I haven't meant to be standoffish, I've just been busy...and sore. I went kayaking for the first time ever this weekend—to say nothing of camping. More on that later, but a weekend without electricity should be a reasonable excuse for any of the lauralore.com readers as to my Saturday-Sunday absence, even that one who leaves disparaging comments.

Nick's birthday was Sunday, and I wish I had been more energetic to really celebrate the day...make it really special, but Laura was pooped. It wasn't until about 2:13PM today that I was actually able to make a fist...rowing is tough on the hands. Particularly rowing for 6-7 hours on your first-EVER kayaking expedition:



It was a rough day today...and I've finally decided why, and it's the silliest reason ever. Everything's been reminding me of Mom...I've been fighting tears all day...little memories keep sneaking up on me and my heart absolutely aches. Today my gym membership expires. I will not be renewing, leastwise not in DeForest. I've been staying active out of doors...I need to be better about it, but still.

My Mom bought me six months of membership for Christmas last year...I think that's what's triggering it. It was a membership I started with Miles—I've grown tired of the questions inquiring after my husband—and renewed due to a holiday gift from a woman I cherished more than life itself. The place holds too many hard memories for me...walking zombie-like on the days immediately after Miles left...running to the point of near-faint the week that Mom died. It is those moments that inundate my thoughts when I swipe my card and the computerized voice chimes, "HAVE A GREAT WORKOUT!"

But really, my heart has been growing heavy for many days now, it isn't just today. Sunday, returning from our trip, I told Nick that I'm afraid of my next move. I've had a complicated set of circumstances over the past several years...it's been emotionally draining and my life veered long ago from the path I wanted it to take. Lennon had it right when he advised that life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

I admitted my fear...now that some of my responsibilities have faded away, now that all of the groundwork I've labored so hard to lay is beginning to pave my way, what if I fail? What if I just can't be who I want to be? Regret is beginning to take hold, and it is the most loathsome of all...I don't believe in regret, and now I bathe in its murky depths.

My day curved up in silly's grin when an individual told me at break that I was adorable and could totally pass for Barbie—in a non-plastic, anatomically correct way—and that they were so glad I was their coworker. Cheap that this perked my spirits? Probably. Do I care? Not really. You've gotta get your smiles where you can...some days they seem to be in limited reserves.

You know, it's a blessing-curse having a record of what you were doing at this time last year, at this time two years ago. You want to go back because some things seemed happier then...and at the same time you want to wipe the history from your books, electing instead to pretend it never existed at all. Experience can so effortlessly masquerade as Mistake. As the old saying goes, I wish I knew then what I know now. But, I feel good about where I am now...who I'm with and what I'm doing. Perhaps the pain I've paid has been well spent after all.

The last seven days strung together have been near the top of the "reasons to stress" ranking. I gave my two week notice on a Tuesday, and then on Wednesday received a call from my job-to-be asking if I could start a week earlier, the next Monday, in fact. Well, Monday was D-Day, and I was in no way going to start a new job after that. I was completely apprehensive just at the thought of telling my bosses about the call. They were under tension themselves, having transformed from the team who offered me more money to coax me to stay and who told me I would always have a position waiting for me with their company should I ever need it. You see, after I gave my notice, two others in our 11-person office gave theirs.

But I rolled my shoulders back and approached them...I was frustrated with the new company for causing me to renege on a responsible course of action. "But where do your allegiances lie now?" my coworkers counseled. I knew they were right...I just hated to do it, I hated to leave the place hurting. Needless to say, the last three days of my employment there were difficult, but my friends rallied by my side and kept me smiling.

I've been bored out of my mind at the new "job"...I throw it in quotes because I'm not really doing anything at present...puny online courses, familiarizing myself with the company website, et cetera, et cetera, so on and so forth. I feel very belittled that they felt I needed a week to get an "inside look" at the company. Then I remember my aunts telling me that I would be bored out of my mind for the first month...and I remind myself that I've just transitioned down from a very traumatic segment of my life and that everything seems to be moving at a snail's pace comparatively.

