The Place I Cannot Join You In

You are sleeping. 

Your lungs sound different when you drift off to a place that I will never be able to join you in.

Maybe we are walking together somewhere, or drinking coffee in a shop that pieces of your brain glued together; a place that only exists in the world that I will never be able to join you in. 

"No gifts, remember?"

I remember. 

This isn't a gift. 

It's a stream of consciousness, it's my own place that you will never be able to join me in.

You can only peek into it's cracked door, only briefly catch murmurs as you lean your head as closely to the white-washed door as you possibly can. 

When I was a child I lied on my back at the top of the staircase that your boys now scoot down from on their bottoms. 

I would lay there and listen to my parents talk to one another about things I shouldn't have heard. Secrets, I guess.

I didn't want to sleep, I wanted to stay awake and hear the soft tones of my mother's voice. Many times I couldn't even decipher words from the long prose she spoke, but I knew it was lovely still.

I always fell asleep. 

You stir ever so often under the sheets. I wonder what wakes you. 

Is it a nightmare? Or is it a dream so beautiful, your body is fighting to stay a little longer, in that place that I will never be able to join you in?

I'm going to paint our kitchen a pale yellow. That's how I always pictured it would be. I wanted a yellow kitchen with you so badly. I wanted a yellow kitchen, fresh wildflowers in the window and Sunday morning coffee. 

I wanted to fight with you, about anything. About sugar maybe, or the type of milk you drank straight from the carton. 

I dreamed of the simple things, like shared grocery lists and book collections. 

Was The Great Gatsby mine, or yours? 

We would laugh and shrug because it wouldn't matter anymore. 

Yours and mine would be the same. 

You're rolling over more frequently now. Dawn is stirring with you. 

This isn't a gift.

It's a stream of consciousness, it's my own place that you will never be able to join me in.

How did we get here, sleeper? 

How did we manage the climb to the top? Are we at the top? Are we somewhere in the middle? 

The middle seems like a good spot to sit and hang out for awhile. 

Like a good spot to plop down with sandwiches and talk about nothing. 

Maybe just a good spot to enjoy sharing this space with one another for a short time. 

What's it like in the place that I will never be able to join you in? Am I in a cream dress in the woods? Are we laughing? Do you spin me around and hop over fallen trees? 

You're letting one leg breathe from the sheets now. 

This chapter has been brief, lover. This one of school supplies and evening walks. This one of sharing. I share your toothbrush at times and you pretend to not enjoy that we're so comfortable.Your eyes have always been honest with me, though. 

Before this mid-climbing spot of sharing air, you told me that you would always meet me there, in that place that you will never be able to join me in. 

I can't meet you there either, in that place I will never be able to join you in. 

It is a place that we can not share together. 

We go there and we toss. We turn. We let our legs breathe from the sheets. 

We go to this place that we can not share and we still search for the other. 

We search for the pale yellow kitchen. 

We search for the shared book collections, the shared coffee creamer. 

We search for anything to share in this place that we can never join one another in. 

You are about to wake. You're becoming more vocal now. 

I think we always search for a space to share with one another; I think we always have been searching and always will. 

This isn't a gift.

It's a stream of consciousness, it's my own place that you will never be able to join me in.

You're awake. 

The Step-Mom Chronicles. Preview.

    When I was a little girl, I was always chosen for children's church play leading roles and solos. It was a given that every year I would be the one singing the bigger pieces. Why? My mother, Lord bless her, made me sing a Sunday night special every month from ages four to twelve. My curly fro would be pulled tightly back with a bow to perfectly match my fake satin dress. It was 1995. You know what shiny, God-awful fabric I'm remembering. The church's carpet was the color of an old bicycle rusted by rain water and I hated pressing the colored foam microphone to my lips because my pastor's excitement didn't always remain on his own. 

