No more second guessing...

So.. I wrote this blog entry last night.. I was feeling really emotional for some reason & remembering alot of past memories vividly & poured my heart out in this entry & then woke up feeling kind of stupid..I didnt know who had read it so I deleted it & then a super amazing friend of mine told me ho wmuch she liked it & how special it was that I shared my feelings, the other half of that friendship trio (Claire,Hailey & Sierra) who didnt get to read it said she wished she had but they both agreed they've done the same.. poured it all out & then deleted later..

So..I'm going to re-post it..and from now on I'm not going to delete my posts. This is who I am & I shouldnt feel stupid or embarrassed or ashamed about my thoughts. If someone is reading this & they dont like what they read, its really quite simple..DONT READ IT. But its my place, my space, my blog & I should say what I want when I want.. so..

Here it is..

For some reason, tonight my most vivid memories are flashing through my mind..I know in this blog, I usually talk about family & kids, but its also sort of *my place* where I can be ME, an adult, a person, not just mom...So here goes..My first memory is when I was 3 ( I think?) We lived in B.L and I remember walking towards the center of the driveway.. towards Betsy..the dog who lived in a dog house & belonged to our upstairs neighbors... She hit me in the chest, i felt the wetness on my face that I was sure was blood as the air was sucked out of me& I thought "this is it, I'm dying" as she knocked me to the ground.. Oh.. wait.. what was this?? A tongue?? Oh.. Betsy was licking me! Huh... All I remember is the moment of fear & then the realization that she LIKED me! Ands all was good in the world.. That's my very first memory.My second involves pink bathroom stalls & waiting to go potty while my mom talks to movers in the same house, which she assures me, there were no bathroom stalls in our home, much less pink..So my mind obvious created this one on its own.Next, I remember my dad & I going to Boarders. At the time, the closest one was somewhere towards Cleveland. I have really vivid memories of the long drive, my spending hours in the kids store & walking over to the adult store in this tiny strip mall. I always joke that I didn't grow up on playgrounds & BBQ's, I grew up in bookstores & dinner parties that involved 6 types of lettuce. It was just me & my dad & it was in the middle of winter. Just the 2 of us drove up & I picked out a book of some sort, probably the baby sitters club, or sweet valley girls.. On the way back we got into a small cart accident, right on a tiny over pass, you know, the type that goes over a creek. I remember being TERRIFIED that we could have gone over, imagining us drowning in whatever water lurker below.. The other party got into our car so my dad & his could exchange info as it was blizzard like outside by then & I remember I didn't move one single muscle from then until we got home. I remember the tan car we had & exactly where my foot, outside of its shoe rest on the door.. It was numb by the time we got home but I was so scared I couldn't move. Looking back, it was just a minor bump but as a kid, it scared the day lights out of me!the other really vivid thing I recall is D.A.R.E class..Do you remember those??? Fourth grade..I remember going home & sitting on the step by the living room with my mom, extremely serious feeling, watching my dad watch the evening news with a glass of wine & feeling scared ( the news had ALWAYS scared me, I still don't watch it & I forbid Mike to even discuss current affairs with me) and bursting into tears telling my mom that every time my dad took a sip of wine it killed brain cells. I would laugh out loud right now, but I'm scared I might wake the kids. As much alcohol as I've consumed since that moment, it should be hilarious, but at the moment, I was terrified. I had this image of my dad being brain dead b/c I mean come on..you tell a fourth grader that every sip kills brain cells.. Well, really? I may be smart and all, but that sure makes you worry, if you sip that glass 10 times, how much of your brain I REALLY dying!! Its scary stuff for a kid. sheesh! No wonder I wasn't a drinker in high school like so many kids were!!On to the next..High School, Freshman year prom.. Lets be honest..I dated some (ok ALL) real losers before I met Mike..My first *real* boyfriend, we'll call him J. He was my date to the high school homecoming, my first formal dance!!! I was 14 years old & he was older.. We'll cut through a painful sad story & say this..He stood me up..I'm talking lead me on until I was sitting there, looking out the window, my hair & makeup done & my dress on just knowing..he wasn't coming..That's a very very long sick story, but I was there at the dance, with a "friend" (right @@) and her date and everyone KNEW. This teacher walked up to me, and put her hand on my shoulder and asked me if I was OK. And for the first time all night, I was. Something about her made