But I text messaged my frustration to Brenda yesterday, that I screwed my old company out of a week for such an exercise in monotony. She replied that I shouldn't murder anybody, but that if I did at least we know where the courthouse is. Ah, good ol' Brenda. She messaged me later in the afternoon that presents were waiting for me when I got home. I reverted to five years old again as my eyebrows perked into hairline ticklers and I remembered manners. "You didn't have to get me anything!" I messaged, all the while humming to the song in my head, Presents! Presents! I got presents! Yaaaaay! Presents! Pres....

A pretty new dress, a tennis racket and carrier, tennis balls, and a practice mechanism...oh and hygiene wipes. I'm addicted to moistened towelettes...you never can be too clean, an obsession I picked up from my first roommate in North Carolina, Janice. It's addicting once you start, and plain old toilette paper just feels so base after you've given pampers a shot.

I was just charmed out of my mind at such unexpected generosity...and tripped over my tongue as I sought to most accurately express my gratitude. It strikes me over and over again how fortunate I am...I have the most loving people in my life, and I've been blessed with the ability to see them and appreciate them as such, a gift bestowed on me by none other than the big C. Up until the last moment of her complete lucidity, my mother professed to me that Cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her...that she was finally able to set her priorities right and show her loved ones how much they meant to her so that they'd never question their places in her life.

It's a common phrase, one you may have heard before, but when someone in your family has Cancer, the whole family has Cancer. There were many moments of depression in the first quarter of this year, many moments wherein I cried that "it" didn't take me instead. I've begun truly loving life in the months since, perhaps more profoundly than I ever have in days past. I was in my car after receipt of my gifts, on the way to Nick's to see what I could do to help him feel better, and I was struck by Brenda's likeness to my mother. I seem to be pulling parts of her from everyone, and I am wide-eyed and trembling in her memory's wake. She was singularly the most caring and generous person that I will ever know.



I find it strange, and as the title suggests, weird, that so much upheaval should exist, and still my heart mourns her and her alone. Perhaps it is the one upsetting stream that I cannot divert. I have been laying the brickwork for a brighter tomorrow for several months now, and yet when the rains come in and the day feels heavy, yesterday looks brighter than tomorrow could ever hope to be. I'm hoping for a lull to come my way...a period of boredom and inactivity. I am weary.

I am unmarried.

I feel marred.

I am happy to close that chapter.

I feel guilty.

I am torn.

I feel out of control.



The tears surprise me.




I had a wonderful day, really. Brenda accompanied me to the courtroom at my request. Dad was to be my escort, but I knew the stakes...I knew things would be said, that tensions would braid in thick plaits, binding us within the room for always. I wanted no bitterness.

It was all very matter-of-fact. It was over before I realized...in less time than it took to complete a marriage ceremony, we were divorced. Brenda and I returned home...I noted that as soon as we exited the courthouse, I actually felt hunger. I haven't been hungry in so long.

I had a hair appointment at 2:00. I wanted to pamper myself at the salon, but after sinking moola into new brakes, I reasoned that a salon date would be financially irresponsible. My dear aunts purchased a $100 gift certificate for me to make sure I had my opportunity. I was grateful.

I donned my swimming suit and lay in the sun for just shy of an hour. I am not a tanner, but I do love the heat. Hot is good. It was bliss, nestled on my Downy, home-scented towel in amongst the blades of grass. I set the scheduler on my phone to let me know when to ready for my appointment.

I also scheduled a shot at my clinic. I was banking that my hair wouldn't take too terribly long and I'd still be able to make it to my clinic by 4:30. I told them that I would be by sometime after 3:00. It was close. My salon receipt is time-stamped 4:12. I took the back way to Waunakee, shamefully tickling 80mph at times, and seemed a little harried as I gave my name and reason for my presence. On the white board at home, I had scribbled for my to do list:

Divorced? (check)
Styled? (check)
Poked? (check)

I dropped trou and let the nurse train the new girl how to know where to insert the needle. Perhaps it was from my time as Mom's nurse—or my brothel-stays in North Carolina—but I don't seem to have the typical hangups in exposing myself. It makes date-scouting go a whole lot smoother.

