There, in California, in his room. He peeked under the sheet and began to laugh hysterically.

“Oh my god!” He cried.

“What? Stop laughing! What is it?” I said, my voice rising with each syllable.

“Oh my GOD!”

He ducked under the sheet again and then popped back out to say “Your body is ridiculous! Seriously!”

I was mortified for a moment and drew away from him. But he wasn’t finished.

“It’s PERFECT! I mean, look at it!” he said, lifting the sheet up into a tent above us. I squirmed and laughed and pulled the sheet back down so that I could roll myself up in it. Our eyes were filled with worship and we were happy, all awash in the chemical bath that is new love.

In New York I hung off of his arm, knocked nearly off of my feet by the fact that I was in New York City with him. My life seemed a grand adventure then, every turn promising something new, every moment carrying me further from all the mistakes I had made up until then.

Happiness, carelessness, stumbling…

So much daily life stuff that I began to feel overwhelmed by the need to DO, and by my inability to do things to his satisfaction.

The inevitable arguments developed and suddenly foolish grievances burst into being. Verbal knives were thrown with deadly accuracy, though they struck at fear more than truth. I pulled back, hurt and utterly bewildered.

We soldiered on.

On an old blog I posted a sketch of mine titled ‘The Boy On The Train’. It was a drawing of a guy in a coat, with a scarf wrapped around his neck.

“Yes, but who is he?” He demanded in an injured voice.

“A boy I saw on the train.” I said impatiently, angered by the absurdity of his apparent jealousy.

He went off to California for a visit, without me, and I went about my business. It seemed neither of us knew what to say to the other. He came back soon enough, and handed me flowers as he came through the door. I didn’t know what to feel about the flowers or his apologetic mood. Why flowers? More importantly, why now?

The arguments came again and I realized that I had laid myself bare to a person who could use that nakedness against me without shame, without regret. I was defeated, finally, cut down by a profound sense of betrayal.

Retreat.

Awkward struggling through each day. I pulled back and back until one day the bond snapped, leaving me alone. Free.

I found the letter shortly after that. He had put it on top of the dresser, sure that I would see it, and I had piled things on top of it, unaware. It was a heartbreaking plea to save us. It was hope and confession and Him laying himself bare, this time.

I saw symmetry there, and opted not to let sadness move my hand to disturb a finished thing. He packed his things and quietly left.

Years later while digging through a box I found the pictures and pressed between them the napkin. He’d written a note on it and slipped it to me one night forever ago:

I can hear you laughing in the other room and it’s making me happy.

I had since been cut down by him again, for the most asinine of reasons, so I felt nothing but amazement that time could be so revealing, the past so changeable in the mind. I have no room for regret in my life but I cling to the lessons learned.

The cost was too great to just let them go.

I’ve been a bit lost lately. I haven’t been able to write or to create much of anything. I felt as though I was in between places.

I still feel a bit lost. Dizzy. But I’m starting to have ideas and, more importantly, to give expression to those ideas. I started writing a story again. For a couple of days I could manage no more than a few lines. I scoured the internet for information, researching my procrastinating ass off. Then came a few more lines. And a few more. The story grew and momentum began to carry me forward.

It will keep carrying me forward, I think, until I hit the next hill and find myself struggling upward again. Still, it’s a good start.

I find it helpful to clean and organize my environment. Little decorative touches make it more aesthetically pleasing. I am feeling at home. Happy, even.

The boys are doing well. Remi gets into talkative moods and then goes silent again for days, but he is definitely improving. The past few mornings that he went to school I couldn’t get an aye (bye) out of him but I try not to let it disappoint me. I’m so happy for the progress he’s been making. Of course, he has also taken to biting his brother when angry, which is frustrating and a bit disturbing.

Oh, Remi.

Tristan is his usual strange, creative, theatrical little self. And the things that come out of his mouth!

I’ve had a good couple of migraine-free weeks but the past two mornings I woke up with a throbbing headache. The headache faded out over the course of the day but this a just a precursor to Migraine Hell. It’s coming… I can always tell when I find myself feeling angry about EVERYTHING. It ties in neatly with my raging PMS. Oh, the JOYS of being a woman!

Good god, I think a migraine is forming as I type this. That means it’s time to turn off the computer and lie down for a bit. The temptation to sleep will be nearly overwhelming.

Onward.

What have I been up to?

Not writing, that’s for sure. I am festering with ideas. They swell, contort, and then, finding no release, they begin to decay.

A mess of thought. I need to do a little spring cleaning.

