Can someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?”  I am handed a Kleenex and then several pieces of paper — I begin to read.  I cannot believe what I am reading.  I lean forward and throw-up making no attempt at heading for a bathroom or sink or garbage can for that matter.  They are patting my back — my children are screaming.  I watch the cars pull away — he is gone.

I won’t go on with anymore of this story, because quite simply it is not my story to tell.  My story does start here though.

After everyone has left, I am alone.  My house is silent.  I sob so hard that I can barely breathe.  I ignored invitations to sleep at other people’s houses so I won’t be alone — I want to be alone.  I kick away debris with my foot as though the things are simply that, debris left over from the happy life I had just one day before.

I didn’t sleep that night.  I didn’t sleep the night after either.  Or the night after that.  I cannot remember when the last time I ate something was and I was most certainly dehydrated at this point too. 

They came in packs with boxes and garbage bags ready to remove my happy life from my home for me.  Hours later my house sparkled like the eyes on all of my children.  I didn’t leave my house for weeks it seemed.  I was too afraid to face the world.  I wanted to just sit in my house and protect my children with what little strength I had left — but I had to pull myself together, for their sake.

I walked out that front door one day and the sunshine hit my face reminding me of what happiness feels like when it touches you.  I went to the post-office to mail some reminder cards I had been putting off and to drop some resumes in the mail.

Ted came and was in our lives for a little while, but the smell of milk sent him packing in the middle of the night one night.  He checked on me periodically via text though “hey there yummy-mommy”.

As the days moved on, I ventured off more and more.  I managed to make my way downtown and to go on a few interviews.  As the weeks went by I managed to begin dating a wonderful gentleman, David.  David and I had talked for weeks via email and text messages and over the phone.  He did silly thing like order me pizza and have it delivered to my house 20 minutes after he knew I got home from my new job “just thought you could use some help with dinner, mom”.  David so wanted a family of his own. 

David met my kids for the first time one night when I told him that I couldn’t talk on the phone because the baby was really sick and running a high fever. I explained that I was waiting for my mom to come over so I could run to the grocery store for Motrin.  He said “don’t go anywhere, I’m on my way”.  Obviously he had my address — he ordered me pizza!  With no directions given, he was at my house in record time with Motrin in hand.  He stayed and played with the kids for a short while before leaving.

He loved to play with my kids.  He would get down on the floor and play cars or trains — or sit at the kitchen table and color or draw with the older two.  We dated for weeks.  He never insisted that I get an “all night babysitter”, instead, he respected the fact that my kids slept better at home — even though they never really slept at all.  Bedtime was an unknown vocabulary word in my household.  Mommy didn’t go to bed, so why should they?  Mommy slept on the couch — so they should too.

Our annual Halloween party rolled around. This year we had it a few weekends before.  He called me to say that he wound up being on-call, but that he was still coming — he met me there.  I looked awesome.  He couldn’t take his eyes off of me from across the room.  That’s the kind of man every girl dreams of, a man who only has eyes for you. 

Only about an hour or so in his multiple cell phones start going crazy.  He has to leave.  I know he notices the disappointment in my face — tonight was supposed to be “the night”, the very first night.  He turns and kisses me on the cheek “I have to go, but I will be back.  I will meet you at your place — don’t change!”

I waited up for hours and then hours became days.  I never heard from him again.

In all of this time I had periodically chatted with a man named Dick.  I dropped him a line — he responded with “what happened”, I explained.  Dick was a single dad, so it was easy to converse with him about things like my kids driving me crazy, he understood.  Dick explains that the bartender slut that he was dating didn’t work out too well.  I explained how my heart was broken and how I was lied to.  Dick said “we should go out some time — I don’t lie”.  We agree to meet somewhere that Friday night.  I knew the moment that I met him that he was something else.  We clicked instantly and David was a distant memory.

Not even weeks later, Dick was spending the night and cooking dinner and fitting in like he had lived with me for years.  We spent the holidays together, he told me that he loved me.

