Flexible

Flexible. An overused term at work. "How flexible are you?", "We are going to need you to be flexible this year, this semester, tomorrow.", "Before I say this just remember to be flexible."

Flexible; adjustable, formable, malleable, yielding, like putty.

Standing under the New Year's Eve fireworks on a river bank in Natchitoches with my friends, we sipped Champagne and made wishes at the summation of 2011.

...2012 brought a refiners fire I could never have seen coming.

My twenties slipped through my fingers, and the space between me and them grew apart just like that scene in Cast Away when Wilson drifts away uncontrollably from Tom Hanks. I've since become friends with my 30's...slower metabolism, grayer hair, less energy, still a single freak and all. A guy I thought adored me, left me, then came back only long enough to affirm his decision, then disappeared again. At some point I decided slapping on some braces for a year was a stellar idea. And then I mustered the courage to move. Flexible.

Moving entails selling a house, leaving a job/friends, and beginning a new job/friends. After living in Dallas for 25 years, I moved a few hours south. Selling a renovated house in a decent suburb proved to be more of a chess game than I could have expected. I sold my house, they were forced to back out...I accepted another offer, they too backed out...I sold my house again, they had some mishap with the bank, they now rent with intentions to buy...I still own the house. I found an apartment in Austin, decided it was too pretentious and expensive...backed out of the apartment(best decision). I found another apartment, got a roommate. I left a workplace I loved...I started a job I hate. Flexible. Adjustable.

Funny thing about jobs is there is truly NO way to understand what your days will look like until you are about 6 weeks in. No matter how many great questions you ask in the interview, or wonderful answers you give, people will put on their best sugar-coated appearance and you are walking a tightrope blind folded until routine is established. At twenty weeks in to this current job I can tell you exactly how it looks. It looks like the responsibility of test scores, weight of academic performance, and failure rests not in the hands of student effort and drive, but solely on me and the caliber of my dog and pony show. Lesson plans that are created off the clock get ripped apart and changed twenty minutes prior to execution. Strangers observing and judging your every move will talk down to you about the 200+ hours you spend with YOUR kids, after watching you for a mere 10 minutes. The system is broken. Its a kitchen in which thirty seven chefs all have different ideas about how you should cook a meal you've been preparing every day for the last 5 years. You must say, "Yes" and accommodate each and every one of them. The majority of conversations among staff turns into a pity contest or a complaint party about who spent more hours, who worked harder, or who has it the worst THIS week. Children, who can neither hold a license, get a job, nor fend for themselves somehow run this place. They get what they want at the dispense of teachers killing themselves on wasted efforts. A job within a highly concentrated area of convicted sex offenders that expose themselves in our campus parking lot. A kid comes to school with a bandaged neck, where a knife was centimeters away from slitting his throat a few blocks from school in gang activity...or drug activity, whichever report rises to the surface first. The craft you whole heartedly believed God made you for, chips away at your soul and stress...until serving people food and begging for tips sounds like a completely comfortable and glorious idea compared to your current state. Flexible. Like Putty.

Dallas is no longer where I stay, but I am still heavily connected there. The running joke from my Austin friends is, "What are you doing this weekend Carisse? Going to Dallas?". I kept my Orthodontist in Corinth since I had already paid them the money and I'm terrible with change. This decision drives me back to Dallas at least once a month, which also means I spend one weekend a month on someone's couch and not in my own bed. Its my own decision but tiring none the less. I've been back to Dallas ten times since I moved here in August. That's 60+ hours on the road not including traffic.Though I feel way more active and creative in this town, my weight fluctuates more than the stock market. It probably doesn't help that I am an emotional eater and Pei Wei is on my direct route home. Flexible. Malleable.

Then came the emails. "Your Dad is in the hospital, but he's okay."

From brother, "We have confirmed that it's cancer."

"After further consideration, we'd like to take you up on your offer to come visit over Christmas break. I think that we could use the help."

Buy a plane ticket. Split Christmas between Cancer and Kidney disease.

I hate that I am not nearby my Brother. I absolutely hate it. I hate that I can't just run over there after work and make dinner, or take the girls to the movies, or run to CVS for meds. I HATE that while I'm a minimum $400 plane ticket away from them, I'm here instead...explaining Protons to kids that would rather get in a fight with me about drawing gang signs on the tables than furthering their education and getting themselves out of this hell hole.

I hate that I am not nearby my Mother. I hate that she has to handle this burden all by herself. I HATE that I can't be there to drive Dad to dialysis, or help her fetch things for him, or make them a healthy dinner, or go walking in the woods with her to clear her head. I hate money. I hate that I have to make it. I hate that I have to be concerned about it to the point that it takes me away from these two very important roles in my life. Flexible. Yielding.

So how am I balancing this shit? I'm saying yes to as much as possible that will distract me from what I have no control over.

"Want to go for a run? Yes." 

"Want to eat at this food truck? Yes."

"Want to blow some of your savings on a trip this summer? Yes."

