Goals are for soccer, or hockey--

But.
I still made one.
I know, I know--
I'm hilarious.
Like, not only was that a Fozzy Bear "wucka-wucka" kinda joke,
but also, if you've known me for more than 5 minutes you probably won't take me seriously when I say I've made a goal.
It's like saying, "I'm going to lose weight!"
yeah. Sure you are, tubby.
(talking to myself, don't mind me...)
But I would like to think that this goal is important enough to my personal health and emotional well-being that I will keep it.
What is this great mystery goal?
To write.
Every day.
At least here, and if writing here opens the door for actual creative thought and I find myself with the urge to write something useful, productive, entertaining, or in any way MARKETABLE, then I shall most certainly do that, too.
It's not about writing if or when I feel like it anymore.
That's bullshit and, frankly, it's NOT WORKING.
I am shying away from the keyboard like a cat from a waterfall.
And that's just not going to work for me any longer.
No more hiding from that part of myself!!
No more keeping the door closed on my old life and everything it entailed--
why?
Because there was same damn good stuff that came from the person I was then.
Just because I was ridiculously unhappy in a lot of ways, and just because I am so thoroughly saturated with satisfaction in those areas now, does not mean that I have to be so black and white about it.
I have worried for too long that "my writing" came from a place of aching sadness and so now that I'm joy-filled I will have nothing to say, nothing meaningful or interesting at least.
But that's just poppycock.
(god, I love that word!)
I am ready to embrace again the quirky, wild, sexy, weird side of me.
I am ready to once again vomit my thoughts and worries and wonderings out onto this page.
If I write every day for the next 2 weeks, I will reward myself with...er...something.
Also, I think I closed myself off from the interactive side of blogging, but that's half the fun of this whole thing, so hopefully I can start wandering around reading blogs again.


I have been reading again lately, and that has the effect of infusing my life with color--it's like putting my flabby old imagination on a treadmill, ya know?
I am reading 3 books right now, technically.
I am working my through Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series for the second time,
which marks the first time in my life that I have re-read a book at all, let alone a whole series.
Ok, not quite true: when I was 8 or 9 I read The Chronicles of Narnia, and then I read a few of the books again when I was in my 20s somewhere...probably 23 or 24, cuz I'm pretty sure it was post marriage, pre kids. Irrelevant.
The point is, this is saying a LOT for the series of books.
I also am reading the third book in the Wicked series, by Gregory Maguire.
I have a hard time with those books...they are gorgeously written--such heavy vocabulary, thick and rich! Yum.
But...
After each book, I end up feeling like I have more unanswered questions than insight into any character or story line.
Maybe I'm a little thick, myself, heh, but it sure does frustrate me!
And still I soldier on.
Give me another volume of consternation, please, Mr. Maguire, I relish furrowing my brow yet again!
The third book, and I'm chuckling now, because I am working on three sci-fi/fantasy type series! That's kinda funny.
The third book is one I'm reading to my boys, but I'm just as enchanted with it.
And this series also marks a ground-breaking re-reading!
The Harry Potter books, of course.
I tried to read them to the boys when they were probably...5? But they were completely uninterested.
This time they are just as riveted as I am, which makes my heart burst with joy!
I have feared that my uber-active boys would not cherish a good book the way that I do, but we may have turned a corner.
I even got them little reading lights so that they can read in bed after I turn out the light.
I will stop comparing my parenting to my mother's, or my kids to myself as a child, or whatever...because it would be easy to think about the fact that at their age I would have been reading Harry Potter to myself.
I think they would get hung up on a lot of the words; in 3rd grade they are reading fine and dandy, but I have dropped the ball a bit on encouraging better reading from them than their age group requires. They have been taught to sight-read and have very little patience for, or interest in, sounding out words. That drives me NUTS.
But, then I realize, it's not the school's fault, it's my fault because I could have worked harder on that with them from home--and I am now, but it's a little late. They have formed bad habits.
I don't know.
I always thought parenting would be a breeze, because my Mom made it look so easy!
I assumed I would just naturally follow her lead, but then I had twins and it threw me for a loop...I still wonder sometimes how different I would have been as a mother and how different my boys would have been if I had started with just one, and had some time to get used to that and to teach that child some things before a new baby came to join us. Cuz I don't really feel like I did as well at this as I would have liked. I guess most parents can say they wish they did better in some area or other, and I'm not going to wallow in self-pity or anything, I just wonder stuff sometimes...

See?
It's not good for me to go so long without writing!
I have so many thoughts to express on a daily basis anyway, and if I don't let them out they tend to sort of gum up the works.

Hum, ho.
What else?

Well, spring seems to have arrived, which is exciting news indeed!
It has been cold and windy for a while now, but this week the sun is shining and the wind has relaxed into gentle breeze mode, and the temperatures are finally rising.
The kids will start baseball next week.
I'm excited, but nervous.

Meanwhile...
sometimes I wonder if I'll survive a relationship where I love a man with my whole soul.
One thing about being married to the "wrong" guy, you don't often worry about losing him.
Now,
as I march toward a new, fresh, intricately beautiful set of wedding vows,
I occassionally find my feet stuck in mud as the deepest parts of my primal being wail and weep with fear of loss.
The longer I know the happiness of true companionship, the more I doubt that I could live without it, without him.
My rational mind still knows that I would carry on, that I could even (with luck) see myself as having been blessed for knowing him and look at it as a learning experience.
But...my heart is not so rational and it has known great loss.
I have realized something very recently, and that is this: no matter how loved we feel, we can still be blindsided by loss. Whether the one we love chooses to leave or is taken from us by death or senility or something else selfish and unconcerned.
So no matter what I do now to try to insure against loss, there is no way to know what tomorrow brings.
So....crazy, sad girl--
stop letting the fear in, when it knocks on the door.
Stop answering its calls, replying to its emails, forwarding its rueful messages.
Fear is not the state I choose to live in!
I thought we covered this?
I choose Maine, duh.
So all of that is well and good, and I feel victorious and blah blah pep talk yay.
But.
What will I really do when fear comes a' prowling again?
I will pull a Stuart Smally, and remind myself how fucking fantastic I am!
yes, good idea, Lisa.
I will say, "I'm a badass. I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm sexy and any man would be lucky to have me, but this man is so awesome that I am truly the lucky one."
Yeah.
That's the ticket.
Cuz I know those things. I know them like the vocabulary words I had to memorize in
8th grade.
And there is no where else on earth I want to be.
And there is no reason for me to worry about some of the stupid shit that gets caught in my brain spokes.
Which reminds me....
I'm going to go for a ride on my bike today with my MOM!
Hooooooooooooo
raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Well, this little bit of therapy was very useful.
Thank you, blogger.
Day one, down; 13 to go.