so long

 

So Trista quit the gym this weekend.  She's not the first Corretti kid to leave the sport but this one almost feels like a death in the family.

Gym has been the heartbeat of her life since she walked in the door however many years ago.  13? 14?  At some point I've lost count.  It was Mommy & Me except Mommy & Us bc, you know, twins.  She loved it.  She jumped and ran & danced and swung.  It invaded her self.

Before she even turned 5, she was invited to team.  This invitation came with a side of TOPs, an entirely different program on top of regular team.  Strength training plus different, more difficult, routines except these were "sequences" and were meant to push further forward.  She atesleptbreathed gymnastics.  She'd practice for hours at a time & still come home ready for more.  Memorized skills/routines/sequences.  Pressed into handstand.  Again.  Climbed the rope.  Again.  Held handstands for countless seconds.  None of it wore her out.  She was always ready to throw on a leo & head back to the gym.  Meets began.  Practice continued.  Broke her arm & battled back.  

At the age of 7, she did her first set of TOPs testings & qualified as a Diamond - one of the top 50 7-year-olds in the country!  It was so very exciting!  At the age of 8, she qualified to travel to Indiana for further testing.  Missed camp that year by the smallest margin.  Vowed to get it next year.

More meets, more summer camps.  More practice...ponytails...leotards.  Always the leotards.  She competed 4-5-6 in one season and was so ready for TOPs testing again.  Except.  COVID.  And the world shut down.  There was only 1 level 6 meet.  There was no summertime TOPs.  There were Zoom practices & her Daddy built a bar for the floor, to practice handstands & pirouettes.  We already had a trampoline and Air Track.  We ordered a climbing rope for the back porch.  (It still hangs there, lonely.). Practices resumed with only a few kids at a time.  Schedules were screwy and homeschooling came in handy.  Gradually the world reopened & things resumed.  She was a Level 7.  She traveled to Boston camp with a friend.  Two Level 7 meets.  Push to 8 to finish that season.  

Two Atlanta camps in there, somewhere.  "Mean" Jacobo from TOPs testing was always glad to see her there.

TOPs was back.  Indiana again.  Qualified to B camp so Indiana again, again.  And then TOPs was over bc 10 year olds "retire" from the program.  On to Level 9.  And Hopes came next.  More skills.  Difficult skills.  A camp in Texas with National Staff.  Qualified Elite Compulsory for Hopes.  And then decided it wasn't for her.  Dropped back to "regular" level 9.  Level 9 Regionals took us to Tampa twice.

Then Level 10.  Twice.  And somewhere in there, she grew tired of the mental games.  Tired of structuring life around the sport.  Second year Level 10 brought illness and injury and missed meets and scratched events and suddenly all that was left was the whimper.  And now there is silence.

Gymnastics took her so many places.  She did so many things.  Met so many people.  It was life's blood to her.  And now tomorrow will be different.  And the rest of the week.  And the months ahead.  Something else will attract her attention at some point.  But for now, summer is coming.  Unstructured summer for the first time in 10 years - more, really, if you count the years that Auri was in the gym before she was.

There's grief in this for me.  Grief that, while she went out on her own time - not due to injury or the like, she's going out defeated with an air of unrest about the thing she gave her young life too.  She chose the path - we never had to push her to get into the car.  But seeing her feeling as if she's wasted all that time with nothing to show for it is agonizing.  We've had "big picture" conversations of late.  One day I hope she sees that picture.  I hope she sees all that she did gain from this thing before it broke her heart.  I hope that she can see what I do.  I hope that one day it will be remembered as a gift, rather than a curse. 

firsts and lasts

 i.am.tired.

"meet season" for two different sports has me worn and weary.

perspective change.

today was the last day i have to drive to tuesday wrestling practice with a "rookie" wrestler.  next season will bring only open brackets.  and he'll be 13.  what.

today was the first day that she "caught" her pak with her chest.  oh dear.  that might mean a bars scratch this weekend.  but so what, who cares?  plenty more bars to swing.  plus that catch led to a height measurement.  1/4 inch in 7.5 weeks?  that might be why!  she'll be 13 in a minute too.

debates about spring breaks.  high school credits.  jobs and when to leave them.  THAT baby will be 17 in a blink.  time is drawing short.

tuesdays have been chaos since the carpool fell apart.  it's 9:16pm & dinner is still in the oven.  so what.  who cares?  there's no bus to meet at 5am.  schoolwork will hold for an extra hour while we sleep.  

time is fleeting and these babies aren't keeping.

not so long ago
but maybe longer than that
because as time flies faster and numbers rise
everything slips away into the fog

but at some point back there
when so much seemed
difficult
and gray
and black
and dull

i could curl up and cuddle with my words
seek my solace in their release
revel in the fleeting permanence
of their meanings
pour my pain out in paragraphs
and slip sadness into sentences

phrases and a jumble of syllables
absorbed my anger
and breathed into my bitterness
hope and promise of a
tomorrow that felt differently

but yesterday was 20 years ago
and i lost my box of language bandages
left behind in the daily business of 
everything and
everyone but
not ever enough me.

temporarily
until one day it showed up
peeking out from behind hurt feelings
and so i opened it back up
tore open a wrapper
and exhaled into the therapy of
lexicon

which welcomed me back with open arms
and said where've you been, old friend
welcome home
sad to see you but glad you're back.

 a fucking mess.

that's me.

