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I worry about my eldest daughter, Molly, going off to college.  I worry that she'll go buck wild, get pregnant, and fuck up her future plans.  Ultimately, she wants to be a doctor deep in the mountains of China and Spain and help people who'd otherwise have NO reliable healthcare, and somehow simultaneously run a cat refuge...??!  In total Cher fashion (AKA 'Clueless', she is a virgin who CAN'T DRIVE) and we often joke about it.  She'll be hitting Smith College in Northampton, MA, 'round about late August.  Molly has made me SO VERY proud! End of story, all of her life!  Todd and I used to have to GROUND HER FROM READING.  There've been times I've been terrified for her mental health, and unfortunately, I have failed her at every turn.  She's my first true love, though, my firstborn!  She has and will always be my airplane in the sky, the first place I look when I hear a low buzz or get a hovering vibe.  She has ALWAYS been an eavesdropper, and I remember I had an NPR podcast on in our Dodge Caravan that talked about that very thing, eavesdropping, and I just never really knew she was always lurking around the corner and listening in the shadows...but she was...and if you see her on the street back home, in Nowata, you'll have to ask her about her eavesdropping!  She'll get a kick out of it!  WE STILL JOKE ABOUT IT.  Todd and I CAUGHT HER on several occasions, and looking back on it now, it pisses me off, but I also think it was cute.  My eldest has the BEST sense of humor -- we just GET each other...we LOVE Jewish people... but we also bump heads and have had some not-so-good times, too.  <3  She's still my baby, though, and I love her to the ends of this earth. She won't LET anyone be good to her, though.  She's always apologizing (she learned that bad habit from me) and she's always "sorry" for asking for anything.  (Again, my fault).  I hate what I have done to her, ruining her in this way.  But!  She, too, is a survivor, and she has EVERY CHANCE SHE WANTS TO TAKE to reinvint herself when she goes back East for college.  I must admit, too, as a vein to my OWN recovery, I have to LET her reinvent herself, if she so wants.  I was a TU HOBY scholar...I was able to participate and was accepted to TU's rowing team, and I coveted every minute of that sisterhood!  I hope Molly is able to do the same at Smith if she chooses!  I'm just letting her CHOOSE...even though she is only newly 17.   She has WONDERFUL judgment about people, though, so I really am not WORRIED about her...except that I am WORRIED about her.  Make sense?  

I worry about my youngest daughter, Grace, that she'll get into high school and go buck wild, get pregnant, and fuck up her future plans.  Someone close to me has said a few times he thinks she'll become a stripper...but he doesn't know her at all.  Grace Ann has a HUGE heart for other people (and has been on the Support Squad at school for the last 3 years), which is basically a trusted peer who's been through a good amount of training to talk to peers about suicide and self-injurious behavior, and someone who has the resources to get help for the kiddos she has the opportunity to talk to.  She is friends with ALL the kids:  the outcasts, the fatties, the kids who need staff to support them throughout their day. Ultimately, she wants to love on animals for the rest of her life, and maybe counsel some folks on their journey to the end of their pets' lives, and also wants to drive a Mercedes Benz "G-Wagon".  I get it; hell's bells, I'd like to drive a Volvo X90 or a good-lookin' 4-Runner the rest of my life.  I remember when Grace Ann was 4 or 5, I asked her what would make her happy in a career when she grew up.  This is what she told me, with a toothless smile (she fell down at daycare and had to have her top two front teeth surgically removed):  "A horsey-petter!"  She said it with such confidence.  I am happy to say, she STILL has that confidence!  LOVE MY Baby Girl.  <3 She would be THE BEST horsey-petter, too!  She's popular and has a good friend group right now.  We talk a lot about the dynamics in middle school.  I HATED middle school!  Grace has a lot of pimples right now and is feeling really self-conscious.  I never had pimples as an adolescent (the twins are now 13), but certainly did as an adult.  I'm making an appointment on Wednesday.  The comments she says she gets about her skin are AWFUL.  I hate social media for this.  

I worry about my son, Griffin, in that he is SUCH a sweetheart and will probably live with me until he's 25 but wants so much to have a normal life. He's really good with physics, science, and math.  HE LOVES CARS, OMG, he could bore me through and through with his talk about ALLTHINGSCARS, but I like that he's even TALKING to me at 13 years old, so I don't mind so much.  Also, I think he likes it when I can't remember and have to ask him to "tell me again."  He and I have had some pretty deep conversations about the type of man he wants to be, what he wants to do "when he is old enough to make real money", and that he wants to work on cars and find someone special and be a good husband and dad.  I always tell him those are very noble goals, and that he is capable of all of them!  

