Worst. Lent. Ever.

I'm not very bright, to be fair I do only have an eighth grade education, so hopefully my lack of sophistication has more to do with ignorance rather than sheer native stupidity.

I bring this up because I just discovered from Lisa on the Apron Stage, and mind you I am almost thirty, just discovered what Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday, or what have you, and Lent are. I also just learned that they have any relation to Mardi Gra.

For those that don't know, Lent is essentially a forty day fast from your favorite sin. I have a pretty religiously inclusive view of eternity and found this to be wonderfully in keeping with my Mormon beliefs - very "I would give away all of my sins to know thee". Also a great way to keep in mind, as was noted by Lisa, that while we sacrifice, Christ made the ultimate sacrifice, which is much more observant of the Atonement and Resurrection then my traditional ritual of crying over Easter dresses I'll never finish and then binging until I'm in a chocolate bunny coma.

But here's the kicker - the day before the start of Lent, Fat Tuesday - and New Orleans' Mardi Gra, is the observance of the fact that you are about to do without for forty days, so why not start with a little oomph to usher you in, or, depending on how you look at it, it's time to get your forty days into one night -very "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die".

I don't know if you can guess which one I'm better at. Hint - it has the word "Fat" in it.

Last night I had a party sized bag of Mini Eggs.

Today I gave up sweets for Lent, for twelve hours. Eight of which I slept through.

It turns out that my religious inclusivity mixed with my absolute inability to keep commitments has me feeling like a failure in two religions. And I was so wanting to feel Southern (aka interesting).

Oh, fiddle dee dee!

I have long suspected that I am a misplaced Southern Belle that, like Lambert, was dropped off by some incompetent stork into the lovingly blind arms of another species, in this case Mormon Northerners. While I am pretty sure I ended up much better off where I landed something about the South calls to me in a native croon, and I'm pretty sure it's two most appealing notes are big hair and addiction.

That darn addiction part got me this morning.

So I've decided I need to enlarge my idea of Lent for those of us sitting at the kids table, spiritually. The Lent Mulligan. I'm just going to look ahead and keep trying.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

I ran into a friend from a couple of years ago the other day at the movies. She was a super hot, super sweet, gallery owning wonder divorcee when I knew her, but at the movies last week I got to meet her new husband.


They were the perfect couple. She runs an artist's retreat in Italy for a couple of weeks every year. They met there. They are clearly in love, he clearly feels lucky to have her, and she was at a very attractive level of modesty in accepting it.


I know I should spend more time focusing on the ideal, but I can't. Things broken and rebuilt are the most beautiful to me and I love, love, love when divorced people find love again. It makes me hopeful. Things gone terribly wrong in act two can find in act three their right.


My parents are a prime example. Is it sacralige to say I'm glad they are not together (forget I asked, better to ask forgiveness than permission, especially when that honestly is how I feel and no amount of pretty lies will make me truly righteous about it.)? I see them with my step parents and feel that we are at the end of A Mid Summer Nights Dream, things were extremely turned around, one or more parties might have indeed been an ass, but everyone found their proper place in the end.

My Dad and I just got off the phone. His wife (my Step Mommy) has put him on a diet. He is so excited to tell me "we have turkey bacon, and you know what? We barely notice a difference!", they go shopping for healthy meals, they have lost thirty lbs. each. I know that they must have their own problems, but they have enthusiasm that they share together. They tell us about their favorite places to go, why we should watch The Amazing Race, the home remodeling and hunting and fishing expos they attend. They are in love. Hope springs eternal. All is right with the world.

My Mom and my Step Dad are the same, they improve each other. They work in the temple, they go on long road trips, he tries to make her more punctual and she tries to get him to eat different foods. She laughs at cats on Youtube and he laughs at her laughing at cats.

I'm happy for them, I'm happy for me, because there is nothing so bad that life stops, it keeps moving, it keeps changing, there are always chances left to take, there will always be opportunity for heveanly respite after terrible storms. There will always be turkey bacon left to discover, both actual turkey bacon and the metaphorical, undiscovered tukey bacon in your soul.

