To be, rather than to seem

I cannot believe what this month has been like. Love and loss and war. It's funny how you can be walking along, 27 years old and think you know it all and wham! Life throws you flat on your ass like never before! But baby we made it! And once mama can let go of some baggage all will be right in the world. Well not really but all will be right with my family! And seriously my life is so incredible I am so lucky to be living it. This whole time I thought I had it all figured out and was at good terms with my past but was I wrong! I was still worrying about it all the time, what could be more ignorant than WORRYING ABOUT THE PAST? So useless. The only day worth living is today! Today is the only day I can make things happen. Today is the only day I can hug my family tight and often as I can and make sure they know I love them and appreciate them! I really don't need to go backwards anymore and now that I am aware of my thoughts I don't have to ever again. 

The divine light in me recognizes the divine light in you. 

Time to give it up

For the better part of 20 years I have been blaming my problems and things I did wrong on having a rocky childhood. But that is a giant load of bullshit. For one it could have been wayyyyy worse and for 2 it's really time to take a little responsibility for my actions and state of mind when I am blaming others. It's pretty obvious that when I am on alcohol I turn into the victim and that is not right for the people who love me to have to deal with. I am not an alcoholic but I definitely misuse the booze from time to time. Time to put away my shot glass and walk through life with a clear sight of how I am acting and reacting.

Overwhelmed....

The reminders are everywhere, it's getting hard for me to remain positive. Never has an American flag at half mast affected me like this. I want to go back to winter when our town is free of tourists for the most part. When I can say "Prescott, everybody's hometown" with out a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. I've gone out to the lookout twice in the last week and the beauty of the setting sun is almost too painful to face, but for some reason I am still drawn out there. I think it's because the reminders are more subtle out in nature. I don't have to read the painful signs about 19 lost, I can just revel in the beauty that they all loved and died trying to protect.

This event is so public, almost a spectacle, I just need it all to be more private but what I need is not what is reality right now. Reality is we have to go through this every single day for the rest of time. Eventually the wounds will heal but for now they are just being reopened every time I read an article or click a link I know will break  my heart. I have to stop reading about it for now. I shouldn't even watch the memorial tomorrow but I have to, I can't NOT watch it. I can't not go to Garret's service although the last thing I want to do is go to another funeral. This is this hard for me, I can't even imagine what the families are going through.

I need to get past my personal challenges so that I can project as much love as I can out into the world from this day forward. My life has been changed by knowing Garret and I will remind myself of his mottoes every time I feel like giving up or not trying hard to be GREAT! I will be great and I will dedicate my life to those I have lost and those that I still live for!

Namaste.

A Natural Disaster in Prescott

It has been a year since my last post. It is hard for me to even think about writing about the details that led up to Cody's death so I am going to skip it and vent about what is going on today. My last post was almost exactly a year ago, when our beloved Monsoons returned. I remarked how even the Monsoons were bittersweet since Cody left this life. Well the recent happenings intensify the bitterness times a thousand.

We haven't had moisture in months. The last time we got more than sprinkles was as far back as early March, a lovely snow storm when we were lucky enough to have the chance to take our son and our dog out to play in the palpable beauty. Before you knew it the snow melted and the days were getting warmer. We never got our late spring snow storm like we usually expect around Easter. It was so warm, ensuring camping trips and days spent in the sun and water. About a month ago they announced a fire ban and I was more than happy to oblige because fire + 2 year old = anxious mommy. We knew it was super dry this year and all of a sudden the Doce fire was all anybody could talk about. Thousands of people came together and took care of it, leaving a huge chunk of our forest (high desert terrain) charred and black. But our people were safe and we all felt extremely lucky to receive the help we did.

Our hotshots travel all over the country during fire season. Last year they were gone all summer, one thing that Cody was nervous about before she died. You see, she had finally met the man of her dreams. A man who could take care of her in ways she had never imagined. A man that needed her to take care of him, too. That man was Garret. I was tremendously happy when I heard about their relationship. I wished Garret had been there in Cody's life all along. He was the opposite of every guy Cody had ever dated. He was a man. He was a rookie hotshot that year. He survived losing the love of his life and still went on to serve our country fighting fires.

