The Test

        Ellie blinked, as sudden realization dawned like the sun’s reappearance following a violent storm. Acceptance quickly followed with an onslaught of thoughts.  

         Late night feedings, diaper duty, first steps, skinned knees, birthday parties, school graduation, worrying, a lifetime of joy: simply priceless.

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Beginnings

    If you think about it, life is full of beginnings.  With a single cry, life begins fresh and new.  We know little more than the sound of our mother’s voice and the warmth of the womb, still we forge ahead tasting, seeing, and experiencing life each moment taking each day as it comes.

    School begins.  We begin to learn amazing things: how to read, how to write, how to calculate, and how to philosophize and along the way we learn how to make friends.  Friendships begin, and then they end.  Some friendships last forever if we’re lucky.  If not, people drift through our life at an alarming rate fulfilling their purpose in our life touching us in profound ways.  Touching us as fate would have it. 

 

    Boy meets girl and love is discovered, and sometimes hate, sadness, rejection, and disappointment.  Romances begin, and sometimes end.  They always begin again until our soul mate waltzes into our lives and knock us for a loop.  From each new beginning we learn.  Marriage marks a new beginning filled with promise and hope.  Couples forge through life together marking new beginnings as home owners and as parents.

        The arrival of a baby marks a special beginning.  Each beginning is a departure from how life used to be and although scary, each beginning is filled with excitement and anticipation.  Sometimes all goes wrong.  We survive divorce and forge again with someone new discovering that even after heartache and loss a new beginning is always possible.

     We work, we play, we live and each day marks a new beginning filled with promise and hope.  Each new day is fresh with no mistakes.  A new day is like a fresh new page of our life to be written on.  Beginnings bring excitement and fear of the unknown, but somehow we adjust and embrace the beginnings and life continues to flow and we grow.  Even death will be a new beginning where we will finally discover what really lies beyond that last breath.  Even though I will probably always agonize about new beginnings a little, I have found as I grow older it is becoming a little easier to embrace what will and must come until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

How Do You Play?

NaBloPoMo asks: 

“How do you Play as an Adult?”

       When I was a kid, I played to win.  I danced around and offered high fives when I won, and bawled my eyes out when I lost.  It was all or nothing back then.  Nothing but a win would do. Victory was the sweetest feeling and defeat was just unthinkable.

        As soon as I became a mom my whole perception of the gaming experience changed.  All of a sudden, I didn’t play to win; I played to teach.  Somehow I became the referee and the encourager.  I became the one that gently reminded that it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose; it matters if you have fun playing the game.  Games should be fun.  If they weren’t meant to be fun it wouldn’t be called playing the game.  


  

      Before I even realized it happened, I metamorphosis into this person who no longer cared if she won but sure did celebrate the victories of others and encouraged those wallowing in the depths of despair of defeat that all is not lost.  Why, simply because we can always play again.  If you didn’t win this time, maybe next time you will until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

Curiosity

     They say curiosity killed the cat. I don’t know if curiosity ever killed anyone, but it can sure get you in a world of trouble. Unless you happen to be a curious little monkey like Curious George, I have found that a person eventually grows out of the need to be overly curious. People who don’t grow out of this curious stage become scientists.

     Of my own children my oldest was always the more curious of the two. She certainly was the most sneaky and between the ages of 1 or 2 tended to get herself into a world of $hit every time my back was turned. I can think of three separate occurrences that come to mind. Most things usually happened while I was either on the phone or in the bathroom. Even a trip to the laundry room to transfer the wash from the washer to the dryer could reap disastrous results! She would sneak away and the next thing I knew…all hell had broke loose.

     One time I left her happily playing with her toys and watching Sesame Street. Sometimes you simply have got to pee! She was quiet, and I never suspected any foul play. I came back to the living room to discover her gone. My heart began to beat a little faster as the panic set in. I called her name and began to search. She was a baby who could only crawl. How far could she get? As I rounded the corner and entered the kitchen I discovered my daughter had managed to get the Fry Daddy out of the bottom cupboard and dump the oil all over her and the floor and was happily waving her hands in the greasy goop. What a mess!! It hadn’t mattered that we had installed the Safety First locks on the cupboard doors, she had figured out not only how to get them open but managed to haul out the Fry Daddy and dump the contents.