me feel OK. I told her I was & the nightmare of an evening went on. The next week at school she stopped me. Leslie, was her name..Leslie Leonard. she remembered me. I knew enough to know she only taught seniors, but she remembered me, my name & she wanted to make sure I was ok. I am fighting back tears as I write this. But something about her just made me feel SPECIAL. I waited the next few years until I was a senior myself, so I could take her class. Senior Seminar. A class about making the teens worthy contributors to society. She became my mentor. We talked during lunch about the bad relationship I was in, she told me about her first husband & how she'd finally left him one day & found the love of her life!! How they went to the big horse races, how she had beautiful children & how she had found happiness after all her sorrow. She was like a mother to me & I loved her with all my heart. She touched me from out of no where at age 14 and held on for so long after words. That senior year she made a HUGE impact on me, guiding me, listening to me. While she was like a mother to me, she could also hear things a daughter could never tell her own mother. She made me proud of myself, and made me believe in myself. She was an amazing amazing woman. She lead her beliefs to Washington DC, she fed her beliefs about making the world better through the youth of our school.. She inspired me every day I knew her.That leads me to my next vivid memory that forever is etched into my mind..I had gone to see Leslie to surprise her when I moved home from OU. I came into her classes silent hour & she was so surprised, we hugged & she showed me a gorgeous engagement ring. He'd finally proposed!! I'd never seen her so happy!! We talked & made lunch plans. Stupid me of course, had a loser boyfriend & I probably got hung over or God knows what & ended up canceling our lunch plans & telling her we'd reschedule...Isn't that how it always works?A week or 2, maybe a month? Who knows..I remember sitting next to my loser of a boyfriend in major traffic while we complained how we'd be late for class at the U of A. What the hell could be causing THIS much back up??? We got to class, went home later & probably went out for a long night of drinking as we so often did.. I got a message from my mom in the morning asking her to call me & when I returned her call I found out that traffic jam was because someone had had a very major car accident. A death. And it was Leslie. I remember exactly where I was standing, what I was looking at & every single thing about that day. I remember going to a party later that week & hearing a kid joke about the lady who was decapitated by the truck & choking as I told him that woman was like a second mother to me & where exatcly he could stick his jokes.I think about her all the time. I have a silver angel that I look at & think of her & my grandmother ( B's g-ma too...) and the meaning she helped me find in my life.. I don't even know what else to say, I feel so choked up thinking about her right now.. i went to her calling hours & the meeting with her fiance was too much for me, and for him as well. And I didn't go to her funeral, I couldn't..Isn't it odd? How the most vivid memories people can have usually seem to pertain to something scary, or sad? Why is that?? Sometimes I look at Ryan, I look at his tiny fingers or toes or listen to the coos he makes & I try to picture Andy in his place, as he was just a year or so ago practically. And sadly, I almost cant. I have the pictures, I know the memories are there, but they're so hard to recreated perfectly, yet the bad things, the things that worry, or scare you. That traumatize you, or upset you, you can recall with perfect detail at the snap of a finger...What a depressing entry huh?? I don't know what it was, but something tonight just made me feel emotional, lucky & grateful. Happy to have the husband that I do. Happy to have a kind, GOOD, loving man to be with every day..to have 2 healthy, beautiful, lovely boys.. And as I laid there & thought of that, my most strong, vivid memories all came flooding to me.. and I guess I just wanted to share them, with you, with myself, with whoever reads this. Maybe saying things, or writing them helps, I've always been a writer, I have probably written a million letters to people which have never been received.. But the fact of getting it out, in written words has always somehow made me feel relieved..So there it is.. My first, strongest & most vivid memories in my 24 years of life.. Having Andy & Ryan are in there too, but somehow, they don't fall into these categories..those are memories of a different kind.. Traumatic, crazy, special memories are of their births.. these are a different type.. maybe more painful ( if that's possible) but in some ways, the ones that I first think of, which i reflect on things that shaped me into who I am today..((Sigh)) What a load right?? I almost feel like I should be putting this in a diary ( if I had one!) instead of here..But screw it..PUBLISH POST.