He was even more brave than I could have ever imagined. We became friends and he would always check in on me when he was in town. There were many times when I left his phone calls unanswered because I don't like talking on the phone. It's funny that even when you think you are living your life the right way how you can still make enormous mistakes and find yourself filled with regret when it is too late.

Garret, I will think of you and Cody every day as long as I live. Your beautiful love story will never be forgotten, neither will your bravery. PEACE AND LOVE!~

In the Interest of Ann Azurite....

Since I am not emotionally ready to write the last chapter of the story of Cody and I, I am going to continue with an update on my life, currently.

Today is the first of hopefully many monsoons of the summer. This time of year is my absolute favorite because we still get to do all the fun summer things but the chances of over-heating are slim since we get these lovely, beautiful thunderstorms in the afternoons. Last year, my nephew Christopher was staying with us during the monsoons. He, Sawyer and I took a drive out to Jerome and I think that was the most water any of us had ever been through. The smell of our mountain air wet with monsoon rain is especially sweet, because we have to go through a couple months without any moisture whatsoever. I enjoy the smell as much as the lightning shows, so I am a very happy camper right now. Today though, I realized that every single thing I enjoy now has just a tinge of a bitter feeling with it, since Cody has left this life.

Sawyer is a huge ball of energy these days, he goes, goes and goes and goes nonstop. It is so amazing to watch him pick things up and begin to say words like "bite" "up" "mommy" "all done" and "highchair." LOVING EVERY CHALLENGING MINUTE. The tantrums have definitely begun and I'm hoping this 'phase' passes quickly. Everytime I complain about how rough and hyper he is I realize I wouldn't want him any other way, because obviously the universe has given me this beautiful, willfull child for a reason. An easy baby would probably lead me to being even lazier than I already am.

Which brings me to my biggest battle of all time. Me vs. My Mind. I'm really trying to stay as active as possible these days, hoping it will lead to more energy in the long run. Trying not to sweat the small things but still get my basic chores completed and getting Sawyer out of the house everyday. I am a home-body but it's not one of my favorite things about myself so I am training to get better at these simple things. When I say home-body, I really mean lazy person. My favorite thing to do is get in my underwear and get in bed with netflix and my kindle, which is fine. But its not something I can do all the time anymore, my focus has to be on the well-being of my family, not just my lazy bone.

Another thing I am working on is over-eating and emotional eating. I make my self sick from eating so much sometimes and I have got to stop. I have learned I can't deny myself things cause then I just end up binging later. This has been difficult since I discovered my corn intolerance 3 months ago. It has been a very bumpy road battling with food my whole life. I am hoping I am on the way to having a smoother ride, in my next 26 years. I guess I just have to keep up on planning meals and learning to cook and shop as well as reading up on my eating disorders. I would never tell anyone that I have an eating disorder, but I do struggle in this area everyday. I look forward to years ahead when I can look back and add this to my list of things I have overcome!

26 Life Time Goals

1] Practice yoga regularly.
2] Be completely corn-free.
3] Teach Sawyer how to read.
4] Adopt another dog and a kitty.
5] Take a spanish class.
6] Visit New York City.
7] Visit Europe.
8] Road trip up the West Coast.
9]Visit New Orleans.
10] Let go of guilt and fear, reverse negativity, stop the cycle.
11] Be an educated voter.
12] Be heavily tattooed.
13] Be a mostly stay at home mom.
14] Keep a blog.
15] Make each kid a scrapbook.
16] Pay off our debts.
17] Be a soccer mom.
18] Have a yearly girl's weekend getaway with my friends.
19] Spend Christmas in El Paso.
20] Volunteer my time for my kids' school.
21] Adopt a family for Christmas.
22] Let go of being self-conscious.
23] Go on a honeymoon.
24] Find a way to re-pay my sister.
25] Stay close with my best friends and make new ones too.
26] Plant a garden in our own yard <3