     Another time the telephone rang. I don’t remember who was on the phone. It really doesn’t matter, the resulting disaster would have happened regardless. One minute my precious girl was happily entertained with her toys and the next she was gone. By the time I took up the search, I found her in the bathroom in the process of stuffing every single roll of toilet paper into the toilet. It wasn’t just one of those 4 packs either. I had bought an economy size package with multiple rolls. She had taken out every single roll and shoved them into the toilet. As for the roll that was beside the toilet, she had unwound it down until all that remained was the cardboard tube and it pooled around her on the floor. As I gasped in horror and shouted her name, she smiled and said “Mama”!

     There was also the day that my little scientist decided to shove a bar of soap into the VCR where unknown to anyone it melted and effectively screwed up the works. Every time I tried to put in a movie, the VCR would groan and spit it right back out. I peered inside and was horrified to discover a melted mass that smelled amazingly like Dial soap. Of course, my little darling was all innocence. It didn’t take much to figure out who had put the soap into the VCR.

     Curiosity does have its upsides. With every mistake, learning comes. She learned what goes in the Fry Daddy should stay in the Fry Daddy, toilets were not meant to accommodate that much toilet paper, and VCRs are for videocassettes not soap. The memories that are created from such incidents are delegated to family legend making up the fabric of our lives. Even without an owners manual on parenting  your kid, somehow you both survive.  That is all I have to say until the next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

Coming of Age: Saying Bye Bye to Childhood

     What is the moment that you leave childhood and enter adulthood ?? Popular opinion would pin that moment at the graduation of high school at the tender age of 18. Not only are you no longer considered a minor by the laws of the land, but from the moment you throw that cap into the air at graduation you embark on the first day to the rest of your life. But, have you truly entered adulthood at that point?? You can buy cigarettes without any headaches if you have a mind to. You can move out on your own, get married, vote, and enlist into the military. Still, in my mind you are still technically in your teens and still have limitations.

     For example, until you are 21, you can not purchase alcohol or go get soused at a bar. If you want to drive a big rig like my husband does, you have to be 18 to even apply for a CDL license. If you want to haul stuff that could blow up you or someone else on impact, then you have to be 21. By the age of 21, most people who went onto college after high school are ready to embark on the rest of their life and the daunting task of paying back any loans for that education. If you marched off to college, have you really embarked on adulthood yet?? Maybe, maybe not. At that point, you may still be going home to your parents house on breaks. You certainly haven’t got a real 40 hour a week job yet because it took all of your time just to handle school. 21 is considered legal age limit for just about everything else. 

     For myself personally, I can honestly say that true “adulthood” to the point where…”you are on your own” didn’t occur until I married my husband and moved out of my parents house once and for all. That is the reality when the weight of never ending bills and responsibility took over. That is when the $hit hit the fan for me. 

   

       Another growing up wake up call was when I had my first baby. If parenthood wasn’t a mind boggling wake up call that it was time to grow up, mature, and handle life, I don’t know what was. That was when the ability to run around and party, go to movies, concerts, and drop everything to rush to Cedar Point came to a screeching halt. At that point, it was time to wake up, smell the coffee, and settle down if I hadn’t already because I had a sweet helpless being depending on me to handle it. True I was older than most at 32 when my first precious bundle was born, but by then I could really appreciate her. If I had her before that, I may not have been as patient. Besides from about that time on, money has been in short supply.

     Some folks are forced to grow up in a big hurry when they decide to get busy and end up pregnant. Their bodies may be mature enough for such a life altering occurrence, but mentally they may be a long way off. For myself personally, I am glad I waited until I had been married 3 years before my first baby arrived. True, some folks my age didn’t wait and are grandparents today. Mind boggling to be sure. I am thankful I am not one of them.

     So to answer when is the exact moment that you leave your childhood behind, it is as individual of an answer as each human being is different. Sometimes due to our choices and other circumstances, $hit happens, and life takes over. Then you just have to roll with it. Society places the adulthood bar at 21, and upon reflection I would say that on average…that is about right. Until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.