They are both delicious.

Things Big and Great

I have lived in a kind of self imposed state of claustrophobia for a little while. I am actually a little bit surprised that I have picked up writing at this brief stage of my life, because so rarely do I feel like myself. I often feel like I'm myself under glass, like the things that should be touching me I can see, but just can't quite touch. I don't know if I'm coming back out, but I feel hope bubbling to the surface of my skin. I'm seeing things open up.

I'm seeing the sun shine of friendly faces. Old and new, the possibility of things that are warm and inviting. I am feeling tiny urgings, to cook (repent now, I'm pretty sure that a Traci cooking is one of the first signs of the Apocalypse), to maybe ask friends over to dinner, to play games and to dance and even clean. I think showering and doing my hair might take more prominent roles in my future.

I am hopeful.

I am hopeful because there is a life of Big Things waiting for a prodigal me. Those big things, I think more often now, are probably things I will witness rather than do. And that makes me happy. I don't know if that can sound as happy as I feel it. I have love to feel. I have people to watch and wonder at. I have God's beauties to behold. I am taking feeble steps at being bounteous in spirit again. I don't have a lot to give, but it's getting to be more, and I think I am on the mend.

I was in Disneyland last week. It rained the whole time. On the up side, the lines were very, very short. If you are an old hat at Disneyland like I am you know that when the crowds are small it's time to hit the most beloved of all rides-Peter Pan.

I prepared to board my pirate ship when I noticed the gals ahead of me. Two eighty year old women, silver halos of curled hair, no grandchildren in sight, loading up for a ride together.

I imagine two girls, maybe sisters maybe friends, laughing and whispering into the wee hours. Hair tied and in rollers and mutual fascination with dolls, then horses, then marriage, then boys and then marriage again. I think these women must have had their hearts broken given their age. Either by boys or husbands or children or dreams, things that pass by so fast and you spend the rest of your life wondering why they were was so slippery, why you couldn't just hold on.

Did they carry the hope that you start with, the disillusion with which you throw it all away, the resignation you wear as you tote your burdens, the grim acknowledgement of hardship and finally the light at the end, the understanding, the surrender?

I think I am seeing these women at the point of surrender. I imagine they have returned from a long journey into a time wear there is no time, no time for silly stories, fairy tales, and rides not made of magic, but fiberglass, cardboard and paint. They have traveled through that strange land of adulthood and are returning home with all of the wisdom that comes from a long trip abroad.

The mechanics of the ride give a shudder and start and I watch two silvery heads peeking out of a pirate ship, returning to Neverland.

Pearls of Wisdom

I have a tattoo, when I wear a bathing suit people ask what the Chinese character on my back means. If they thought about it for a second they would know that it means I hit my rebellious period in 1998. I really don't know what it means, I don't speak, or read, Chinese. I imagine that the tattoo artist had a list of characters on the wall with words underneath saying things like "spirit" and "war" when in actuality they meant "spoiled white girl" and "drunk frat guy". He said mine meant "courage" but I think it shouts "dumbass" instead.


But for all of my tattoo regret I have been tempted once again. I think of all of the life lessons that have come to me in the last ten years and wish I could remember them at those crucial moments when they most want to go flying out of my brain. I want to get the best pieces of advice I have heard written on the inside of my forearm like crib notes that I can cheat my way through life with.


Here's the list so far;


You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. This is maybe the most important concept, the most profound words I have ever heard in my life. Also Tootie is awesome. I have often fallen into the trap of believing that somewhere there is the Shangri La - the perfect choice that is devoid of all consequences. It doesn't exist, your choices will almost always be paired with either discipline or regret - choose which you would rather live with and keep truckin'.



Which brings me to Keep Truckin', some prefer to call this the "just keep swimming" philosophy. I prefer to keep truckin' because it is far more awesome. Constant motion - I refuse to say constant forward motion because sometimes backward motion is the most important. But Truck you must.


