Degree-winning

Am so overwhelmed right now. Am proud to say I just submitted a graduation application. Went to college 2002-2006 to complete my associates. 2012-2015 to complete my bachelors. After so many years of struggle, it feels good. I’m crying, because I see how it might have been easier. I have two kids and they’re nine and seven. They are wonderful but they fight a lot. And they came in 2005 and 2008. I want them to know not to do it this way. That it was hard. There were a lot of nights with no sleep, days that broke my back, and too many bills to pay. There were other people that didn’t have the same problems. There were other people who didn’t have these problems ‘til later. But I made them my problems. And that was my choice. Now, at the apex of my degree, I can climb up above it. I can call it my struggle; my life was how I chose to do it. It might not have been the right way. It might not have been the best way. But it was mine. And I am glad to have had the chance to live it. Now it’s time to be done with school and start doing something I love.

Its Just like Riding a Bike - A Poem

A flash of silver somthing in the sunlight.
The whirr of a bicycle chain, green ground rushing past.
Green treetops hem the clouds in the blue of the sky.
My shirt is warmed by the sun,
my breath is hot on my lips.
Fast - my breath, the ground, my feet.
Loud wind cools my sweat,
and water is not far.
When finished, and quenched,
I win.

Sunrise musings

I found myself driving at sunrise today. It is not uncommon for me to see the sunrise, nor to stop and take a moment to take in the majesty of the skyline. But today was particularly amazing. The sky was clouded, in part, where half of the sky was colored steel and the other the pale butter yellow of early sun. Where the clouds crept away from the sky, the part inside my windshield, I saw a rainbow. A rainbow at sunrise? The first I'd every seen. Its arc across the sky was so faint it was barely there, and its colors were blurred with an orange glow, except for a strip of blue at its bottom; just enough to call it more than a trick of the clouds. As I drove, I watched it. And when the sun spilled over the top of the horizon, it cast a red-orange glow over every field, every tree, everything between me and the horizon. Then, arc was gone, and only a curved pillar of blurry color remained. Then the sun rose and hid behind its curtain of clouds and the rainbow disappeared in time for the construction zone and the realities of my day to return to the forefront of my mind.But they seemed a little less harsh than before.

On Winter

The winter wind bites at my face as I step out the door.
I recoil. I was not expecting it. I wish I'd dried my hair.
I run to the car and am stuck with my ass hanging out the car door, trying to buckle my kids in their carseats with numb fingers.
The steering wheel freezes my fingers, so I drive with my palms. Where did I put those driving gloves? Are there any matches in the pile of mittens I put away last spring?
The road is white with salt, though the snow was nothing more than windswept dust, gone in a matter of hours under the day's grey light. But I see the road transformed in to four tire-track lanes of dirty slush, with ice-crusted curbs. I see the windshield white with sweeping, silent flakes, the winshield wipers caked with flecks of frozen water.
I see the end of outside.
I try to think of cozy blizzard, inside days;the way the world holds its breath and waits for it to pass. Then digs out and keeps moving.
Ever onward.