what's up, buttercup?

My parents were married for a very long time. 18 years (that’s nearly half the life I’ve thus lived). For most of that time, from the time I was a quite young, I remember their marriage as cold and hostile, peppered with outbursts of verbal volatility that left my head spinning. I still cringe at the memory of some of the unprovoked outbursts. The Silent Treatment reigned supreme, as did “gorilla tantrums” that filled the air with a new set of silences.

My mom went to counseling and she came home telling me how “normal” was the thing that you were used to, and I said, “no, normal is the thing that feels right, and this doesn’t feel right.”

When my parents finally got divorced, when I was a senior in high school, I was relieved.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that it dawned on me that, in my memory, my parents had never even been friends, for 18 whole long years; all that time they were living in cold shoulder domestica. And I thought, “how sad”. It was an important realization, the fact that I had no example of a normal that made me comfortable, that the primary example I had of a “marriage” was this thing so broken.

I spent all of my 20s and part of my early 30s figuring out my own sense of what a relationship should be.  I also learned, trial by fire, the things about my own behaviors that made my normal feel right or wrong. I began to understand my own flaws, and in the process accepting the fact that we’re all a little f’d up. The soul searching left me concluding that a relationship could and should be a profound and deeply loving thing, that love shouldn’t fade and turn into bitterness, that it should be built on a foundation of respect, that it should grow and grow.

I don’t think marriage matters to me now, as I think I fall into that “it’s just a piece of paper” line of thinking. What matters to me is knowing I’m capable of and part of a deep and abiding love. I do, however, love a good party. 

water. water in pipes, water in canals. water in rivers and ag drains and reservoirs. groundwater. water in drinking water treatment plants, recycled water treatment plants, and wastewater plants. water math. water economics. water politics. water perceptions. water quantity and water quality. water laws and regulations. water.

Semi-Arbitrary List of Bold-Faced Words

tall enough to look anyone in the eye

1. Sold organic lettuce and carrots at a small-town farmer’s market. All summer long. Dressed in a hippie dress.
2. Been in a car accident where my sister’s two front teeth were yanked from her face so severely that they couldn’t be reattached. She was in 4th grade and has had to have a bridge since then. It was scary. :/
3. Ran track and cross country from 3rd grade through 9th.
4. Played flute in band and performed in a flute quartet that received a Command Performance at a NorCal competition.
5. Designed a water conveyance system (that actually got built).
6. Given a speech to second and third generation farmers about how the Clean Water Act applies to them.
7. Wandered around Spain and Italy solo for 5 weeks.
8. Backpacked the Lost Coast.