For Jayne

I have received so much more in my life than I can ever hope to return.  This is especially true when it comes to my children.

Salt will learn to drive this year, has begun one serious vinyl, shoe, and guitar collection, and is the most decent and honest and sarcastic and insightful and amazing human I know.  And funny.  No one makes me laugh in quite the same way.

Pepper will become a teenager this year, has yet to find a sport that isn't made for her, and has the purest, brightest, sweetest, and most generous soul that I've had the privilege to love and have love me back.  And she keeps me honest.  And that is sometimes a very big job.  Okay, always a very big job.

But this post, and resumption of this blog is for Jayne.  To have someone you admire choose to be a part of your life is a wonderful gift.  To have that same person see things in you that you don't see in yourself is a rare thing. A few weeks ago, Jayne commented on one of my Facebook posts. In this post, I was suggesting that the Dems should be able to take the House back in 2014. This goal is one that Jayne shares, but instead of just "liking" my status, she did something that caught me off guard. She had the audacity to suggest that my voice, my written words, were important in achieving this goal.

Wow. Really?

I began to reconsider my decision that I was too busy to write, that I needed to be careful about laying my innermost thoughts bare on the web, that my writing wasn't important to anyone other than my own ego. I discovered that somewhere along the path during the last three years, I had lost my footing. Actually, more than my footing. I lost my job, then I lost my confidence during the next job that I took. Then I lost my my yellow dog. That was so painful that I thought for just a bit, I would lose my mind. Instead, I lost my marriage. That's not quite right. I didn't lose it. I let go of the thread that was holding it together and it unravelled. Quickly, predictably, and as orderly as the unravelling of a crochet chain when you pull on it with gentle, yet firm, pressure.

So, it's 2013. I'm the embodiment of the Stepord Trifecta of Shame. A Democrat, a working mom, and every Stepford Wife's worst fear - no one's wife at all.

And, I'm back.