there and back again

I am a huge fan of the written word.  And as the author of this blog I take sole responsibility for what is written here.  And when I put my words out there, I own them. My name is on them. My email is attached to this blog, my name is in the title.  I do not hide behind a pseudonym or an alias. I tell it like I would if we were sitting face to face.  And I am not ashamed.

When Carter was born we lived in Delaware, about 20 minutes south of Philadelphia.  I loved the city and the proximity we were to to both New York and DC.  We took Carter everywhere with us.  And since JaDee traveled with his job quite a bit, I used the frequent flyer miles to put a baby on my lap and head to Wyoming or Texas, where my parents were at the time.  We were alone but I had a great group of friends to help me survive.

Then one day JaDee’s dad called us out of the blue.  Which if you know this man you know he never calls unless it is really really important.  He called to tell us that we needed to move home. It wasn’t like the extended family needed us, it was more that he knew we needed them.

So JaDee put out resumes and phone calls and networked and came up with nothing.

We quit his job, packed up a truck and his dad came and helped drive it to the farm where we were going to set up shop and try to find a job again. JaDee and I spent the summer working on the farm spraying almost 1000+ acres of sugar  beats, mowing another 1000 acres of hay, irrigating, and chasing cows.  I was enrolled to go back to school o we eventually moved back to Provo and JaDee found a job in Ogden. Eventually from there, we moved to Perry, which was our home for almost 10 years.

And we did need our extended family.  My kids have grown up with a major support group of cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I was able to re-connect with my own cousins as adults where once we were just kids at reunions every 3 years.  My siblings and siblings in law are a tight bunch of people who love and cherish each other. And we are pretty darn funny.

Likewise I have always had a great friend base.  I have been friends with some people for almost 30 years now.  In Perry,  have friends who are older than my own mother and friends who I once taught in Sunday School and babysat my children.  We lived in one place for 10 years. That is some roots and I thought we would die there. I even had my boy’s spouses picked out!

So imagine my surprise when we prayed and felt it was the right decision to come to Alaska.  And not only to come but to stay.  To make this our home where our kids finish growing up.  To put down new roots and entrench ourselves here thousands of miles from our family and going at life on our own. Every holiday we spend on the phone as loved ones have gathered without us. Every birthday is a card in the mail and not a hug or a kiss from a grandparent.

I know it is right for us to be here.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard.

So I blog.

I write for my sisters, my family, my friends of almost 30 years that I grew up with, and the ones I went to college with, and the ones I raised my babies with, and the mother who doesn’t see me, and mother in law who works so hard its hard to reach her to talk, and the brother 5 time zones away who is also hard to connect with, and the sister having her babies without me and needing me to help melt cheese in the microwave, and the old guard of Perry, and the best friend from high school and the old friends from seminary, and my BYU roommates. Etc. Etc.

All of which I want to put a piece of myself out there for so they can connect to me in the wee hours of the night when they are up with their own babies, or insomnia. Or for my mother in law before work, or for my cousin while she rides the train in to Salt Lake, or any other time they would like to reach out and feel like I am with them again; sitting next to them or on the phone when it isn’t 6 AM here and almost lunchtime there. And for them to remember the days when it didn’t cost $5000 for me to steal a few moments with them and have a chance to dish about life, the good, the funny, and the crazy of it all.  My personality is infused in every word; every phrase is how I would tell a story in person and have told in person. Every bit of humor, bit of love (always love), and every bit of the brash and overly extroverted Nicole they know and love.

For I am loved.

Of course someone could misconstrue what I say. Of course a story can be told out context and made to sound hurtful and mean.  Don’t you think I don’t know that?  Don’t you think that I consider it before hitting “publish?”  Don’t you think I review and edit everything I have ever written? I do. 

But this blog is my perception. My feelings. My take on life.  My crazy, life. It’s not fair to me to have to portray something as rosy when it wasn’t.  Or to portray something as calm when it is really chaos. To make my kids look perfect, or my house, or to feel like I have to say my mood is always good.

Because those that love me expect that honesty from me.

I expect it from myself. 

I recently had a conversation with my esteemed psychologist sister in law (who reads at the wee hours of the night after all her kids’ Calculus is done).  In this conversation she compared the blogs of today, to the soap operas of our mothers and grandmothers generations. Heck my generation (come on Monica, Laura and Karen, how many summers did we spend watching Days of Our Lives and Guiding Light?).  We watched them for the drama and the chance to peak in on somebody’s life.  A life not our own. An escape.

If that is why you read here: Quit.  Remember, I don’t write for you. And quit referring others to my blog if you don’t approve. I actually just did this myself when a blog I had been following got so annoying to me that I found myself thinking about it all the time. It’s a well known blog in mormonland and I even had a button to link you to it on my sidebar.  I quit reading it and took the link off so not only would I not be tempted to peak in and get caught up in my dramatic thoughts over what was posted that day, but so other people did not think I endorsed it and what it said.

And why don’t I go private?  I almost did when I had a stalker on facebook.  Oh you didn’t know that? Well I did.  An old friend wasn’t so friendly anymore and so I tightened up security both here and there and watch my traffic feed like a hawk.  But if I went private, my not so techno savvy relatives would be lost.  My mother would never figure out how to hit reply to an email invite and my sister in law who gets on every 3 or 4 months and does one big catch up and then cries because she misses us would lose the password and need a new invite and I would forget to email her and then she would miss Olivia’s birthday pictures. My mother in law’s carefully placed bookmark on her tools tab would quit working.

And being 5000 miles away from them I can’t just run over and set it up for them.

So I blog.