OMGosh, I love my kiddos so very much!  Molly's going away to Smith College within the next 6 months, Grace is evolving into a NATURAL-BORN LEADER...and Griffin is still figuring stuff out...and that's okay! Poops often talks to me about how some of her friends at school are just worried about "boy energy"...and I feel honored that she would even include me in her inner dialogue!  We USUALLY have the same thoughts and vision, though!  Grace tries to take care of everyone.  I want her to know that taking care of herself FIRST is the most important, and I am learning that myself with my reiki sessions, and also getting my nails and eyebrows done!  Also, just by journaling!  I told her to always keep her journal nearby so that she can journal any time, day or night!  My kids get their phones taken away at 1900 on school nights, 2200 on weekends.  Grace gets to go a lot of places because she is more responsible, and I have received SEVERAL notes from her teachers that state they can SEE that she is trying..   Grace Annie is a VERY SMART GIRL.  Hell, ALL MY KIDS ARE SMART, but Gracie tries the hardest.  Her teachers see that, and up here they are VERY GOOD about communicating that with the parents.  I LOVE IT UP HERE IN THE NORTHLAND, if only for THAT VERY REASON!  Like...give credit where CREDIT is actually DUE!  Not to the most popular necessarily (although Grace Ann falls into that demographic), but to the kiddos who actually DO genuinely uplift their fellow students (Grace Ann).  The kids who don't feed into other kids' bullcrap.  Grace Ann is this way.  I feel like Griffin is, too, but he honestly has no filter and it's abrasive to other kids sometimes.  Don't want to inhibit him, but he is just forming thoughts that escape his brain into his mouth and then eventually spout out!  Grace often has a hard time at school due to being called out for "You should date your brother!"  

I'm like, "Whatch'all know about DATING?!"  I mean really. 

I hate kids.  :(  
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Well DAMMN. We all like what we like.  Period. <3 

I am here, after many years of wishing, hoping, and praying.  I feel like all of these methods of connecting with our higher selves are connected.  I feel like so many of these methods are intertwining.  

Molly wants to attend Bryn Mawr College after she graduates (she's only 16!) but I am entirely into it, as I have witnessed SO MANY owls after she told me!  It's really weird.  However, I am ready for her to go away and so is she.  I will REALLY miss her and her dumb cat, but she's also ready to go away!  

Grace Ann wants her bed/room, and then next year when Molly moves away Griffin will move upstairs and then we will have all of the downstairs as our game room/family room, etc!  It's FREEZING down there, always, even in summertime, so Tyler will probably want to move down there, but that is okay...I know how to layer.  

Anyway, I'm glad My Girl is getting a chance to live her dreams!  She's my firstborn, my pride and joy.  She's done so well!  33, 30 ACT scores, and we are awaiting for her 3rd score!  I made her breakfast that morning, so hopefully it helped, plus also she has told me MANY times how confident she felt about her score!  It's ultimately, though, just the way it is...and if Molly is meant to go away, she will.  If not, she won't.  She hasn't had a seizure since December.  I am SO SO SO thankful!  

Molly's decided because my income is so low, she's going to apply to ALLLLLL the East-coast colleges she wants to get into, but apply to apply to Bryn Mawr for early decision, and then go THERE when she gets in....and I HAVE WITNESSED AT LEAST 5 or 10 OWL PICTURES OR REPRESENTATIONS, AS WELL AS A FAMILY OF REAL-LIFE HOOT OWLS JUST LAST WEEK WHEN TYLER AND I VISITED LOVERS' LANE PARK IN LIBERTY, MO, ON THE MOTORCYCLE, we heard a family of them!  I take that as a sign that although I am down on my luck, my Molly is on her way to her best life!  Bryn Mawr's mascot is an OWL...and she's heading out there the last weekend of September as a Lantern Scholar to take part in their program!  Wow.  ANYWAY... WHY?  My parents and I are SO, SO, SO very proud of her!!!