A few days ago I performed surgery on Tristan’s best friend Eddy. His teddy bear had become a sad, flattened rag over the years so I finally decided it was time to re-stuff him. I carefully cut him open and started pushing the fluff into him and Tristan stood next to me with a hand on his Eddy, assuring him that everything would be okay.

Yesterday I cut Tristan’s hair. I happen to like a longer style on Tristan but it’s getting warm out and poor sweaty Tristan can’t deal with all that hair. He wasn’t wild about me plopping him in the kitchen and cutting all his hair off but once it was done he actually thanked me.

Sweet, sweet Remiel. Remi has started to talk! We’re not exactly having conversations yet but the fact that he is now connecting sounds with certain meanings is a huge deal for us. Hello, goodbye, cheese (for the camera that is always out and aimed at him), and uh oh are a few of the words that make up his small but perfectly wonderful little vocabulary.

I even got a “love you” a week or so back, though it came out “uh you”.

Love you too, Remi.

I’ve been moody and a bit confused.
I don’t feel like writing much these days.
So I take pictures.
I can’t capture the smell of wilting roses
or convey the contentment
that comes with
soft breezes
But
I do manage
to approximate
a few flashes of something
I have been feeling for some time now.

I told Remiel “Bye bye” when I put him on the bus
and he looked at me, smiled, and said:
“Aye!”

He reached out to me
verbally

And I was so happy.

I looked up from my book and realized that I had waited too long to eat. I scooted off of the couch in a panic, anxiety and fatigue humming through every muscle in my body. I should set timers so this doesn’t happen again, I thought. I know I won’t, though.

Instead I wade through my exhaustion to the kitchen, doing quick and desperate calculations in my head of food preparation times weighed against nutritional value. I feel the need to laugh and cry as the delirium settles in, my mind whirling and my body setting my mind against all action. I briefly consider giving in to the delirium to avoid wasting the energy it takes to fight it. I can’t though. Inaction is not an option. I must eat.

Leftovers it is. Minimal preparation time, optimal nutrition (compared to the other options at least).

Breathe. Eat. Breathe.

It’s okay. I’m okay.

Now.

I still want to laugh and cry, but from relief. So tired. Though not typical these episodes occur more frequently than I would like.

What have I been up to? I’ve been searching, and sometimes finding, I’ve been sleeping, but always awake. I am tired. Some melancholic behemoth has me in its sticky maw.

I do not feel sorry for myself. I do, however, appreciate the impressive depths to which I have allowed myself to sink and the incredible effort I must now expend to ascend this confusion of rampant emotions.

It is a course to be plotted out and followed, nothing more.

Course plotted and laid in…

I deliberately alter the path of my thoughts, artfully navigating the shifting labyrinth of the mind. I have been too stagnant lately and my body is complaining loudly, all creaking joints and pulling muscles and thick, deep headaches that press into my very core and leave me unsure of myself.

Now I unfold, crackling with a snapping pain, and slowly begin to shake away all of the dust that has been my enemy, stinging my eyes and clotting in my lungs.

And then everything makes sense. I plunge fearlessly down into basic truths and the simplicity of EVERYTHING is staggering after so much chaos. The lines of my body collapse into a vision of busy cells, which break down into atoms and, in my mind, scatter across the universe.

Inaction is not an option.

I’m awake.

Always.

Yesterday I hung some of my paintings up in the living room. First I hung above my desk area the set of morbid yet bubbly paintings portraying my constant head versus heart battle. On the other side of the living room, near my bookcases, went up my Realist/Romantic painting which depicts the same battle as above, but in a woman and a man.

At first the paintings looked out of place but after a few hours of seeing them in their new positions on these new walls they seemed to ‘settle in’. Still, this new environment remains somewhat alien to me.

Approaching the house after a trip to the grocery store, I was momentarily confused by the new structure. This house, new to me, is now home. This is to be my sanctuary, the place I retreat to when I feel overwhelmed, the place where I create and take in. I could create such a place anywhere, could I not?

This is a perfectly acceptable residence. It was repainted and re-carpeted before I moved in. The kitchen and bathroom were redone. It’s full of light and open. It has its quirks, to be sure, but I am slowly becoming comfortable here, adding little touches to make it mine.

But it is not mine. This is the feeling I have in every house I have ever lived in. My restlessly nomadic lifestyle comes from so much moving around as a child. I don’t grow attached to places (with the exception of NYC, perhaps), or people, for that matter, and I find change refreshing, even essential. My sister asked me several times why I didn’t seem nervous about my upcoming move and I could only shrug my shoulders. I don’t tend to allow myself to fuss over things like that. I will move forward, come what may. I see no point in worrying.

