.Good Morning Sunshine.

I never was a morning person until I gave birth to one, and now I'm all about that early-to-bed, early-to-rise business.

It's still dark when that little voice pipes up from the crib across the room. There's no snooze button on that alarm. Feet on the cold, creaking floor (where the hell did I leave my slippers?), scoop up and snuggle the baby close until I get the thermostat turned up and the furnace groaning to life (his face is pure sunshine, and he pats my cheeks). Turn the burner on under the tea kettle, then turn it back off because who knows how long it'll take to wrestle Sam into a fresh diaper and get his breakfast fixed and in his squirmy belly...I can't count how many times I've boiled that thing over.

When the baby's dry and fed, and Curious George is holding his attention (although I'm not sure that felonious little monkey is the best role model), I finally sit with my tea cup in hand. God bless caffeine. From this chair, I have the perfect view -- the morning sunlight is just peeking pink and orange over the tops of the foothills, dusting the frosty backs of the horses as they stir and snort their request for breakfast. The goats aren't even awake yet.

The tired doesn't even register anymore, except at night when I tuck into bed under the big afghan my momma made me. And even then, it just feels like a day lived fully. When the baby's snoring and my last goodnight has been said, my heart flutters with contentedness and love. The demons that still live inside me don't get much of my time anymore. Someimes they rise to the surface to fight with sweet dreams for my attention, but at the end of the day there's too much waiting for me on the other side of sleep to revel in their company for too long.

.Hurricane.

What's the use in wanting? I talk too much, feel too much, am too much.

And no one stays longer than a season for when my weather turns cold and ugly they depart for sunnier places where flowers always bloom, forgetting that the cold won't last forever.

Forgetting or not caring, but I can blind you with the shining of my soul if you just wait for the spark; as fast as the storm in me rolls in, the clouds part.

Make the best of my rainy days, for nothing grows without rain. Dance in my puddles, let me sing you to sleep.

Every paradise sees a hurricane.

.Muses.

You can't be afraid if you're going to be a writer. You can't have shame, you can't have doubts. There's no caution in art...only passion. You write what you know; you write what you want to know. You make the adventures, and make them grand. You make people fall in love and you make them fall apart.

That's life, too; all those moments when you have to make the choice between listening to the voices that say you shouldn't and the electricity that starts your heart back up when you've lost the inspiration to really live.  

What do you want to write? What do you want to live for?

.Me, In The Words Of Others.

“I could see why Archimedes got all excited. There was nothing finer than the feeling that came rushing through you when it clicked and you suddenly understood something that had puzzled you. It made you think it just might be possible to get a handle on this old world after all.” 
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded.”
― Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

“You have a spine of steel and fire in your eyes... To have such a quality, one must be shaken to the foundation of one’s soul and put back together. I want to know how you emerged from hell made of steel and fire.” 
― Moriah Densley, Song For Sophia

“But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.” 
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” 
― Joseph Conrad

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.” 
― Anaïs Nin

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.” 
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Better to be strong than pretty and useless.” 
― Lilith Saintcrow, Strange Angels

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” 
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

.Even The Moon.

I know I don't have much to say these days.

All the tortured-soul things I could spin sentences about once upon a time have kind of spun themselves out. No heartbreaks, no misadventures, no done-me-wrongs left; let's face it, batshit crazy has kinda been my thang for, well, ever...and batshit crazy makes for good stories. What does a girl write about when she can't write about chainsmoking and whiskey and doing all those gloriously debauched things that make a her simultaneously hate herself and feel invincible in the morning? 

I can't say. I don't know. A zebra can't hide her stripes, and my particular brand of dysfunction is as "me" as my green eyes...to sweep it under the rug completely would be to reach Stepford-wife levels of fakeness and I just cannot do that. I also can't go back to being Momma-Before-She-Was-Momma. There's a little boy who deserves far better than that cuckoo-bananas bitch.