    I had the most singing experience along with weekly singing lessons, so I was always the obvious choice to stand in the spotlight with sweaty palms and paper lyrics stuffed down into my lace socks. My mother's small, sweet face that I now see in my own bathroom mirror was always on the front row; her lips largely mouthing every word to my grand solo. 

   One year, that all changed. They decided to give another kid a chance to shine and I was handed a small song mid-play. My seven year old self couldn't believe it. The boy they gave my solo to liked to pick his nose and couldn't sing a lick. Now that I look back on it, I know that the talent in a kid's play is of least importance.  Also, I vaguely remember hearing a parental fit was thrown to get the nose picker a small spot of fame. 

  I don't remember much about the play, except one of my best friends wore a giant North Star suit and the fact that booger boy totally butchered the main solo. Faces contorted with each off-pitched pre-puberty squeal. I smirked behind my costume head covering and that was it. I was quite the little ass about it on the inside, but patted his back and lied to him about how great he did before skipping off stage to get my happy meal my mother promised me. 

    Moral of the story? I rocked and should have been the lead. Every. Single. Year. Forever. 

The end. 

Thanks for reading my book. 

Just kidding. 

The moral is that I was a typical ornery kid, just like you were and I didn't want to share the spotlight. In fact, I felt entitled to it. 

Nobody wants to be the secondary. 

The "stage hand."

We want to be seen. To be heard. We feel we won't matter if we're in the back prepping costumes instead of singing in the spotlight. 

I want to get real here with you, momma. Sometimes the life of the silent stage-hand sings louder than the leading roles. Your presence as the stage-hand is absolutely necessary for the show to happen successfully. 

Sometimes the most influential person is often the one unseen. Think of major films. Who do we see? The actors, actresses, stunts and special effects. 

But who directed it? Who was the writer, up all hours of the night drinking stale coffee with messy hair and furrowed brow?

We don't know. 

We don't see them.

They don't need our applause or our recognition. 

They sit in the back during the premiere screening and simply smile, content to just have been a part of something great. 

This is who we are. 

You are the writer, just happy that you are helping create. 

Children? They are in the spotlight. 

Mom? In the spotlight. 

Dad? In the spotlight. 

You? 

You set the lights. Play the music. Prep the costumes. Feed the lines. You write. You erase and then you write again. Without you, the show just wouldn't be the same. 

You're going to be the stage-hand often and that's okay. 

No play would ever make it to opening night without you. 

Being a step-mom requires a lot of patience, grace and humility. These are all such beautiful qualities to possess. They don't come easy, but they come. 

This is a journey. 

Sometimes long, sometimes hard, but always beautiful. 

Now, let's get this show on the road momma. 

Together. 

Hold The Cards.

I remember watching people play poker once. I was twenty and had just recently discovered rum. I liked thinking that I could pretend to be a badass with my 5% alcoholic sugar water.

 I would laugh at jokes that became stale when passing through the smoke of cheap cigarettes. 

I like to tell people this was my "hardcore" stage; you know the one we all are supposed to go through when we are young, stupid and searching for our parents' values that we seem to have misplaced somewhere, along with our shoes, around drink number three. 

The truth? I was never hardcore. After two rums I was talking to shag carpet and my asthma blew my badass identity when I choked on mint-flavored hookah. 

I was under the impression that the drunken, lost stage of life was a right of passage, so when fate didn't create it for me I did it to myself. 

Back to poker. 

I loved studying every player's unique bluffing strategy. Each eyebrow raise, twitch of the nose; all were road maps to read. 

I saw so many young idiots trust other players far too easily. 

They couldn't understand the road map, so they would continue to place more and more chips on the table. The other player would remain stiff, unmoved and continue to simply hold their cards close to their chest. 

They would wait for their prey to put it all on the table. Every chip and wadded dollar bill. 

Then...the other player would lay it all down. 

The winning hand. 

I learned those were the best players; the ones who had every reason to gloat, cheer and show the room just what they held, but chose not to. 

Sometimes to win, you have to hold those cards that could destroy your opponent close to your chest.