None of it means very much to me. The few things I really need I can easily take with me and I don’t mind leaving things behind. I have talked before of my lack of sentimental attachment to objects but it’s more than that, really.

There are so few things that I find to be essential. I appreciate little luxuries, those creature comforts, but I am so often outside of myself that the material world around me hardly matters most of the time. My feet may be on the ground but my head is certainly in the clouds.

I told my sister today that my dream home is a big old house with hardwood floors and a bright sun room where I can read and paint.

Of course I doubt I’d be much happier there than I am in my current house, in the end. Where ever I am I slowly build up the walls of my sanctuary, filling it with the things that comfort me and the things that matter. My sanctuary is not complete until both of my children get off their buses and join me, at which point I feel that warming sense of contentment that lets me know I’m home.

Where ever home may be.

I have lived my life in a desolate landscape that stretches out seemingly forever in every direction. I don’t mean this in a despairing or morbid way, I only mean to express how cut off I have always felt from the human race. It’s as if I dropped out of the sky into this dark, strange environment with no knowledge as to how to navigate the treacherous terrain or approach the numerous ghostly inhabitants of the place.

On occasion I have managed to sink my nails into one being or another and, with youthful passion fueled by fear and rage, I clung on with violent force until everything I fought to hold onto finally slipped away and vanished back into the mist, repelled by my excess.

Then came frustration. And loneliness, insofar as I am able to experience it.

When I had my first child I felt the first true warmth I’ve ever felt in my life. Not more of the slippery, insubstantial stuff that had come and gone with the moodiness of weather but a good solid heat that wrapped around me and settled into my very bones. Here to stay. Suddenly I knew I would never be alone again.

Still, this child puzzled me and I have struggled to understand him. He moves in and out of the mist with ease, perfectly at home where ever he is while I still struggle to make sense of the very ground beneath my feet. I am not at home here.

Something missing. Essential.

I planned for him. Waited impatiently. Even before I knew with certainty that I was pregnant I spotted a pinprick of light on the otherwise bleak and inky horizon. When his conception became definite that tiny pinprick flared into a distant star, remote but incontrovertible. I don’t know how to accurately describe the strange connection I felt with this unborn child. It defies explanation. It is illogical. Upon his birth I found myself staring awestruck into the eyes of another creature like myself, not a being of mist that I would never fully understand.

My Remiel.

Suddenly I found myself faced with an incredible little life in whom many of my more atypical traits are reflected and even amplified. Through him I have been able to better understand myself, to make sense of my own aberrant (apparently) behaviors and thought processes.

Remi, too, seemed to have an aversion to being touched and a marked desire to be left alone in general. I approached him with both determination and patience, trying not to take his rejections personally and joyously reveling in his acceptance of me when he granted it. His behavior seemed natural to me and I understood it but I was determined to break through his tough shell. I never for a moment let him forget that I am with him and accept him completely.

I have catered to his not unreasonable (in my eyes) needs and his now obvious love for me is worth the expenditure of patience (something I have never had much of) and the frustration I felt in the beginning.

Seeing him struggle has helped me to understand my own struggles. Coming to understand everything he needs to flourish has helped me to understand my own needs. The patience I have shown him I am now trying to grant to myself because I cannot love him so much, this twin soul of mine, and not also love myself.

I am no longer alone in an expanse of mist and chaos. All the bleary shapes have shifted into focus and though I still feel like an alien here I now see things more clearly. This is not the cold wasteland I thought it was. This land is not land at all. It’s something else entirely, something that most people are born with a clearer knowledge of.

My knowledge is incomplete but I think my twin and I have things of our own that we could teach, if anyone is listening.

Ah, Valentine’s Day. I can’t honestly say that I hate it because I have a weakness for pink, hearts, and chocolate, but the commercial nature of the day does discourage me from getting too into it.

Being single means that I have no one to celebrate the day with anyway, so it falls to me to satisfy my needs for candy and other thoughtful gifts, which is not a problem because when I put my mind to it I’m a most thoughtful gift-giver and I leap at the chance to focus that energy on myself. Naturally.

Of course this is one of those times of year when I start to give more thought to the possibility of being in a relationship. Relationship. The state of being connected, in this case to another human being. My connections with people are web-like, with strands occasionally breaking loose but most of them remaining stubbornly intact. You’re stuck with me, friends. Boyfriends are different matter.

The idea of sharing my life with someone so intimately sends my hermitical soul into violent convulsions. Then there are the boys. They are the reason I do and do not want to be in a relationship. Raising two children alone is a difficult task that I have been performing alone for nearly four years now. On one hand the boys are absolutely mine and I feel that no one else should have to take on any of the responsibility of raising them. On the other hand, the idea of being a more traditional family appeals to me. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was someone there for me when I begin to collapse, when I’m tired and sick or soul-weary?

