you are my wild : week 10

last tuesday morning, i had two bags of bread that were down to the heels. it was mild, a bit windy with rain predicted. this time of year is straight up hard for me. christmas kicks us in the ass, school vacation, snow days, dreary weather, AWFUL COLD, snow, layers and jackets and boots and wetness and OMGjustgivemespring. so i grabbed the bread, extra clothes, towel and told Leo we were heading for the beach. random but not random side story : 8 years ago, we, newly married hubby and i, moved into our first place together. burgeoning belly in tow, our favorite thing about our spot was it was near the water. some mornings we could smell the ocean. to me, it's easier to just get up and go to the beach than just about anywhere else. i don't even really like to swim at beaches, strange i know. i just love to wander. and feel the wind and smell the smells and hear the sounds of gulls and waves and my own feet crunching the tiny grains of sand. next year, Leo will go to school full time. and i will be without a buddy three days a week, or any days a week. days like these, when the planets align and i don't give a shit that he goes in the water with his boots on and he just gets sandy and muddy and i say go ahead and we brave a cloud of seagulls, i could just fall over. struck down with love. it's everything perfect about being a mother. it's everything i love about the time i've been able to spend with them when they are so young.

be sure to check out the rest at : you are my wild

isabel

embracing imperfections

you know me, i'm a sucker for imperfections. my life thus far is built on them. i'm having a lot of fun with the Lensbaby spark and finding joy in the beautiful imperfectness this lens produces. two frames from our friday hot spots. the library and the comic book store.

happy weekend everyone

isabel

that time i met my friend from the internet

i've written that line quite a few times in my life. becoming a mom at the age of 20 leaves you few places to turn, the internet seems like a pretty good idea. i don't, nor have i ever, lived in an area where it's been easy for me to make friends. i don't fit the typical mom mold around here and it has been a long painful process building up a village i can trust. when Jack was 2 i felt the pressure to have another baby. having grown up alone, meaning without siblings, i knew even at 19, when i decided to go through with the pregnancy, that i wanted this baby to have a little crew to grow up with, experience life, survive us as parents with. unfortunately, or fortunately i suppose, life had some more lessons to teach me. after a 2nd pregnancy loss, i was in a tailspin. i found a life after miscarriage forum online and was hooked. it is very surreal to look back at myself during that time. how just...crazy i was. obsessed with getting pregnant, needing to talk to people who understood how it felt all.the.time. reducing my life to fertility abbreviations. friendships are forged in these hard places, where we lean so heavily on the words of someone else. someone who survived. i met Bren.

Bren's journey is her own, but i'll just say that when she got pregnant with and gave birth to Stella, there were a whole lot of people who breathed a sigh of relief with her. it was a tough fucking road. i can remember sharing so many dark moments with her, joy and pain, milestones, pregnancy, all of it. she was one of the first people i talked to after Leo was born...and i'm fairly sure i was asking her up until i went into labor if she was *sure* the baby would, in the end, really be fine.

so when i was scrolling through FB last thursday and happened upon a post of hers casually mentioning that she was going to be in Boston, i sort of freaked out. we last minute planned the most wonderful afternoon, and as though being reminded that this was all in the plan, Massachusetts let up for a day and the sunshine actually felt warm, the breeze was gentle, and i'm pretty sure i heard birds chirping.

6. Six. six-years-later. we met and hugged. and i tugged at Stella's curls that have been a marvel since she was born. and Bren felt Leo's sweet golden hair and heard his laugh. and it was as though we had been friends forever and ever. husbands got along, great food was eaten, friendship was strengthened and reinforced. and just like that, at the end of the day, poof. it was done. life returns to normal and it's as though she wasn't even here. and the only real difference now is that...i miss her.

isabel

you are my wild : week 7

you are my wild

isabel