One day on my way home from work, I got a phone call.  It was David.  He explained that when he left the party that night he was hit head on by a drunk-driver.  His truck had rolled multiple times, he had internal organ damage, two broken feet, two broken wrists — but he was still alive.  He explained how his cell phone that had my number stored in it was shattered to pieces and how after he got out of critical care, he was moved to a skilled rehab facility.  My heart broke for him.  But I was in love with another man.  I explained to him how I would have waited had I have known, but that I had found someone who stole my heart.  That was the last I had spoken to David.

Fast forward one year later.  Dick has been acting noticeably different lately.  He’s taking fishing trips that requires him to be away for four days prior to get ready for.  I’m beginning to get suspicious, however I trust him.  After all, this was a man who proposed to me, not once, but twice.  In fact the second time was rather funny – he said “I asked you to be the first Mrs. Head”. I remember thinking to myself “you asked me to be your FIRST wife?”  Does that mean he intends on having more than one?  But since we were making love at the time, I resist the pent-up laughter.  I never answered him.

He left my house on a Saturday morning to go to the cell phone store.  He had just spent the morning on the phone with our carrier upgrading our package.  We were in bed together.  We made love, and then he left.  That was the last time that I would see him.  He didn’t come home Saturday or Sunday and Monday morning there were no “good-mornin’ sweetie” text messages on my phone.  I sent him a text explaining that I was concerned that he was acting strange.  His only response was a text back that said “I am not happy”.

I came home to an empty house that night.  He must have spent the day packing and removing his and his son’s things.  My children immediately notice.  I took them out for McDonald’s and haircuts, but Toby was relentless.  He searches for him all through the house calling out his name.  He was not there, he would never be there again.

Our several times a day phone calls were down to every once in a while texts for business purposes “you have mail to pick up” and “the joint bills are due”.  This was the love of my life that would get nervous if I didn’t call him from the parking lot leaving work — “why didn’t you call baby?”

I remember looking at the date on the calendar at work – almost to the very day of our very first conversation, I got an email from David asking how things were and how the kids were doing.  The circle has started.  Several days later I get a phone call from Ted who does come over for a hang-out session and once again leaves spouting how he could smell something, only this time it was cigarette smoke from the bar the night before.  Ted now only texts me “hey there yummy-mommy” again.  It’s coming full-circle.  The emails with David are increasing but I don’t have the heart to tell him that I am not the one for him.  I am not the woman who can be with a man who risks his life everyday to save others.  His reasoning for the first email was because he was in another major accident and it made him think of me.  I can’t be the one that loses another in my life.  He’s a great man and he does deserve a wife and children of his own — but I am not the one, although I enjoy his humorous emails from time to time.

I started dating again.  He’s a sweet guy.  We laugh because we cannot stop finishing each other’s sentences!  We are way too similar, so much alike that it is scary indeed.  We discuss the whole need to take things slowly though.  My family and my heart has been through too much this past year or so to take any more hits.

My office is relocating and the move has me stressed on top of all of the other stress.  I’m weeks away from finally finishing my college degree but I sit there and stare without finishing an assignment.  I am risking not graduating because I cannot concentrate on graphing radicals at this point in my life.  There are stressful issues popping up everywhere.  Secrets that I am keeping for people, secrets that I am hiding from people.  But not the man who I have involved myself with, not Darling — he knows everything.  I want to be honest with him about everything.  He probably thinks I’m insane.

I weighed myself on the mail scale that morning — something my co-workers used to love to do religiously when I first started working there.  I had gained 18 pounds in the first month – they feed me well!  This morning though I heard the gasp as the scale reported 86 pounds thin.  My hair has been falling out by the handfuls – so much so that I have had to resort to putting cheese cloth over the drain when I shower to prevent the drain from getting clogged.  I had to have two salivary stones removed and a tooth fixed that I ruptured from grinding my teeth in my sleep during one of the two hours that I am now averaging.  My boss is concerned about the quality of my work and my lack of concentration.  Then I got the message that rocked me into yesterday.  Six words.  “I miss making love to you”.

