I like to reminisce.

The past two Halloween's I've been pregnant. That's an interesting record to hold and one I do not ever plan on repeating. On Halloween 2008, my husband made me get up off bedrest and parade around the property taking artsy preggo pics. I am thankful for them now, but cried at the horror of my swollen body of film. I chalk it up to horomones now, because they are beautiful pictures and I love them.


It was a day of celebration really, a day of disbelief. Making it still pregnant to Halloween meant my baby was going to be born in November, closer to his originally planned due date than I ever really though he was going to make it. When my troubel began the first week in August, I rememeber the numbing reality of neonatal doctors telling me all the horrible things that could happen if he were born at 26 weeks. I remember praying, pleading for him to make it just to September. Please be born in September.

Then September came and went, and when the calendar rolled over into October I felt more confidant and just knew he was going to be born in October. It was going to be perfect, he would be born towards the end of the month near Angie Day and I would no longer have a reason to get depressed and hate the month of October.

All of a sudden, it was Halloween and I was so proud of him for holding out and making it that long.



Last year I spent another Halloween pregnant, freaking out at a crowded Trunk or Treat and leaving early, not having the stamina to stand around in line for hours. I was sad and felt like I was depriving my son, who couldn't even eat candy at the time. He didn't miss a thing, and more than made up for it this year!

I also went to a friend's costume party in one of those thrown together sluty outfits you can obnly get away with in public on Halloween and Mardi Gras mask. I've never worn a mask before and it was fun! I felt incognito all nigth long. When I arrived at the party I didn't even agknowledge my friends and no one knew it was me immediatly. I think there was even a guy trying to hit on me while in line for my water and I was so tempted to say, "I don't look three months pregnant with twins do I?" just to see how fast I could scare him away!



What I will remember most about last year brings a tear to my eye and smile to my face. We took Bryce over to my Uncle Garry's on our way home. He was waiting in the living room for his boys. Bryce love those cows out at our property as much as he did and what a kick he got out of him dressed up as one. They mooed together and we took pictures and it makes me sad he wasn't here this year to see all the kids and most importantly, the three Cox Witches!

I sang, "I tip my 40 to your memory....." tonight every time I poured out a full coke bottle somebody paid money for and left sitting behind, and smiled.

October 24, 2009, our last night of doing the Fern Creek High School football cleanup. Thirteen years later, I never imagined myself back here like this, picking up nasty nacho containers and cussing at people who throw their mustard packets and Starburst wrappers on the ground. Its a dirty job, but there's good money in doing the crap other people don't want to do.

I liked being there, reminiscing and remembering under a clear sky on a cool night, not unlike the one that changed my life forever. Homecoming week 1996, sophomore year, the bonfire, us laughing and dancing, saying goodbye, watching you walk, bound towards the car. Dead minutes later. Only 15 years old, you've been gone twelve times longer than I knew you, but it doesn't matter, you've been along with me the entire time.

I smile when I think about how much you loved Fern Creek. I think about what I want to write when I get home, happy thoughts and feelings stir. The wind blows harder and a spray of confetti fills the sky. The neon lights of the field focus their sparkling splendor of refracting light on the wet leaves that dance their way to the ground. I stop and smile, halfway to the top of the student section amidst the discarded hot dog wrappers and fries. How beautiful, like a golden butterfly hello, just for me from you. Its been a while since you said hello, thank you for remembering, I love you and miss you too. I believe in signs like that.

I wrote something for you today when I realized what day it was....How come it took me so long? I suddenly don't dread this day anymore. Has time healed my wound so tightly shut I only feel the pain now when I want to? Its there, the sadness of it all, if I go digging for it. I prefer the perspective I have now after all these years, that its not so bad losing you because really I never did.

On my way home, a song drifts in and out through the radio static, Coltrane I think, a mellow dreamy melody promising 'death is just a door, they'll be waiting on the other side.' If I had watched the movie 'Paranormal Activity' I might have been a little freaked out, but I am oddly comforted by your wish goodnight, reassurance that you are really there, right there waiting on the other side.




