the sign for my forehead

And I want to say –

I am not the person I used to be.

I want it printed on a t-shirt – no, a sign on my forehead in Sharpie or something.

(Maybe another tattoo Dad?)

I want everyone to know.

This life has changed me.

The past year my life and emotions and thoughts and actions have shifted and sorted and been bruised and pushed down and spilled over and poured out and exploded and imploded and wrecked havoc and brought peace and in all ways and in all manners have left me a different human.

I used to return e-mails on time.

Or at all.

And I used to remembers things – important things.

I planned meals for a week at a time — paying attention to creating both varied options and new tastes and old favorites.

Recently I served the kids popcorn, cantaloupe and lettuce for dinner.

(Not that I think this is a bad meal.  I actually do not.)

I think I am just saying – things are different.

There is no part or particle of me untouched by this seismic shift in my life.

And for all the things that bother me about that – I wish I could offer one giant group apology.

Like – I wish I could somehow let everyone know that I was incredibly and ridiculously grateful for the meals that showed up at our house during the crash of the tsunami.

As in, I do not think we would have eaten without the kindness of so so so many people.

I would look in my fridge and there would be milk and I would have no idea where that milk came from except to be certain that I had nothing to do with its purchase.  But I could say to my son, “Yes, have some cereal.”

Meal after meal.  Fridge and freezer full and kids’ bellies satisfied when I was not able to think beyond one step barely and tentatively placed in front of the other.

And the one thing I am sure I never did during that time was to write a single thank you note.

My momma raised me better than that.

Not only did I not write any notes, I don’t even think I could tell you who half of those people were.

But my heart wants to say thank you.

To line them all up, all those kind women and men who cooked for kids they did not even always know and drove out to our old farmhouse and dropped off their casseroles and their love and their hard work and their brownies.

And I am trusting that maybe my words came out without me remembering now but, more importantly, that they know, somehow, that I am grateful and that grateful tears still fall from my eyes as I type this sentence so many months later.  The food has been consumed.  The tupperware lids lost already.  But the grateful, that’s still heavy right here in my lap.

I do wish I could tell people other things too somehow – with that giant sign around my neck.

I used to return phone calls.  I used to cook well-balanced meals.  I used to be organized and I used to be kind of funny.  I used to respond to texts in a timely fashion and send an occasional thoughtful notecard and volunteer to make other people dinner.

I don’t know so much what I am anymore.

But then, in the same breath, I kind of know more who and what I am.

It’s an irony I am only beginning to learn to live through and walk around in.