I don't trust anyone.  or anything.  and when I THINK I'm finally making break throughs with people and my own stupid mind, I am betrayed.  or what I consider betrayed.  and then I'm all "fuck YOU" again and it's over.  not quite before it started.  but close.

I'm over.it.  all.of.it.  I can't decide if it's that I don't know how to be a friend.  or if it's my expectations that are too high.  as in expecting from others what I'd give to them.

what has happened to people?  what has happened to ME?  

it's really just easier to be alone at this point.  I can't decide if there's a lesson in that or not.  possibly there is.  I'm going to act on what I think that is.  maybe if I do that, peace will come elsewhere.

maybe. 

well hello there.

so i'm kind of thinking maybe some things should move over here, away from fb. and so here we are. back again. maybe to stay. but we always say that, don't we?

there's a new hashtag about. maybe you've seen it? #crazymother or #crazymothers. it's →this←

and this BOTHERS me. i'm listening to it again here, now, as i write. it makes me weepy. here's my connection to it: almost 22 years ago, my first (bio)child had the DPT and slept for 24 hours. i had to force her awake to eat. a few months, later, she had the second DPT and, i swear to you, she screamed for a week. this time she didn't sleep. neither did i. she screamed, i cried. best i could manage for her was about 20 minutes in the swing and then she'd wake to scream again. this time i reported to her doctor. P(ertussis) was taken off of her vaccine schedule. guess what? she didn't scream like that again.

vaccine-induced encephalopathy, she, at 4 months, would have been having horrid terrible headaches as lesions formed in her tiny brain. ever had a migraine as an adult? ever had to hide in your room for hours or days on end as you cried and cowered and vomited from the pain? that was my 4 month old daughter. but she was 4.months.old. she didn't know what terror was overtaking her. she only knew that she hurt and nothing helped. ah, but they've CHANGED that nasty old "P" vaccine. it's all better now. it's aP now. all better. except.

we continued to vaccinate. fast forward 12-13 years. another daughter. few months in, weeping eczema rashes on her cheeks. more months passed, highly reactive respiratory system. more months and multiple food allergy and asthma diagnoses. (but, but there's not a "P" vaccine anymore! and these symptoms aren't the same as your first daughter who had the "P" issue! so what's YOUR issue, lady?)

i cannot definitively prove a link but i do know that my least vaccinated children are my healthiest compared to my others and to their peers. and the literature supports that the symptoms/conditions that my second daughter faced/faces currently can be a result of vaccination. so. i'm just saying.
what if i HADN'T done what everyone else does, just because that's what you do? maybe neither one of them would have ever had an issue?

 i don't have this conversation often. i avoid it mostly. cause, you know, i don't want to be called a #crazymother complete with eye rolling and head shaking and glares. but i know what i've seen and i know what i've read and i know about screaming for a week on end and hospital stays for asthma and prescription costs and pictures of bloody weeping eczema cheeks and i know that, comparatively, i'm a "lucky" one. i still have my whole child.

a whole lot of the other #crazymothers don't.

jump-start

interesting where a jump-start in faith can come from. in this case, the homegoing of a child born to this earth but not meant to stay. placed here long enough to crawl into her mama & daddy's hearts and curl up in a warm ball to create a space that will be hers everlasting. they sent her off home with open hands, yet grasping fingers. knowing so adamantly that she was going to glory only imagined but desperately brokenly brutally desiring her company here on earth. they know that she'll meet them again with blind eyes open & glory emanating from a face made whole by the end that was only a beginning. but they are human. selfish, hurting, broken humans with desires of this earth. if they can love, what barriers are there to me doing the same? jump-start. out of the brilliant black hole of loss and surrender. ljr 2.11.14 - 2.15.14

almost so long

17 more days until korea is in my rearview, so to speak. could be a few less. but we'll have to see.

i thought i'd be ecstatic to leave this foreign land. but i really can't decide if i am. i've been making lists & marking things off & adding things on...cleaning out cabinets & refrigerators & having the smallest grocery store trips ever. pitching things in the trash or passing them along. it goes on and on....

this was supposed to be a one year tour. "you can do anything for a year, right?" right. the least of which is turn it into two years. and three and four and two more babies and troubled teenagers and a new employer and strange adventures that we didn't imagine and now, four AND A HALF years later, off we go. home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

back to where we started. into the house we left, albeit with more members than we left with. and back to grandparents and other assorted family members, some blood, some not. and familiarity. and everything in our language, without accent or explaining twenty times so as to make ourselves clear. but also to the downfall of our country. and a president who cares not who he harms, only how many policies he can put his name to as his time grows short. and parents who are not raising their children, with the expected results. and a world who has forgotten its Creator, again with the expected results.

and we have five children to help navigate this world. two are well on their way to navigating on their own. i pray that they can avoid the pitfalls and whirlpools that lie in wait. three come behind them that we have what seems so much time to teach but in reality will pass by in the blink of an eye. and maybe this process would be easier here. but, as we've seen over the past year, perhaps not.

so as i tick off my list and think of new additions, tears well and subside with disturbing frequency. as happy as i am to return to where i came from, the relative unknowns stop me in my tracks, disrupt my sleep and gnaw at my mind. this is all i ever wanted, so someone tell me...why the misgivings?