At times, okay always, my flesh says, "Dukes up! Let's fight! We've got the fists to win!" 

But God says, "Hands down. Leave the ring and leave your enemy to swing at the air."

It's hard to take off the gloves, but in the end you win by never joining in on the match. 

At times, okay always, my flesh says, "Britney, lay down that winning hand. What are you waiting for?! Give your opponent what's coming to them!" 

But, yet again, that Jesus fellow comes in and shuffles my deck. 

Jesus instructs us to keep holding that royal flush, that winning hand, those cards that could totally obliterate our adversary. 

He instructs us to keep holding because it's not our hand to play. 

It's His. 

It's not our job to play the the winning hand. 

It's not our job to ever step into the ring. 

It's not our poker game. 

It's not our match. 

It's His. 

Hold the cards. 

"The Lord your God will fight for you; you need only to be still."

Exodus 14:14

Television Will Fry Your Child's Brain and Other Horrifying Myths

"Don't sit so close to the T.V screen, it'll make you go blind."

"Be careful or your eyes will get stuck like that, you know."

"That show will give you nightmares."

"Spray can cheese isn't meant to be sprayed directly into your mouth."

"Your brain will rot from playing video games all summer."

"Spongebob is a homosexual, you know. Don't let your kids watch that."

The last one really did come out of someone's mouth once. I promise.

Before jumping into the real meat of this blog, let me debunk these myths and wow you all by the fact that I actually survived my childhood and not only that, came out as a functioning, intelligent (and rather witty if I do say so myself) adult.

I sat close to every Disney VHS movie screen I could. I've got the best eyesight out of my entire immediate family.

I criss-crossed my eyes every chance I got at my sister in the back seat of that green mini van, yet my eyes are perfectly normal. Wait, are there two of you? Just kidding.

Now, that show my mother told me not to watch (but I did every day when she was still waitressing) did give me nightmares. I think it built character in me though and made me less of a wussy. Sometimes nightmares aren't all that bad to have.

I spent the majority of my summers spraying canned cheese directly into my esophagus with my much older and mature sister, Kim. I have news for you: spray can cheese only has one purpose and that is to gulp it with head titled back. If you're eating it any other way, you're doing it wrong.

I played video games in that hot pink bean bag while wearing my Pocahontas pajamas my entire fourth grade summer and can do magical things like use the proper form of to, too, your and you're despite my half-rotted brain. Take that.

Spongebob isn't a homosexual; he's a cartoon with no genitals or gender identity. Even if he was, let your kids watch him. HE IS EVERYTHING. If you don't, they will grow up to have no friends and no sense of humor. That, my friends, is no myth.



Now, the real point for this blog isn't to talk about Spongebob's lack of genitalia. It's to tick you and every other parent off who has shared an article about why technology is turning our children into cyborgs and storm troopers.

You roll your eyes now, but really, your child isn't being damaged because you're handing them a tablet to shut them up on a road trip or because they would rather play Minecraft than help you mow the lawn.
Their brains aren't fried and their eyes aren't going to be permanently crossed.

They're children.
They want to play video games, watch Spongebob on Sunday mornings in their batman underwear and they want to spray canned cheese down their throats quicker than you can send a two-sentence text message.
Some of my fondest memories are of me and my dad laying on the couch together, laughing at Spongebob and Squidward while my mom got ready for church.
Some are of me and my sister eating junk food in our blanket fort, watching Are You Afraid of the Dark, keenly listening for the garage door to cue the arrival of my mother and us to switch the channel to some happy-clappy, obnoxious children's program.

The same parents who continue to rant about how tablets and video games are destroying the new generations' mental capacity, have a hard time using correct grammar in the same status update.
Did you play too many video games, too? Did outside teach you how to conjugate verbs or...
Too much? Sorry.

Now before you go huffing and puffing and blowing the whole Earth down, know that I am for physical activity. I mean, heck, I'm a marathon runner. I run 50 miles a week and even drag my kids out on the asphalt with me on the occasion.