So I keep my crazy a little more just-for-myself. It's in the perfume I wear that's just a little too sexy for daytime, in the black nail polish that I reach for more often than not; it's in the "hey, remember when?" conversations I have with old friends, and the last bittersweet thoughts I have of Metallica and Marlboro Reds before I fall asleep almost every night. It's in my iTunes playlist where you'll find more heavy metal than mushy love songs, in my favorite Tim Burton movies, and in the fact that my favorite words are still very unladylike ones that I say as often as possible when tiny ears aren't around to hear them. It's just half a bubble off plumb...

...but hell, even the moon has a dark side.

.Conversations With Myself.

"Powder your nose, paint your toes, line your lips and keep 'em closed."

You're spending more time on social media than on life, delete the apps and pick up a freaking book.

There is really no need to drink THAT MUCH Mountain Dew, and cookie dough is not the breakfast of champions. ((Except on Saturdays, because...just because.))

Seriously girl...moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. You already stay up an hour past your bedtime to read that book every night, what's another 10 minutes? You look like Rango.

FLOSS, for shit's sake. Mouthwash doesn't cut it, and your dentist WILL notice.

I don't care if you only scribble out three words today and you misspell one of them. You need to write.

Little Sam doesn't hate you. His gums hurt and he doesn't feel well. Just hug him tighter because he needs his momma more than ever.

That mascara makes your eyelashes look amazeballs. Put on two coats. Every day.

I know wearing that stubby french braid all the time sucks , but your hair's growing so fast. Don't give in.

You may not feel like it but you're doing a good job. Though it always feels like there aren't enough hours in the day or dollars in the bank, you've got a happy baby, a good ink pen, and your bills are paid on time. 

Everything is a process. Keep going -- don't quit yourself yet.

.Family and Friends.

This weekend, my son's dad came to visit him for this first time since he was born, and it was definitely a learning experience for both of us.

We never really had a relationship to speak of, and much of my pregnancy was spent at one another's throats about the situation we were in. He was there for the birth of our son (he lives in another state) and stayed with me in the hospital, but it was a very tense time and even in first few weeks after that I was very angry at him for a lot of things. Even so, he checked in every single day to ask how the baby was doing and I sent him pictures and videos, and I tried my level best to put aside my hurt feelings for the sake of my child. So when he told me he was going to be coming back home to Idaho to see Little Sam, I felt an overwhelming mix of emotions from anxiousness to excitement -- I wasn't sure how we were going to get along but I couldn't wait for him to see all the amazing changes our baby had already gone through in the six weeks since his dad had seen him last.

We decided that he would stay at my house rather than his parents' so that he would be able to get up during the night with the baby and spend as much time actually doing daddy things as possible. I wasn't entirely sure that I wouldn't smother him in his sleep, though he promised me he'd do his best to stay out of my hair. I wasn't convinced, but I knew the arrangement would be the best for Sam so I made sure the spare bed had clean sheets and gave the bathroom a half-hearted once-over with a Chlorox wipe.

It turned out to be the best decision we could make.

He learned how to make bottles and put Sam in his car seat, and how to give him a bath. He learned how to deal with Sam's fussiness, was there when our doctor diagnosed him with acid reflux and prescribed him medication, and he stayed up nights when Sam wasn't feeling well. When Sam could only sleep in his bouncy chair, his dad slept in the recliner while I slept on the couch, and when Sam was hard to comfort he rocked him to sleep and would sleep with him on his chest for hours, both of them snoring like freight trains. For a whole weekend we went everywhere as a little family unit. It was uncomfortable and awkward at times, but I remembered the good reasons that I had been so fond of him in the first place, and I watched him fall in love with our little boy and glow with pride when he showed his son off to friends and family. We were able to just be parents without any of the other bullshit getting in the way.

We are single parents. We will never be a couple. We have separate lives and that is how it will stay. But we are friends now, I think, and we are a family. His family is extremely welcoming and kind to me as the mother of his child, and my son is surrounded with love. I know someday that Sam is going to ask why his daddy doesn't live with us, but I don't fear that day as much as I used to because whatever the answer, he'll always know that Momma and Dad love him more than anything. He'll always feel that his family is whole -- even if it is a little different -- because we love him enough to put aside any differences that we may have had and put his best interests first. As a mother, that is one of the biggest blessings I could ever receive, and I will forever be grateful for it.