Que Se rah, Se rah whatever will be, will be, the future's not ours to see. Que Se rah, Se rah. (If you do not know that this song is from the Doris Day movie Glass Bottomed Boat then we have nothing more to discuss). Great things can happen through a lot of work and a lot of luck. Bad things can happen even when we do everything right. After we do our best we have to be recognize that we are not in control of this ride, so let go, raise your arms high and have fun, then maybe later you can barf - barf when you're dead. Hmmm, Barf when you're dead... nope, that's no good for me, I'm pregnant, must barf while living.



Finally, You're Traci, Damnit! It helps to remind myself of that, sometimes I forget. It also helps to put pressure on yourself to be you, if you don't contribute the qualities that make you special who will? That guy? He's not you. Asking that guy to bring some you to the table is like asking Kroger to make a delicious boxed mac and cheese, they aren't Kraft, it's never going to happen.



So I'm open to suggestions. Got any pearls for this swine?

Tricky Math

I turn 30 in May.

You know, they say thirty is the new twenty. The lesser known caveat to that is unless you have kids, then 50 will have to be your new twenty.

I was pregnant with Vivian when I was eighteen, so my late teens were actually my early thirties.

I still haven't gone to college. It looks like my forties are shaping up to be my early twenties. I have a feeling that they are not going to rock quite as hard for me as my early twenty peers.

I had braces when I was twenty five. I was too busy during Halloween making Tooth Fairy and Batman costumes, but I was going to go as a tween. I was also pregnant, so there was definite material for going as an after school special. In fact, Dave could have dressed as my nefarious teacher and we could have recruited someone to be my hot, worried mom... we could have been a Lifetime movie.

My jaw has started hurting recently. I'll tell you right now if I have to live through my tweens a third time a certain orthodontist better invest in a security system and a gun with six bullets, because five won't stop me.

My midlife crisis comes in six month intervals. I've confused my life-time continuum, and now everything is all messed up. I want to take gymnastics but I'm pregnant again (going for number four!). I want to go to college but I want to run away to a coconut island with my boyfriend (Dave). I want him to still be my boyfriend - to act surprised when I do things but I want him to already know that I want to eat at Pei Wei because we've been there a million times.

I've got to take this Delorian (brain) into the shop (psychiatrist).

Girlfriend

"Are you mean?"

"No."

"Oh, because I'm really nice."

"I'm a super funny guy!"

" I'm Maggie, this is my friend Ella. Do you want to play wolves?"

"Owwwooooohhh!!"

I miss the instant friendships of childhood. I wish I could just say, "I'm really nice" and have that be enough to play. Not secretly withholding my friendship based on a disagreement about something as profoundly stupid and transient as politics, or my style of discipline vs. hers.

I wish I could sit at a McDonald's Playland, turn to the mother next to me and say "would you like to be my friend?". I hate that we live in a world in which that woman would instantly think the words "restraining order".

Making girlfriends is hard. It's like dating only I'm not good at it. I was great at dating. I knew just what to do. I think dating is actually a lot more straight forward than friendship - throw your head back and laugh a lot - that's all you have to do. It shows off your hair and easy going personality at the same time. Boys like both of those things, girls less so. They want listening, and dependability, they're not as impressed with cleavage.

I have very few girl friends.

Rejection from boys never really bothered me (clearly, he was just intimidated). Rejection from girls is more difficult. That girl down the street doesn't prefer blondes to brunettes, she hates me for who I am. It's not that she wishes I were taller, it's more that she wishes my personality were better. I would rather get my legs repeatedly broken and spaced to give me height than examine and improve my personality - that would take real pain and work.

The good news is that I do have some girl friends, these are very nice women, tolerant. I love them. Some are my actual sisters, some feel like sisters. Some have seen what comes off of my nose when I have used a Biore strip. Some I wish knew me better and I wish I knew them better. Some I don't see often but my heart has made them a friend forever anyway.

Some of them have incredible bums - you know who you are... Melia.