My kids love to watch YouTube, but they also love to ride their bikes.
My kids love to play MineCraft, but they also love to make me play kick-ball with them in the street.
My kids have access to technology and sometimes sit close to the television, but they also have equal access to outdoors and the joys of swinging too high at the park.

 My love of beating video games or texting 5,000 words a minute as a pre-teen didn't turn me into a mindless couch potato.

It's not slowly turning my boys into robots either. This isn't Robocop or 1987, so calm yourself.

Technology isn't bad for your child, but an imbalanced life is.

Don't feel guilty for handing your ten year old a tablet, but make sure he knows what it feels like to slide in the dirt to home plate.
It's okay to let your kiddo waste a few hours watching Spongebob (he's like Gandhi, but better), but make sure to take them for a park picnic, letting them know what it feels like to waste hours of the day away on the monkey bars, too.

Your job is to send them into the world as a well-rounded, decent human being.
Getting them to that place is your task and yours alone, but let them have some fun and enjoy a few new things the world has to offer along the way.

When you were a kid your mom locked you outside and told you to play in the woods until night-fall? Good for you. I'm glad you didn't get kidnapped.
But, maybe instead of forcing the way you lived your childhood onto your own kids, you can try to join in on theirs and learn to love some of the things they do.

Balance.

Also, remember:

Sunday morning Spongebob and basic grammar are of the utmost importance. 

Pretty Isn't Priority

I remember when I was younger, I had a bow to match every dress I owned and I refused to wear anything but a dress until I was in first grade.

As a little girl, you are taught to cross your legs, look straight into the camera and "smile pretty."
Our hair is pulled, prodded and twisted into absolute perfection.

We are trained to be pretty.
To look pretty.
To act pretty.


I think we grow into thinking it is our duty and our responsibility to "blossom" and to transform into delicate, fair posies.
So we grow.
We blossom.

We figure out how to tame our wild, curly locks.
We discover how to dress in the most flattering way for our own body type.
What color blush suits our fair cheeks the best.
What goopy foundation blends the best into our pores.

We pluck.
We wax.
We cut.
We highlight.
We blend.
We contour.

We do all we can to pay our dues and be the flower we were told to be.
We look into the camera.
We smile pretty.

I decided to not wear any make up this week as an experiment for the purpose of this blog. I showered, let my curls fall naturally and left the blush brushes and foundation sponges sit in their drawer. I wanted to see how I would feel, what people would say, the reactions I might get. I wanted to know why I was really doing what I was doing. Why did I feel the need to cover my natural face up? Was I doing it for me? For the people I passed in the grocery store? If I wasn't doing it for myself, I wanted to discover why I was doing it at all.

You want to know what happened the last few days when I left the house without make up or hair mousse?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. People didn't look at me cross-eyed. My husband didn't ask if I was feeling okay. Nobody even seemed to notice, but me. Granted, I think makeup can be fun and nice to put on for work or just to make yourself feel a little bit more put together. I'm not giving up make up completely, for I don't feel the need to personally do that. Will I wear it way less often?
YOU BET! It's freeing. I feel freaking great, honestly.
I feel like Britney. Just Britney.

I don't want to wear makeup again until I forget about it all together.
I want my natural face to be more normal to me than the one with dark eyelashes and painted cheeks.
I don't want to feel I owe anyone, my own prettiness, anymore.

I want to be beautiful, not pretty.
I want to be known for my heart, not my face.
I want to know that prettiness isn't a priority in my own life.

There are far more beautiful things than looks to strive for.
There is wisdom.
There is laughter.
There is knowledge.
There is kindness.
There is humility.
There is meekness.
There is selflessness.

These are the things I want to leave with the world.

 I feel like so many of us feel like we owe the world to be pretty.
You don't owe anyone that.
Pretty isn't a priority, nor should it be.