Finally catching my breath, I shuffled rudely to my car in the parking lot, and chanced fate in my determination to turn left during rush hour. I rang Nick's doorbell...when no answer came, I used my key to let myself in. "Nick?" I called softly, knowing he felt unwell. I poked my head into the garage and determined by it's vacancy that the lord of the manor was not present.

I went to the deck and sat on the wooden steps...my breath catching at the stillness. I'd been so careful to keep myself busy today, I was not expecting the empty time to reflect. Reflection is bad for people like me—people who don't sleep...people who never stop thinking. I bet surveys would show a spike in the incidence of suicide attempts among my kind...we're noxious unto ourselves.

I felt the tears sliding from my cheeks, noticed their baby-puddles on the steps...I didn't realize I was crying until I felt the tears. It was then that I heard the knock on the door, and saw Nick standing with the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers. He is so very kind to me...so very kind. The card read, "Here is to finishing what you didn't start...but I'm thankful you did. I love you." It was foreign, scary, that moment. I've finally found the appropriate name to scribble on its name card: moving forward.

You know my love affair with photographing flowers. I was taken with the beauty of these yesterday as I was sorting through old memories. Brenda and Debbie told me early in the day that if I needed a hug while I was going through yesterday, that all I had to do was ask.




Well, in classic Laura form, I managed to get distracted by side projects all day long, and seemed to be busy at every moment, but could not name one thing I had accomplished in full. I sat down to dinner with my aunts and afterwards we went for a ride, me going on the clause that a McDonald's ice cream cone would be my sway-factor in participation.

I let them know that I would probably be working well into the night, thanks to a self-hating habit I developed as a young girl to complete my Saturday chores when my Cabbage Patch Kid looked like so much more fun: when I begin ripping things apart to organize, I scatter bits through my walkways and upon my bed so that it must be taken care of before my day ends. I would be hauling things to the garage for hours and hours to come, I advised.

"Why the garage?" you may find yourself asking. Well, to be frank with you, I have a lot of extraneous belongings. I am sneaking up on the ripe old age of 25. Now, my aunts who have couple-two-three decades on me are of the same gene pool...which I observed earlier yesterday morning when Debbie parked at The Grasshopper coffeehouse. "Hmm...I think it's safe to say that my parking skills are genetic," I said, looking at the vehicle parked perfectly between the lines...of two stalls. Brenda agreed. We're all crappy parkers...Whee!

Needless to say, they've accrued extraneous belongings to a greater degree than myself.

Digging into my daunting task, I conferred with Brenda. "How do I dispose of this stuff?" I mean, and I'm just talking about the belongings I have stored at this house...which is nothing compared to what I have stored in my Dad's garage! Holy clutter, Batman!  I'll deal with that  local another weekend. But as both my aunts and myself have things we don't need at all—I mean, it's just the law of life that as soon as you get rid of something you'll find a use for it...and I'm totally prepared to mourn the loss of that shattered glass table-top and the mildewy pillows, both—we are renting a dumpster. Well, Brenda is renting a dumpster...well, Debbie is calling for the dumpster and Brenda is paying for it...and I get to trash things without fee or task.

So, for the mean time, the garage is a placeholder for junk. I was carrying objects there until nearly midnight, a happening that speaks so clearly of my mother's influence. My paternal grandmother would always say "When the sun sets in the West, the laziest do their best." I was always deeply offended as a witless youngster, not realizing she was referring to sleep, and told my grandmother that my mother often cleans house in the evening and I've never known a less lazy person!

Indeed, Mom would get her pick-up-and-go as the day grew dim. So it is with me...it is night when there's less to distract me, like resident baby raccoons. The tears took hold only as the fatigue set in, and I realized it's been just shy of a year since I was doing this back-breaking work last. So much has happened in a year. I observed the beginning of June to myself, the beginning of June when I first truly felt the bite of a rabid reality last year.

I collapsed into bed and felt my throbbing muscles, my shins that were already bruising...sometimes the physical pain feels good...it takes your mind off of the mess inside your head and inside your heart. In the end, I will have an emptiness and a regret, but I'll find the beauty in my surroundings again, I always do and I always will—another gift from Mom. She gave me a guide by which to live, and I will be forever grateful. This too shall pass.