I dropped my phone and ran outside crying.  Several of my female coworkers run out after me — they thought the husband yelled at me.  One picked my phone up off the floor – she read it before handing it to me.  “Oh no he did not” she spouted.  I couldn’t breath.  I couldn’t respond.  I had a mob of angry women spouting things at me … “fuck him – he’s an asshole, don’t even respond”, and then another “go ahead and fuck him – and then call his girlfriend to tell her”, then she goes on to add “fuck him, tape record it, then call his girlfriend and play it back for her”.  Then the voices of reason “just see what his intentions were and explain to him that he cannot have his cake and eat it too”.  Who are these people I work with? It’s a Catholic organization for crying out loud, not that the thought didn’t cross my mind though — but I’m not that caddy.  I cannot stoop to his level.

I made a mistake – a huge mistake.  I responded.  He didn’t deserve a response from me.  He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as me.  I am all about giving people second chances in life but he stole from a single mother of four children — there is no forgiving there.  He’s a con-artist and a liar.  I can’t stop crying, I cannot breathe.  Why would he do this to me?  Why would he kick me when I was down and trying to pull myself up with the ropes?

He claims that he still loves me, he claims that he misses me.  He’s a liar. 

I made the mistake of responding.  I should have never had responded.  I was caught responding.  Caught red-handed because I forgot to empty the ash-tray.

The circle is almost complete.  Only a few days left.  Tomorrow is my son’s third birthday.  I will close the circle completely in just a few days — big changes are coming….. Chapter I is coming.

** Some names have been changed to protect the identity of the innocent.  Others have been changed to reflect their true inner-self.  If you don’t like it, quit fucking reading it.

He was planned, although most people thought that we were insane to go for four children.  I found out that I was pregnant with him on St. Patrick’s Day — I had worked months on organizing an employee dinner/dance for the hospital I was working at.  I couldn’t even drink, but my face was glowing with excitement.

At my regular ultra-sound appointment the technician seemed a little concerned.  We had the other kids leave the room.  I could hear his heartbeat, so I knew he was alive — but I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  The physician came in and poked around a little before saying “hmmmm, he’s just not sizing up.  Are you certain about your conception date?”  Ah, I’ve heard this one before.  I’m a tiny girl, I have tiny babies.  But the doctor insisted that I come back in a few weeks just to do a double-check and make sure everything was okay.  At 25 weeks I learned that everything was NOT okay.  He had a “true and defined knot in the umbilical cord”.  She read to me the risk of complications and long-term effects.  We were facing anything from pre-mature birth with all of its own complications to severe mental retardation.  I didn’t care.  I loved him already.  IUGR was the technical term (Intrauterine Growth Restriction), but to everyone else “he had a knot”.  My doctor monitored me carefully.  I had weekly appointments and three times a week I went for non-stress tests, or NSTs, and twice a week I had ultrasounds done of his umbilical cord so they could monitor how much oxygen he was getting and whether or not he was getting sufficient nutrients.  My doctor warned me that if my water broke “don’t get in a car, dial 9-1-1″, because once his water broke the knot would pull tight restricting him from oxygen completely.

At 39 1/2 weeks I failed the NST test — I was 5 cm dilated.  Lisa (my infamous doctor) convinces me to get admitted for observation and safety purposes.  “I don’t want induced though — it’s not natural”, I insisted.  I am perfectly fine with other women have c-sections, but God designed my body to give birth and there was no way in hell that anyone was going to convince me elsewise.

A young resident walks into my room, never reads my chart.  She comments about my ring — it’s his birthstone, she is a November baby too. “There ya go, that should get things moving in time for me to watch Grey’s tonight”.  Oh my God.  What did this woman just do?  She broke my water.  Monitors and sirens were going off like crazy — my husband is screaming at her, nurses and doctors come rushing into the room. That’s when I passed out the first time, but in all actuality, my heart had stopped — I had died. 