This Labor Day, I wish I could be at IrishFest helping people get to where they need to be, but instead I will likely be enjoying a backyard pool and taking care of pussycats while my MIL is at her fancy condo in Branson.  I have no friends here.  I don't even confide in my best friends from high school anymore.  ...I STILL can't deal with my dad's house, it's still TOO overwhelming...even though it's been 3 years this October 28th!  I STILL CANNOT WALK IN THERE WITHOUT FEELING PANIC AND FEAR.  He left Griffin 28 or 29 or 45 guns...I lost count after 30 and had to walk out and throw up...and there are MORE still in there!  Griff has asked various weekends to bring about 7 or 8 home from Todd's safe (where I moved them after Tyler and I broke up, as I had previously stored them from Sandy's gun safe) so he could sell them, after Griffin almost shot himself in the face in Todd's kitchen one day...OMG!!! I WAS SOOOOO FUCKING MAD THAT TODD LET GRIFFIN SHOOT A GUN ALL ALONE!!! Griffin honestly wants nothing more to do with guns after that experience ---prior to it, he was TOTALLY a-go with my dad and his NRA stuff.  BUT...The gun was loaded; Griffin fired it.  Todd's ceiling still has a hole in it with bullet penetration.  I thank God everyday that Griffin is still with us.  Whenever Todd FINALLY told me, I simply wept.  I am still weeping.  Griffin is such a sweet, sweet soul.  Mostly I already feel dead inside, but I would actually choose to die, should anything happen to MGG.  I honestly don't think I could take it. Griffin is ALWAYS the first to give me hugs (I love hugs).  He is ALWAYS the first to come talk to me and ask me how I slept, how my day was, how our bike ride was, etc.  He is ALWAYS the first to tell me about his day if I am in a place where I can listen.  Bless his heart.  <3  He resurrected a kind of monument to his grandpa, my dad, by finding a car that most represented his Mach I mustang. Griffin is, by far, the most sensitive and respectful young man I have ever met, and I am SO proud to be his mother. UNLIKE my dad, who didn't give a fuck what kind of chaos it caused, Griffin is all about peace, love, and CARS. He just wants everyone to get along and will put himself out there to help make that happen. He has often spoken of being a soldier, but I fear for that because he has absolutely NO spatial awareness, so he would get himself killed FAST.  :(

Grace Ann?  She's just like me. Money burns a hole in her pocket, and then she starves for it and regrets her dumb and impulsive decisions that have culminated from previous days.  Fuck today, let's spend until tomorrow.  :(  We will worry about it then, no matter how much we have.  Grace is a lot about herself, but she is also a 12-year-old girl, in love with what others think and know about her.  Grace Ann is in all of us, that girl who is popular but still holding on to what she believes others want to see, what they want to hear, what they want to watch.  My dad was once like this.  He once walked into a Rolex department store off 71st and Memorial and wrote a check for just under $3000.00.  WHY???  Just so he could say he had a Rolex?  I got so mad at him every day that I had to get up to do the dishes in the middle of the night, the rage I felt that he was drunk, that disappointment I always held for him for ridiculing me for what he'd always HOPED I would be, but I was never fueled for the things I COULD BE...Ssssure, I worked, but not for not.  My dad gave me $700/month starting at age 12, and never taught me how to handle it.  I received $700-$1200/month in benefits from my mother for SSI for most of my underage life, and my dad never saved a penny, just invested it all with Prudential and put on a new roof and a new porch, which I would always tap dance under, and then just turned it all over to me, at age 46.  Sometimes in those days he'd ask to borrow money, but that was mostly when he was in trouble with the law or divorcing someone. He paid my car payments, so I always had a lot of money for a kid my age, every single month.  Hell, I could buy anything I WANTED!  Guess, Pepe, Girbaud, etc.  I was styling...but too embarrassed for my GrandMaud to pick me up in our Oldsmobile '98...little did I know that this vehicle would soon be a rather coveted vehicle, an Olds '98!  I will forever love my dad and grandmother for this!  They both did their bests, and so am I.  I am trying.

Shortly after my dad received my mom's life insurance money, he hired Mike Hough to do him a concrete porch, and one day Mike called me outside and told me to put my hand in the concrete.  I did what he told me to do!  I put my hand down there, smiled at him and told him how "gooshy" it felt!  He smiled his crazy smile and said, "I know it, Girl!  You'll appreciate it one day!" and I NEVER, EVER really knew what he meant until waaaay later.  

Thank you, Lord, for keeping me alive for this long, because You KNOW I've thought otherwise.  I HATE the mess I've left behind me in Nowata.  Going through that house is disturbing and I'm not sure I can do it and stay as sane as I am right now, which isn't very.