Don’t the boys deserve a real father?

Is any man good enough in my mind to take on that role? And can I really ask that of someone? People do this, I know. They blend families, start new ones, create all kinds of perfectly functional dynamics to suit their situations.

It shouldn’t be so hard. I know what I want. I want a man who is stable, both financially and mentally. The type of man who would have bored me in my reckless youth. Someone kind. Definitely, he must be kind. When I was younger I often mistook kindness for weakness, for lack of experience. What can I say, I’m a worldly kind of girl. But things are different now. I have children and I don’t want them to experience life the way I did. I don’t want them to struggle so much that they come to see kindness as a weakness instead of something beautiful and warm.

I am looking for a good man. The jaded need not apply.

That in my personality which keeps me from going down the wrong path with the wrong person is also what’s keeping me from meeting the right person: I am perfectly satisfied with being alone.

Still, I’ve been keeping my eyes open. I’m looking. It’s hard though, meeting people. I’m stuck in a small town and with the boys to care for I don’t really have much time to date anyway. There must be some trick I’m missing. How do people find each other? And I mean the kind of people who grow old together, not the kind who pull each other to pieces and then stare dumbstruck at the mess.

I can wait for him. I’ve had lots of practice.

I haven’t written here for a while since I’ve been busy with, and exhausted by my move. Everyone seems to like the new house, although it took Remiel a rough couple of days to adjust to so much change. It didn’t help that he and I have been so sick. I’m STILL sick. Sinusitis. Fun. But I don’t want to talk about myself today. I could go on forever about myself, or my beautiful Remi, whom I understand perhaps better than myself, but at the moment I am utterly fascinated by my Tristan.

If Remi and I are at one end of the spectrum then Tristan is certainly firmly established at the other end. The boy challenges me, and though he can be intensely frustrating I do enjoy a good challenge. It baffles me that such a friendly and outgoing child could have come from me. I grew up silent and painfully shy and never could have handled the type of situations that Tristan likes to dive into.

Tristan approaches everyone with absolute trust (Oh, how I worry) and frank curiosity. And he’s quite entertaining (embarrassing?) in public.

My sister Carissa found this out when she took me and the boys grocery shopping recently. I went one way with Remiel in my cart and Carissa went the other way with Tristan. When we ran into each other again Carissa was completely exasperated.

“Oh my god, Rachael! Your son!” She cried.

“Oh crap, what did he do?” I nervously inquired. With Tristan there is no telling.

“He wont stop talking! He’s been talking NON-STOP this entire time!”

“Tell him to be quiet.” I said rather lamely.

“I DID! And it’s not only that. He’s talking to EVERYONE. He has to talk to every single person he sees. Do you know what he says, every time? ‘Hi, I’m Tristan. I’m the Doctor!’ To every. Single. Person.”

Tristan means the Doctor, as in the main character of the British television show Doctor Who, which he is completely obsessed with. I had to laugh. We went off in different directions again and the next time we passed each other going down an aisle Tristan was proudly clutching a folded dollar bill.

“Look what he has. Do you know how he got that? We passed the same people four or five times and every time Tristan saw them he had to wave at them and talk to them and they thought he was so cute that one of them gave him a dollar.”

I could have fallen over laughing. I buried my face in Remi’s shoulder and laughed and Remi quietly allowed this. Remi, who rarely even acknowledges other human beings.

Tristan’s extroversion is jarring to me. It zaps me out of my silent reveries and drags me into reality.

When I took Tristan out to play on the first mild day we’d had in a while he forced the delicate introvert who is his mother to socialize with the neighbors on either side of us. I would have been happy to sit quietly on my front porch, enjoying my coffee and watching people go about their business but Tristan had decided that the neighbor’s business is his business.

When the older lady to our left came outside with her two little dogs Tristan immediately ran to her, introducing himself and spouting an indecipherable river of Tristan-isms that had the woman staring at him in bemusement. I went to her rescue and of course at that point found it necessary to engage her in some of the social niceties that have always baffled me. I worried briefly about when it was acceptable to terminate our social interaction, though Tristan had no such worry, and retreated back to my porch, hopefully having made a favorable impression on my new neighbor.

I was not destined to peacefully consume the rest of my coffee, though, because not too long after that the neighbors on my right came outside with their adorable two year old daughter. It was all over. Tristan had found a new friend. I suppose it’s a good thing that he forces me out of my shell, however uncomfortable it may make me. He’s an incredible child, strange and creative and happy.