If you want to use hair products and eye-shadow to enhance yourself some days, go for it!
But, don't use it to hide.
Don't use it because you feel you owe anyone anything.


Your job as a woman isn't to smile pretty.
Your job as a woman isn't to be anything but yourself.

You don't owe prettiness to anyone.

Be kind.
Be gentle.
Be humble.
Be merciful.

For those are the things that will outshine the wrinkles of old age.

Procreating Minus the Pro.

"So, when are you going to have a baby?"

The face of an acquaintance waits with anticipation and curiosity as I try to get my latte as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there.

"Well, actually, I'm working on my writing degree and photography career, so never really."

Then the face happens.
The, "If you're not going to procreate and bake pies and wax the floors...who will?" face.

It's my favorite, really.
I have actually grown to enjoy the reactions I receive when I practically tell people bold-faced that I ovulate bricks.

Some people are totally awesome, telling me that they are cheering me on in my endeavors to be a free bird, others, not so much.

I'm here to tell you about the truth in chosen childlessness.
Every woman who chooses not to have children also has her own reason, so I'm not here to put the umbrella affect into place.
I'm here to mainly explain why asking women when they're going to start procreating isn't okay.

Maybe you have, but I have never, not even once, heard someone ask a male when they were going to start attempting to produce children.

Why?
You don't ask men those questions.
When a man hits his twenties, society doesn't ask him about picking out baby names.
We ask him about his education plans and his career plans.

When a woman hits her twenties, she instantly becomes bombarded with questions of wedding chapels and burp cloths.
Why is that, reader?
How broken is our societal structure that we are still (though not as extreme as before) in the mindset that a young man should be furthering his education, while a woman is trying to bare children and stay confined to the walls of the home?

Just a short warning here: I am not knocking on mothers or women who stay home for some time with their young children. I was a raised by a woman just like that and she was the best mother I could have ever had and raised me to be the independent-minded woman that I am.

What I am knocking, is the idea that all women who have a womb should want to procreate and that if they're not or even worse, they don't want to, that something is seriously wrong.

I wish I could tally up the times I get asked in one week alone why I don't want to have a baby, just to show you to what degree this problem has actually gotten to.

I have something to say to all of you who continue to push, prod and question continuously why, whyyyyyyyyy I wouldn't want to have a baby?

In reality, it's none of your damn business, but to be politically correct here, I uh, just don't want to.

Considering this answer hasn't seemed to suffice your societal norms, here we are.

I am focused on creating other things besides children and that's okay.
For me.
And many other women out there.

Many women make great mothers, seriously. So many of my dearest friends are mothers and they freaking rock that role. I am a step-mother to three amazing kiddos, but , I'm not their mother. I don't want to be their mother. The role I play in their lives suits me perfectly.

I feel there are categories of women and it's important you know which category you fit into, for yourself.

1. The mother.
2. The Auntie/Bonus Momma.
3. The woman who shouldn't be allowed within 500 miles of a child.

Now, number three should be in prison, but aside from her, both number two's and three's are equally important in making our culture and society go round. Know which category you fit into, not the category your mom who so desperately wants to be a grandmother wants you to fit into or your friends, family, whoever else tells you that you should fit into.

Fit into where you feel you belong.

Do I feel that I might regret not having a baby?
No.
Even if I did, the possibility of maybe having a feeling of regret, isn't enough reason to have a child.


Do I ever look at a baby and have a twinge of a maybe?
No.
I often tilt my head and wonder what my dog is currently doing.

We live in a world that is slowly progressing to full equality among the sexes, yet the expectation of every womb being filled is still towering over many of us.

We shouldn't feel guilt, shame or confusion for making the choice not to have children.
On the contrary, we should feel empowerment and freedom in our own choice.

Not every woman was designed to raise children just because she has a uterus and I'm one of those women.

Stop asking women what they are going to do with their own bodies.
Ask them about their minds.
Ask them about their dreams.