"Want to go to the movies? to Yoga? to breakfast? to Church? to Dallas? to the students Basketball game? camping? drinks? Yes. Yes. YESSSSSSSS."

Whatever it takes Lord. Help me. Teach me. Love me. Flexible. Formable.

CANCER, I'd stab you in the face if I could

There have only ever been THREE constant men in my life.

Boyfriends have come and gone, even BEST friends have gone, but there have been three males constant, for better or worse, throughout each and all of my 31 years.

The first is my Daddy. Now he has his flaws for sure, in fact I could probably write you a pretty long list if I wanted to, but at the end of the day...he's a good man. He never cheated on my Momma. He never left us. We always had more than we needed, and he tells me he loves me every time I drive away. He has been provider and protector my whole life.

There is my oldest brother. He's the smarty pants. He's never been one to sit around and watch TV. He's sort of a renaissance man. As long as I can remember he's been up on the latest gadgets, playing guitars, creating art, fixing cars, building things, reading things, traveling places. He's just one of those guys that knows a little bit about everything. I've used advice from him over and over. He took me to my first Mavs game, bought me my first guitar and set of Lord of the Rings, gave me my first tour of the Smithsonian.

Then there is the younger of my older brothers. He's my brother bear. I'm not sure there is anyone else in the world I would want to be caught in a dark alley with than him. He's strong, and protective, and fiery. He raised me. I distinctly remember Saturdays going fishing for crawdads, driving to Pep Boys, getting snow cones, buying Motley Crew cassette tapes, riding on skateboards, sledding, having a personal horse around the living room on his back, being tickled until I couldn't breath. I followed him around like a puppy wanting to imitate his every move.



So what do you do when two of the three strongest men you know, get hit? What do you do when your Dad, who is supposed to lift heavy things, and check the oil in your car, goes into the hospital with Pancreatitis, breaks his fibula, and has to all of a sudden get around in a wheel chair? What do you do when your Dad, who usually opens all the doors, takes thirty minutes to walk inside a restaurant?

What do you do when your oldest brother, who is  second to Dad, gets diagnosed with metastatic Prostate Cancer? What do you do when three of your nieces under the age of 5, including a newborn from Thanksgiving, have a sick Daddy?

I don't know what you're supposed to do, but I'll tell you what I'M doing. I'm praying every minute I remember to. I'm living life one day at a time, as it was meant to be lived. I'm flying up to Baltimore when I don't have to be at my retarded job. I'm driving to Winnsboro when the skies are clear. If my brother needs a nap then let's make sure the house is quiet. If my Dad needs me to drive him around his 50 acres just to get out of the house, then hand me the keys.

At first, I cried a lot. I asked "Why?" a lot. I couldn't even get a sentence out to my roomate sometimes without bursting into tears. But now? Now reality has settled in. I finally talked to my brother on the phone and he was changing a diaper. I went to see him and we bought a jungle gym. I talked to my Dad on the phone and he was reading the paper. I went to see him and he watched every football game known to man in the living room this weekend. I refuse to treat anyone like they have one foot in the grave unless they are standing by a tombstone.

For a long time now, I've tried to live my life fuller than the year before. Throwing caution and normalcy to the wind here and there, chancing my bank account and career at times...but if there has ever been a lesson to learn about life being too short and God having solid control...it's now. We are NOT promised tomorrow. No one is. The men in my life are not the "supermen" I have always seen them as. We all  have time that will eventually be up. Our lives are but a mist. Here for a moment and then gone. All we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us.

Now...are you ready for some pictures of three of my four CUTEST NIECES ON THE PLANET???

Putting out "Reindeer Food" on Christmas Eve.

Sometimes, if there is traffic, and you're not the one behind the wheel...take a nap!

She wears ponies, she plays with ponies, she dreams about ponies...

My brother jokes that it's good that you didn't hear the audio here. And he's right, Tay was screaming her head off. But I still love this picture. I love the way he looks at his girls. And they adore him.

Merry Christmas, from the Princesses of Maryland!!!!

The only picture we got together on this trip.

...I have braces,

...he was super sleepy,

...whatever.

You should know I didn't shower much that week. So this was make up from the DAY BEFORE. Isn't she the cutest? I actually conquered my fear of holding newborns on this trip. Usually I'm just looking at the mom like, "I'M SORRY I BROKE YOUR BABY HOW DO I FIX IT?"...but Tay was cute and fell asleep on me quite a bit. She's like a personal space heater.

We made pancakes...in our princess outfits of course...

(them, not me)

...more princesses....

This is honestly my most favorite set of pictures from the whole trip. And I took it with my phone. If ONLY I'd had my camera ready. You just never know when the time will be perfect with the lighting.

...we decorated Gingerbread houses...

...we made snowballs with a snowball maker, bless her heart we have to work on her aim...

and I probably shouldn't have let her eat that...but now she thinks I'm cool so...

She just LOVES to sit with Daddy. Such cuties.