I will always love him, my doe-eyed first-born son, but I will probably never really understand him. And that’s okay.

The following is a short list I’ve compiled to amuse myself and relieve some of the nervous tension that goes hand in hand with my PMS. If you are squeamish or easily offended then do not read this entry or you risk getting your tighty whities all in a bunch, and we wouldn’t want that now would we?

1. I’m allowed to be lazy – Right before my period my midsection blows up like a freakin’ balloon, so when I’m bloated and none of my pants fit I think it’s perfectly acceptable to lounge around in my PJ’s all day.

For the week before my period I usually experience an exhaustion akin to what a couch potato might feel if he suddenly ran a 25K marathon (though I can’t imagine what would have to be chasing him). In this sloth-like state I have no qualms about giving in to the urge to cat-nap throughout the day. Dishes? Bah, I can clean them when I don’t feel as though I’m being put under anesthesia. Cook dinner? HA! Cooking is for people who are fully conscious.

Laundry? Please! A squirt of febreze and my small collection of pajama bottoms will be fresh enough to last me until I can make the epic journey from the couch to the laundry room. Which leads me to what is next on the list:

2. I’m allowed to be gross – Girls don’t poop. And they definitely don’t pass gas. Right? Wrong. I may be a dainty little rosebud for most of the month (thorns included) but once I start PMSing I become an entirely different creature. Most of the time I’d rather stick my ass in a closet when I’m feeling gassy rather than allow anyone to know that I, a lady, am prone to such unseemly bodily functions. Right now? I. Do. Not. Care.

Showering? Yeah, I still do that when I can work up the energy, but I’d really rather not. I’d really rather curl up on the couch with a pillow and a book and a large package of chocolate frosted donuts. Which reminds me:

3. I’m allowed to eat everything – How I don’t gain twenty pounds during PMS Week is a mystery to me. I turn into a slobbering glutton once a month, a frothing at the mouth cookie/brownie/everything monster with a bottomless pit for a stomach. I really might as well set up camp in the kitchen. In fact, I totally would if I had the strength to drag the couch in there.

The hunger is constant and the sheer variety of foods I consume in such a short time would make up a colorful shopping list. It’s a desperate kind of hunger driven by a feeling I can only translate as something like: If I don’t eat this cereal, this burrito, this bowl of stew, this banana, and this candy bar I will DIE. So I eat it all and I don’t die but thirty minutes later my stomach is at it again with all its begging and pleading and twisting.

It drives me mad!

4. I’m allowed to say inappropriate things – My moods when I’m PMS-y tend to be variable and loud, whether I’m expressing joy, despair, or delirium (my personal favorite). Given the incredible fluctuation of hormones in my body, altering my brain chemistry and causing all sorts of fun symptoms, I can hardly be held responsible for the things that come out of my mouth before or during my period. Well, I suppose you could try to hold me responsible but it would be pointless.

Acceptable responses to people/things/animals when experiencing PMS:

To someone cute – “Your face. I like that shit.”
To someone who gets too close to your chocolate – “I will GUT YOU.”
To a stranger who says hello – “Go away.”
To a friend who says hello – “Go away. Please.”
To the birds chirping outside your window – “WHY WONT YOU JUST DIE?”
To the woman on the drive-thru speaker – “No, that will NOT be all! SHIT!”
To the person who hands you your burger, fries, shake, etc. – “Oh god, thank you SO much. This is… Wow. Thank you!”
To someone you don’t like – “I hate your face.”
To someone you do like – “I love you SO much.”
To the world in general – “WHY?”

And so on and so forth, all the way to the loony bin. Why are women with premenstrual syndrome allowed to say such things? Because fuck you, that’s why.

5. I’m allowed to be emotional – You know you’re PMSing when a commercial about a household cleaner or a cellular phone is the saddest thing you’ve ever seen. EVER. As for commercials that include children in third world countries, skinny animals, or sappy old couples, they can send you into a downward spiral of very unattractive sobbing.

I, personally, am not a big crier, though once a month I walk around in a state of misty eyed misery. The tender empath in me takes a brutal beating and I find myself showing signs of sentimentality. It’s bad, really:

Oh god… He went to Jared… >insert sniffling and eye rubbing here<

Seriously, those commercials should inspire nothing but disgust or, perhaps, hilarity, depending on your sense of humor. Feeling such emotions can lead to overuse of the word “so”. As in, “I love you SO much!” or “That is SO sweet!” or “That is SO sad!” or “I am going to hurt you SO bad if you don’t get the hell away from me!”

Long story short, hormones are a fucking bitch.