baseboards and gum trees

my dog is sitting in front of the back door, basking in the sunlight... it's freezing outside, but that spot in front of the door is warm and inviting, so that's where she is sitting. i envy that.

there are so many things i want to talk about... but my thoughts run like a wild stream... crashing and rolling over a hundred obstacles, but still flowing. i can't slow them down. i can barely tread into the water to try to understand why i am thinking about what i am thinking about.

i get this way when i get bombarded with estrogen-filled television or movies. it's what happens. i start watching, thinking i am in a settled, balanced place, and then BAM! i see what hollywood producers think love and life is (what a joke!) and i am forced into a place where i am thinking "why don't i have that?" and "how does she get her eyebrows so perfect? she was just in a major car crash!" of course, the logical, non-emotional side of me knows the answers. that shit doesn't exist! NO ONE has those love affairs that transcend the day to day life. NO ONE has those eyebrows! well, okay, the eyebrows are possible... but i digress!

i have been in a relationship for almost two years now... technically, for 31 years, but living as a couple, raising kids, owning a dog, taking the trash out, that kind of relationship for almost two years. i love this man. he is funny, gorgeous, a real tell-it-like-it-is kinda guy. he is amazing. he is the most kind and compassionate man i've ever met. he will give you the shirt off his back (especially if you have a camera!) and give you his last dollar if it means your life would be better for it. i love that about him. he chooses to be with me, and i trust that. there are at least a dozen women out there who would love nothing more than to be with him. and they try. and he still chooses me. that is very gratifying. it's a derek and meredith thing. i don't hate any of these women (and one guy!) and in fact would welcome them into my flock of friends, but the complications are too great.

i don't know why i wrote that first. that is always on my mind, of course. but i've resigned myself to the truth that is for now, he is mine, and i am his, and it is all good... clearly, my subconscious has some other issues...

anyway... i recently learned that my ex(almost ex) husband has been trying to open accounts with my information, excel energy, pay pal, a credit card.... he's a friend of a lot of my friends on facebook, and i've resisted the urge to call him out on his shit in that arena, as i am not that girl... but it is very draining. i can't fathom a reason in the world where i would pull the same things he is pulling. i am not a vindictive person, i do not want to see someone else suffer... but for all the good that i am, he has no problem at all doing it to me. i learned that i just have to breathe through it and not harbor ill thoughts about him... just sometimes, it's hard...

my girls are 14. in four short years, they will both be moving on... i can not even begin to express how sad that makes me. what are travis and i going to do without them here? i see us sitting on the couch during a commercial and looking at each other and honestly not having anything to say. that's scary. i love my girls. they are an endless source of laughter, frustration, joy, drama... they are my life. but i realized that i haven't even begun to prepare them for what is out there waiting for them. i have shared my experiences, good and bad... travis has shared his mistakes, his successes, his story... but how much they retain remains to be seen. i have no idea what i will do the first time they call and say something happened and i wasn't there to stop it. i have four years to give them all the tools... i don't even know where to begin. i do know one thing: they will have clean baseboards. how stupid is it that the thing the girls think about when they think of me is "are my baseboards clean?"

the cleaning of the baseboards is an ocd thing... i remember where i was when i first thought, "why don't people pay attention to the baseboards?" and ever since that day, it's been a compulsion of mine. i notice when baseboards are dusty more than i notice if someone has spinach in her teeth. baseboards are often forgotten, and rightfully so. they are not functional. they do not demand our attention. but somehow i have turned my girls into baseboard judgers. and mark my words, when they have their own place, cleaning baseboards will be a weekly chore. that's my legacy. the girls will put that on my tombstone: "here lies amy... mother, sister, daughter, best friend... may the baseboards of heaven be as clean as the ones in her house." that SUCKS. i need a new compulsion.

travis and i try to instill in our girls that ultimately, doing the right thing is the right thing. that no matter how awful someone is, there is something inside that person that deserves our respect. the turn the other cheek thing, the do unto others thing... and more often than not, we are right. but watching the girls realize what that means is heartbreaking. j comes home in tears and writes on her facebook how she wants to punch someone or a wall, how she's had enough... and i calm her down and travis tells her a story about when something like that happened to him, and ultimately, she hears how she's supposed to let it go and focus on bigger things. only, she's 14... those ARE the big things.

i remember the gum tree on the quad at feltwell middle school... it was an unassuming oak of some sort (conkers) and every student in the school for years has placed chewed gum on the trunk. and no one ever stopped us. and i don't think it did it any damage. but it was what we did. i don't know why i thought of this. i was going with the "what was important to me at 14" thing and the tree came up. i had my second kiss at that tree... the tree was right outside the english building, so ms. bayer's class looked out at its colorful, unhealthy display every day. we walked by it 100 times a week, casually glancing at how many different ways it had been defiled. no one ever thought that we should care. i think if anyone had tried to take it down, we would have revolted. that was really important to us. or at least, i think so.

i think back to that tree and am reminded of the last days of innocence for so many of us. at feltwell, we were physically separated from our parents' jobs, away from the high school, away from town... we were on an island. then we got out of 8th grade, and moved into a slightly less protected world. some of us started using drugs. some of us started having sex. some of us (me) did neither. my girls are already faced with making those decisions... and when they stop, in hollywood style, and the music fades, and everything slows down, and they have to make that critical decision, i imagine they see me and travis like the angel and devil on their shoulders... "don't make the same mistakes i made" says travis... "look at the baseboards, are they neglected? you know what that says about someone? if they can't clean the baseboards, what else aren't they cleaning?" that's great... just when i want to be the most influential, i have somehow focused on the most inane thing ever. what is wrong with me?

i can only hope that my girls understand at some point that i meant well. i hope that travis doesn't ever regret his choosing me... i hope hell's baseboards are not dusty. (because i know i'm headed there and not the other place. i mean, how can someone who can turn two mostly normal girls into baseboard judgers go anywhere else????)

i love my life. i do. i love my friends and family, and my crazy dog. i had to bathe her today because she got too close to the neighbor's dog and he peed on her. yeah. she didn't have the forethought to think, "hey, that stuff is coming from inside that dog... maybe i should get out of the way." no, instead, i imagine her thinking "oooooooh purty!!!!"

once again, completely off track. *sigh* gonna go sit in the sun with ella. i have a better view of the baseboards from there.