I am a woman and I don't need to have a child to be a complete human being.
Also, every woman must find her own path to living a fulfilled life and for many women that is to raise a family.
For me, I do live an overflowing life and feel no need to add to it or to take away.

Writing fulfills me daily, a career which I feel takes a lot of your heart, your time and your focus.
Many, many women writers never even marry, much less have children, due to the nature of the career and what it demands of us mentally and emotionally.


I know that even though I am not procreating, I know that I still create things every day as a writer.
I know that even though I will never birth a child, I will birth new ideas and changes.

I am complete.
I am whole.
I am free.
I am proud.
My body.
My choice.

So, if you truly want to respect women, stop asking us when we plan to make use of our wombs and start asking us about our passions.




“Everybody with a womb doesn’t have to have a child any more than everybody with vocal cords has to be an opera singer.”-Gloria Steinem

Taking Bathing Suit Season Back

It's here.

You know, negative body image season. 

Shorts. 

Tanks. 

Skirts. 

And yes...bathing suits. 

Summer is usually associated with the ice cream man, sun-kissed skin and baby curls on swing sets. 

Yet, this season filled with so many positive images can often haunt women with a negative one; their body. 

You sit out of the pool while your children beg you to come play in the water with them. 

What is making you decline, momma? 

Your friends beg you to join them at the lake, but you pile on layers and hide in your beach towel.

What is making you miss out, friend? 

This is for every woman who has been ashamed, disgusted, embarrassed and even tormented by the demon lurking in your bathroom mirror. 

I'm not going to feed you lies and tell you that I never go a day without speaking death about my body. I'm human. I have my days just like you. But, I decided with the new year that it was time to hit that dance floor and cut loose! 

I gave up torturing my wild curls and embracing the body I've got. 

It's the only body we are going to have ladies, so you better rock it any way you can! 

If it's hot, I'm going to run in my shorts and sports bra. 

If my kids are at the pool, I'll be right by their side, not hiding in a beach towel. 

Do I have love handles from my love of pizza, stretch marks and fatty deposits?

Of course. 

Who the hell cares?

Not anyone but me, and now sometimes that is even questionable. 

Honey, it's time to have a sit down meeting with yourself. 

Get in that bathing suit, pose in your mirror and give the negative body vomit your middle finger. 

You don't have the time to be worrying about those extra pounds or birthing marks.

Stop giving space to negative thoughts and talk, you could really fill that space with so much better. 

You could fill that space with pool days with your kids, a sexy dress for a date night, but most importantly you could fill that space with more of you. 

That's who matters here. 

The moms laying out next to you don't matter. 

The woman giving you a cross-eyed look because you're in a bikini and rocking that size 14-she really, really doesn't matter. 

It's time to tell negative body talk to go to hell, but it starts with us. 

You feel more comfortable in a one piece? Perfect! But, not every woman will. 

Maybe the woman with extra pounds you've been mouthing has lost massive amounts of weight and that bikini is a statement to herself and the world that she is free from the world and its standards! 

The last time I checked, bathing suits and summer attire were made in every size, so pick out yours, get out there and be fabulous. 

Stop negative body talk about yourself and about the women around you.

We are all in this fight against the bathroom mirror together. 

How much sense would it make for someone to trip their running team mate as they handed off the baton on a relay race? 

None. 

They not only hurt their team mate, they hurt themselves as well. 

Until we start acting like we're on the same team and stop tripping each other up, we will always fight this battle.

We will always be running on a hamster wheel. 

We will always be swinging in the dark at an enemy that isn't in front of us, but within us. 

If you can't handle seeing a real human being wear a bathing suit, maybe you're the one who needs to pack up and go home.

Oh, that woman really should cover all that up? 

The only ugly thing that needs to be covered up is your hideous and hateful attitude towards your team mate.

Negative body image talk ends with me. 

Negative body image talk ends with you. 

Size 2 or 22, we are taking swimsuit season back. 

Don't like it? 

Frankly my dear, we don't give a damn.