A Tiny Force of Unstoppable Coolness Chapter 3

Up until high school Cody and I stuck with our jock/honor roll student friends. Freshman year brought on a whole new mess of boys to chase and parties to find. Hanging out at the skate park smoking cigarettes became much more fun than going to football games. Cody drove her parents big truck around with me in it, making stops at Taco Bell daily. We were so free those years, 15 and 16 years old, no serious boyfriends,  (but a whole lot of crushes) and friends of every kind imaginable. The boys we met at the skate park definitely became our favorite to chase. We would drive out to the woods to escape our tiny town, bouncing around like we had not a care in the world. Jerome was our favorite place to go. We seldom had money for more than gas but we didn't care. We'd walk all over the place and talk about how much better life would be once we grew up. Little did we know that that freedom that we were craving so badly would lead to our downfall and many years wasted in early adulthood. Little by little we began experimenting with drugs. Cody was always a step ahead of me, which reassured me that it was okay. I knew it was bad, I knew it would lead to trouble. But it was an escape and not to mention a whole lot of fun. Looking back at our choices, I wouldn't change a thing because it made me stronger in the long run. For Cody it was a different outcome. I had all of my first experiences with Cody by my side. First was weed of course, freshman year. By sophomore year we had a whole new group of friends, all of whom experimented too. That's when pills came into the picture which eventually led to speed, coke and for Cody, opiates. Alcohol was there too but Cody never really cared for drinking as much as I did. At this time both of our families were fighting with drugs and alcohol as well, but we swore we would never end up like them. When you are 17 its really hard to believe that you are shaping your future with the actions you take everyday. Our sophomore year was the first time Cody ever expressed to me that she had feelings of extreme depression and had thoughts of suicide. Which of course she assured me were just thoughts that she couldn't control but that she was in control of her actions. During that year she got really fed up with her surroundings and decided to move down to Tempe to live with her aunt. Her depression was only distracted for a bit by that move and it wasn't long until she moved back to Humboldt with me. My dad was in way deep with meth at this time, and I loathed seeing him everyday. After a big fight with him I chugged a bunch of vodka I had in a water bottle in my closet and ran away to Cody's house. It was easier for me to accept Cody's family's addictions than it was my own dad. Living with Cody was insanely fun. We would stay up all night, talking, drawing, writing, smoking, drinking.... It was a constant sleepover but I knew that I was digging my own grave. We lived together the whole summer before senior year, doing meth or whatever drug we could find daily. I knew that if I was going to have any sort of a future after high school I had to get out of my environment. I moved to Texas with my sister for the first semester of senior year, in hopes to get clean and start over. I missed my friends and my drugs more than I could have ever imagined. I flew home for homecoming, and smoked speed the entire weekend. When I returned to my sister and my nephew I knew I couldn't stay there any longer. I felt guilty for wanting to do drugs when I had my family there helping me. So I transferred back to Bradshaw and moved back in with my parents. The remainder of my senior year all I did was speed. We ditched every single day to get high. It killed Cody to see me so hooked and this was the beginning of the end for us. She began to pull away, said she hated seeing me like that. I didn't want anything else but to get high and stay in my room. She had a job and an apartment and a cell phone and I was literally a lump of skin and bones in my room. Cody moved to Washington to escape her family once again. I missed her so incredibly much and mourned the end of our innocence. Neither of us could stay away from AZ for long though and it was only a couple of months before she got homesick. At that point I was living with my mom but my dad was in rehab. Since we had little money I wasn't doing the meth as much anymore and Cody moved in with me. Those months she lived with me were so fun. We would party every night and drive around in my Geo Metro singing and smoking cigs. We were two peas in a pod again. But alas, nothing is permanent and she rekindled her relationship with her ex and little by little she became his instead of mine. They both loved pills and I preferred speed, I felt like the third wheel and decided to make new friends who partied like I did. We lost touch big time this time, only talking every six months. We would take turns flaking out on each other and I became extremely resentful towards my little Cody.