Long night. Big Day. My Life.

I didn't sleep much last night. My heart was racing and my mind was keeping pace. #3 and I were lying on a bed, she heated the entire room with her core temp hitting near nine hundred degrees it seemed. Normally a cold person, I'm simply speaking literally here folks, I love cuddling in close with any human at night. But the children that ask for a bed buddy to keep the bad guys away who in return for safety offer to melt my skin off ... well, I keep them safe from the couch on the other side of the room. Every few hours she would stir, sit up as if we had just laid down, and verify my presence ... and I completely understood that. I do the same thing, 28 years later in life. I normally would call someone, a person of mine, but I needed to remain quiet for her and I really was not sure who to call. Which caused an even further uneasiness within me.

So I prayed. I do this, the prayer thing, often. Daily. More than once a day. More than a few times a day. My petitions to the Heavens are oft times perhaps more informal than a clergyman would approve of but my God and I have a simple relationship, that of Father and Daughter. And if the hour had not been so absolutely early where Papa was and had I not known he had been up late playing games with friends, I would have likely called him. But God, as my Father, and I talk. So I talked. I do that. I do that with people that I trust. And I trust Him. I'm uncertain His trust in me on occasion but my trust in Him is, to me, tangible. I listed things. I vented about things. I argued about things. I ached about things. I questioned things. I stated things. I wondered about things. I laughed about things. And all the while my emotions remained steady. Do you do that? Do you have nine hundred and thirty-three emotions but the second you are speaking to someone you trust implicitly the winning emotion is usually just relief and breathing. The remaining emotions can be looked at and discussed without fear of further emotion ... am I making sense at all? Regardless, to me the reader of this in 50 years when dementia has set in, it is exactly how it works. Not exactly, sometimes the tears need a minute or two to settle but they settle quickly or don't come at all when after I've placed the 'SOS' text or phone call or shown up at the house where I know the trusted person is residing. I've certainly digressed. I talked to God for a long time.

And when #3 started to stir, her stirring is a show, literally she begins her day by singing and asking the crowd of 1 to join her, I was only certain of one thing I was not six hour before. I need to start saying things out loud to more than just ... well, I need to say things out loud. I'm excellent (toot toot) at writing things, and fixing my writing, and perfecting it in my own unique way until I'm ready for it to be put out there. And let's define something here, my current 'out there' is the receiver of the Hallmark or text message or email or any other format in which I can write it down rather than discussing it. The 'out there' is not the world. Deep breaths. Further clarification, I am more than capable of stating my principles and my frustrations with another human's lack of principles. It's the feelings and the vulnerable state I find myself in when I go even an inch beyond those very concrete and founded conversations that cause me to become the 'quiet one'.

So I prayed again. I'm in Logan Utah for crying out loud. And my world here is consistent of humans that ... well, they've received Hallmarks and those that haven't aren't my people. So, who was I to speak aloud to? Even as I spoke the words to Him, in the cadence of Julie as she prays on that fluffy olive green comforter that match the drapes she uses later because that offers more credibility in my mind I guess, I told Him I'd do it but I wasn't quiet sure how or where or when. I played with the girls, boy games of steam roller and monkey in the middle, curled the hair on my head and #3's head, and claimed the baby for worship, three full hours of it.

And it was as easy as that. Approaching the single 32 year old with RBF, though not actually bitter, in a family congregation of my faith is not done, at least not in Utah. I'm an anomaly here. So family wards are safe hideouts for me. Until it looks like I'm a single mother or a mother who left husband and remaining children behind while I come to Logan to look for a home with the breast feeding child, then everyone approaches and I'm very glad I have the ability to pinch the baby who did this to get out of the conversation. (Relax, I did not actually do that. I thought about it, more than once, but I did not) But everyone wanted to know my story. Which is scary to me. A normal way to say hello to some, my Papa's calling card in fact, but so scary to me. I have my world, my people, and I'm set. But I'm not. Or I would not have had so many things said to the Heavens only hours before as sleep eluded me. So I responded. Initially, to the first three humans, I was curt, at best. I may have hid in the mother's lounge for a minute (picture below negates the second word of that sentence).

But I asked for His help again and the fourth human actually got out of me that I was not the mother to the child I was holding. And the fifth human, the sweet man who could not have been more like Papa (thank You), got a bit of my story. And I said for the first time, aloud to a complete stranger, that I am a writer. I am writer about to publish her first book. If Uncle, Aunt, and GAunt Em weren't there doing cartwheels I'd be very surprised. The baby started to fuss and I was able to excuse myself to the final hour of meetings but my RBF was nowhere to be found as I was laughing as I walked down that hallway. This is what normal humans do? Why? It's not comfortable. It's not my favorite. But apparently, it's now on my TODO list, to share a bit more with humans that aren't my people. But also humans that are my people, using my vocal chords rather than my fingers to type or hands to write. I'm not sure why that's something ... that's a lie. I'm a publishing a book. And that is a world so far from my world that I live so happily in. An editor, who I desperately needed, so many things he's said and my response was in an email because I didn't have the ability to immediately respond regarding something so dear to me, my writing and my world that could be altered for the a bit of time (there's a chance my book sits on my Papa's nightstand proudly and every library in the greater Chicago-land area due to the lack of sales). So, as I sit here laughing and speaking as I type (because practicing makes permanence, not perfect ... thank you Jen), I do the laughing because I'm writing about talking, talking about talking. But that's what happened today. And that is what was suppose to because I believe in not only Father, God, but I believe in my own life and my own ability to figure it out, slow but steady.

Two weeks from Tuesday I move to the other side of the Mississippi to do this. I'm sorting through a contract and trying to find what is best for me and for my potential reader. It's not as easy as I'd like it to be but I'm glad for the chance and the patience of those working with me. Kate French is who you'll see on the back of the book but she's me, not every intimate detail but I can share parts of my story as I tell a story. I can do that. Deep breaths and long drives, literally and figuratively. Here we go. Adventure awaits the courageous and I've seemed to have found a bit of that courage today and hopefully a bit more tomorrow and so on and so forth. Keep going.

I'll keep you posted on it all, apparently I'm doing that now in a very direct manner.