I woke up with 4 separate IV lines running into me, each filled to the brim with different bags.  One of the doctors spoke softly to me “we had to restart your heart several times, the baby is in jeopardy, we are prepping you for a c-section but unfortunately we cannot put you under — it’s too risky”.  Was this really happening?

“Save the baby” I managed to mutter.  Lisa wasn’t even there, her partner was — Chief of Obstetrics to be exact.  He kept ensuring me as they wheeled me down the hall that everything was going to be okay.  “We’ll give you a local, but you are still going to feel a lot of pressure”.  I’m immune to locals – discovered that earlier that year.  I felt them cut me open before I went into shock and passed out.

I woke up in a delivery room alone.  Where is my baby?  Where is my husband?  Where are all of the doctors and nurses?  I can hear a woman giving birth to her baby next door. I try to scream, but I cannot.  Am I dead?  Am I dreaming?  I try to get up but I cannot — I am strapped down to the bed.  Tears are streaming down my face faster than water over the Highland Park Dam.  Where is my baby?

It seemed like hours went by when in reality it was only minutes.  My hero doctor came marching in with him in his arms “your husband is downstairs praying — but I thought you might like to meet the little one”.  He was beautiful and perfect but so tiny.  He weighed 5 pounds 4 ounces.  He took to the breast like it was the last supper.  I couldn’t keep up with this little guy’s appetite, he had to be bottle fed to put on weight.

His name was Andrew but I couldn’t refer to him by name.  I didn’t go through all of this to give birth to an Andrew.  I had a name picked out since the day I found out.  My husband gave in.  Toby Kai.  Kai means “sea” in Hawaiian.  He lives up to his name.

Toby Kai came into this world on November 3rd, 2007 at 12:10 am.  The beginning of his life were tough.  I thought that the worst was over.  Toby managed to overcome all of his obstacles as an infant, although he require maintenance dosages of inhaled steroids because he has childhood asthma — but he will probably grow out of it. Most c-section babies do have respiratory complications.   He walked before he was six months old, but he has a speech delay.  He’s not perfect, but he’s perfect to me in every way.  He is my miracle.  He’s the one that managed to literally kill me and still get away with it!

My poor baby at the age of three in just a few hours will have endured more than most children 5 times his age.  He doesn’t remember his father; which turns out to be a good thing, but he knows that he had one — Bailey reminds him all of the time.  He bonded and had a close relationship with my ex-boyfriend who he really seemed to click with — and then one day, he was gone.  He was the only one of my children that had entered into a daycare center before his second birthday — but that worked out to be one of the greatest things for him.  His daycare provider, Barb, is my co-parent in his life.  She teaches him sign language and gets him to finally start speaking to communicate.  She sets expectations for him and communicates with me what they are.  She’s the perfect daddy!

Toby regresses by refusing to eat his dinner (and he’s an eater, has been since the moment he was born) and absolutely refusing to go to bed at night.  Before He left, Toby would ask to go “nite-nite” a half-hour before his bedtime.  Now I’m dealing with climbing out of his crib and saying “no nite-nite” way past the midnight hour still.  My poor little man is confused.  He doesn’t understand what he did wrong.  He calls out for him all of the time and it breaks my heart.

Last year at Toby’s birthday party I cried for him because my baby was turning two and had just faced major changes in his life.  This year, I refuse to cry for the man who walked out on him.  It is one thing to lie to and cheat on a partner in life — but you don’t intentionally involve yourself in the life of a child and then deny them your love. 

I can spend my life trying to live up to the promises I made to him on the eve of his birth — but so far, I’m batting 0 for 3.

I love you my little man.  May you always dream of reaching your dreams.  May your intoxicating laugh and adorable little smile remind you that you do have people in this world that love you, that would never hurt you, and that WILL ALWAYS be here for you — and I’m your number one fan.  Happy Birthday baby boy!