10/24

By Leah Bomar

I let it creep up on me this year,
Too busy to be bothered by a date,
A heartstabbing stupid number on a calendar
that causes too much pain.

24. Why hate a number?
13. Why cry over how many years have passed
since you passed,
proving 1 year of having you physically in my life
was long enough to last a lifetime in angel/human years?


Denial is effective only as long as your in it.
I miss you.

I let it creep up on me,
my memories of you packed away in a box,
no longer sitting on my heart shaped shelf
that has been a permanet fixture on my wall
since when we used to do our hair and make up
under my big green mirror,
reflecting on our future,
discussing our dreams.
Adolescent innocence at its finest,
eating homemade chicken noodle soup for the soul
searching for ourselves,
listening to Bone Thugs N Harmony 'Crossroads'
not knowing that was all we had.

Hi, my name is Leah and I'm an addict.

Food is my drug of choice. I've fought this battle for as long as I can remember. Weight Watchers with my mom at age 10, being aware I wasn't supposed to eat fattening pizza at a 4th grade party, removing the labels from my Jenny Craig chicken salad cans at lunch as a 7th grader. Every diet under the sun with varying degrees of success and failure, and I always end up here, fighting for control of my impulses and feigning for a snack. A food crackhead.

Why do we self sabatoge ourselves, ruin what we work so hard for, continue the cycle of destruction even though we know better, wish for salvation while salavating over something that will never taste as good as we imagine it in our minds? I am no different from any other addict, alcoholic, gambler. I know better, want better, yet I find myself unable to say no, giving in time and time again. Its sickening.

My husband has been struggling the past nine years to 'rewire my brain.' Its neccessary to my survival. I would not live the long, full life I desire and deserve if I continue down the path I have been on the past 20 years. I can write a page full of excuses, legit reasoning behind my bulge, but still haven't figured it out yet. I'm tired of fighting myself, and losing.

I'm tired of being passed up, waking up and going to sleep with my kness aching, ankles still swollen worse than when I was actually pregnant. I'm tired of carrying around this physical manifest of my pain I can't explain or even fully understand.

Have you ever been so baffled by a part of yourself, struggled to understand why you do the thigns you do?

Some people abuse drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, gambling, cigarettes, the list goes on and on. I use food. I saw Al Roker in an interview say something like, 'If you lined up all the vices people have, the best cocaine in the world, next to a joint of the best pot, next to the finest wine, next to a stale donut, I'd go for the donut.' Me too. I can't walk past a cupcake without eating it. How can someone so strong in so many other ways be so weak???

Welcome to Parenthood

Sometimes I feel like I am not far from crazy. Not anti-depressant crazy or plain nuthouse crazy, but my kids sometimes make me want to scream and do bad things crazy. I get tired of yelling at my son. "No Bryce!" "Stop that!" "You're gonna fall!" "Get off her!" "No bite!" "No hit!" "No touch!" "Don't do that!" He hears that one so often he mimics us perfectly, down to the finger point and serious face. "Don't do that, Mommy!"

"Welcome to parenthood," My sister-in-law says with a smile. She's at the beginning fringe of fighting teenage adolescence once again with her 14 year old son's recent immersion into his freshman year, high school sports, older girls, and hickeys. I laugh at her stories but somewhere inside I cringe because as much as I want to deny it or fight the future, truth is I will be hit with a triple whammy of puberty, horomones, and a mothers heartache. A sophomore son and freshman twins all at the same time. I know the advantage me and my brother used to take of my parents! Doesn't everyone like to think they're smarter, cooler, more capable of handling the tougher issues, when really we are all just finding our way in the dark.

It seems too far away to have to worry about now, when my toddler hasn't even celebrated his second birthday yet and I am still shit deep in dirty diapers, crying fits, and countless feedings from almost 7 month old twins. It. Never. Ends. I rarely get a break, and when I do it takes me half the time I'm away to begin to relax. So by the time I'm having a good time, its time to return to my reality. Which of course I wouldn't change for all the money in the world, but God damn, I get tired and worn out.

Welcome to parenthood.