your mother's life in a nutshell

things were always easy for me and went pretty much however i wanted them to go.

i grew up in a house with two parents in a nice little neighborhood. we lived in the same house all of my life. it was grandmom, grandpop, me and then uncle chris. we always had a dog. and new cars. and a pool in the yard. things were easy. i pretty much got what i wanted. but i wasn't spoiled. we got our clothes at k-mart with scattered in jordache jeans...never guess or benetton anything like that. we took day trips to the beach. we went to disney a few times. i never felt like i was missing out on anything.

i hated high school. a lot. i was a shitty student. and a cheerleader. the captain. i only mention this because anyone who knows me now always gets a kick out of hearing that. most people don't believe it.

but as for school, i would have quit if it weren't for my guidance counselor who let me cut class and hang out with him most of the day almost every day. he was pretty awesome. and there was tera and pam and karis and "velezzie". my partners in crime. i loved those chicks and if it weren't for them i would have a lot less fun stories to tell about my high school years. they got me through it.

i was a total asshole in high school. so ignorant. and even mean. i would have hated that girl if i met her now. thank god for the people who changed me the most. jason was uncle chris' friend. and amit. he was jason's friend who was from israel and living here for a few years. jason made me realize (though he never said it) that i talked to much and was too much about me. and amit made me see how small i was in this huge world. he made me want to travel. to really travel, not just to go to disney world and the bahamas.

after i graduated there was no way in hell i was going to college. i hated school. so i went to this four month travel program in miami beach. i wanted to be a travel agent. i wanted to get out. to see it all.

so grandmom and grandpop paid for me to go down there and learn some stuff about how to enter things into a computer and to search for airfares and blah blah blah. i learned all of that stuff but more importantly i met kendra. she taught me how to be a good student. she taught me to love to learn.

after coming home from that school, i got a job as a travel agent. i hated it. i wasn't going anywhere with that job except to disney world and the bahamas.

so i quit.

and i started to work at the disney store (yes, the disney store).

and i bought a plane ticket to isreal. i informed your grandmother of this when she came home from work one day. i told her i was going and she said i wasn't and i said i already bought the ticket. i was 19. israel was in the news a lot at the time. buses were getting blown up. and i was going to visit my friend (who i was in love with) while he was on his leave from the israeli army. grandmom wanted to kill me. and i couldn't wait.

it was amazing two weeks. i came home with a feeling of smallness, but of greatness all at once.

i enrolled in county college. i took three and a half years to get out of there. i loved every minute of it. lots of times i showed up to class still hungover. and lots of times i was high while i was there. but i learned so much more than i ever thought i could care about.

i worked two jobs and saved all of my pennies. i was super lucky to have college paid for and to live at home rent free. so i saved and i traveled.

my girl caryn and i backpacked around europe together. we spent two and a half months romping around, relaxing outside of the louvre, wondering what it was like inside because we would rather spend our money on beer than on a ticket to get in.

we slept in atm machines. on the side of rail road tracks. we bought weed from cafe windows and saw bulls run through the streets of pamplona. we went canyoning in switzerland and rode milk trains along the coast of italy. it was eye-opening. and fun as shit.

so after europe, i spent another summer roaming around central america. (god i miss my backpack.) three of those weeks were spent on a beach in belize. drinking coconut rum and eating lobster tacos. i hope to get back there someday.

i pretty much alternated travel with work and school for those five and a half years. i was on a plane at least twice a year. and when i was home i was out partying and being a twenty-something. doing things i hope you never do but i am pretty sure you will. but hopefully you will be smarter than i was. and have more confidence. and feel like you belong everywhere you go.

i never felt that way. that's why the beer and the weed. i never ever in my life felt as if i fit in or belonged where i was. i hope that i can give that gift to you. i hope that you always feel as if you belong where ever it is you want to be.

i finally transferred to rowan university and decided to be a teacher. i knew i could do a better job teaching than any of the teachers i ever had. except for mrs. lyons. she was awesome. and i wanted to teach history because i figured that if i was going to see the world, i might as well learn about the places i was going to go.

i remember telling my favorite professor in the world that i would teach in cherry hill someday. he kind of laughed at me and said that it was a really tough district to get into. (see, easy.)

i met my first husband at rowan. we backpacked around cuba for our honeymoon.

i know it will probably be really weird for you to know that i was married before. but even that went well. we were just friends. and after about a year we realized that. we even drove to our divorce hearing together and laughed and joked. the people around us asked why we were getting divorced. we're still friends today.

so it is weird and i guess you could say that was the first big mistake of my life. but i don't know if it can be called a mistake. because everything in my life has brought me to you.

after i got divorced i did some of that traveling i said i would never do. i got an actual suitcase and stayed at resorts in the caribbean and never came into contact with locals unless they were serving my drinks or making my bed. blech. that shit i regret.

i was teaching at maple shade high school. i taught there for five years. i had some really awesome students...like bre, who we all love today and are so happy to have as a little part of our family. but that place wasn't for me. and i was feeling burnt out of teaching. so i resigned from my tenured position even though everyone said i was nuts.

i remember my last day. i went straight to the bus station and went to nyc for a kids yoga teacher training with the amazing jodi komitor. see, while i was married and feeling lost, i found yoga. and i became certified to teach yoga (with my teacher, flossie, another one of those people who helped me see the light) but i wasn't really into teaching adults yoga. i wanted to teach kids yoga. so i did. i got a bunch of certifications and eventually opened a yoga studio just for kids. it was the only one in south jersey. there still hasn't been another one. we made some mistakes and financially we couldn't cut it, but for a while dawn and tiff of yoga clubhouse were the go-to people for kids yoga in this area. it was a really exciting time. full of lots of learning and life lessons.

overlapping with that i ended up teaching at carusi middle school. back in cherry hill. where i grew up. where i had hate and swore i would never live. that's where we live. and that's where i was teaching (even though dr. m made it seem so hard). and that's where i met your dad.

we met in august of 2006. he moved in with me in november. we were engaged in january of 2007. pregnant with your brother cooper in september and married in november. things went so fast.

here is where it stopped being easy.

i got pneumonia on our honeymoon. at a resort. in the carribbean.

when i came home i ended up in the hospital. cooper and i both survived it. but that was the first of many absolutely shitty events in my life. up until then, my life had been pretty damn easy. i went where i pleased. things had pretty much always gone my way.

until then.

in february 2008 your brother was born too soon. i was devastated. babies were not supposed to die. not my baby. bad things never happened to me. i was so unprepared. i cried for weeks. i looked like i had the shit beaten out of me my eyes were so black.

once we had gotten back on our feet we wanted to try for another baby.

we tried for months. infertility. more shit.

we ended up having to go through ivf to have you. we wanted you so badly we would have done anything.

we were so lucky that it worked on our first try. maybe things were turning around for us. my pregnancy was awesome.

but then you were breech. home birth turned c-section. more shit.

and then you were you. as much as i love you, my perfect little boy, you were not easy. you rocked my world more than i had ever imagined you could. you demanded constant rocking and holding and nursing. you never slept unless you were on my boob. you barely accepted help form your dad. and you still don't most of the time. it's just me. me. me. me. you demanded that i learn how to take care of you in the way that you needed. and so i did. i was consumed by it. and i still am. everything else takes a back seat. me. your dad. the dogs. the house. everything.

and now that we feel ready, we want another baby. a failed ivf cycle. more. shit.

i guess sometimes i sound like a real whiner. or complainer. or a martyr. or just a miserable bitch. but what the fuck? i just wish that some shit would go right for your dad and me. for us it's been so hard. so fucking hard.

and it used to be so fucking easy.