hannah and caroline and me
(the last one before we add another name to the list)


this blog's kind of gone off the rails the last few months, hasn't it?

for all that's been said and done about this being a love letter of sorts to my girls that will one day be handed the keys to this kingdom, there haven't been many them related updates in a while. the "bill and tom" series has taken front and center and, while fun, sports and nothing but sports has never really been what this place is all about.

sure, sports makes up, always has and always will, a large portion of HACATLKAM, because sports makes up a large portion of me. but, where have the church updates been? where have the updates on the family or something silly that has happened to one of the girls been? where are more posts about the boondocks or lost or something stupid i read on facebook that one time?

well, all of that has been kind of muddled.

i feel like, for the last few months, my life has been on shuffle. i wake every morning with no idea what song is going to be playing. am i going to be in a good mood? a bad mood? how long will it take one of the girls to say something completely innocuous that will end up setting me completely off simply due to my being primed to be pissed off in the first place?

things are happening fast. we are about to be a family of fucking five, bro. FIVE!!! i still don't have any idea what that is going to mean. we don't have cars for a family of five. we don't really have a house for a family of five. hell, we still don't even have a name for the fifth yet! what are we doing? or, moreover, what have we done?

it's silly. for nine months now, we've been skipping along not really preparing for much to change. i mean, we know, know that things are changing. sarah's belly isn't getting bigger and bigger for nothing. but our routines haven't been evolving with a focus towards us adding another baby to the family. they've just been evolving with a focus to being even more busy than we ever were.

sarah's stressed at work. i've been asked to be more proactive in the community for my store, networking and creating referral based relationships with other businesses for the first time in my life. hannah's playing (and i am coaching) soccer again this fall, committing us for two nights and one saturday morning of each of the last six weeks. caroline's doing gymnastics on monday nights at the same time humc is still rocking the green and playing softball out at trussville. i'm now running over 20 miles a week. we've eaten dinner at home as a family, like, once in the last month (i am pretty sure this is not an exaggeration). even though i am backing off and away from my many roles at the church (which feels fantastic!), sarah can't really afford to yet, because ncd still has eight years to go and the children's place (in spite of some pretty nasty behind her back scuttlebutt to the contrary) can't afford to not have her leadership. we've got fajita fridays and falcons season tickets and etc. to boot. we try and find time to let the girls be girls, but, most of the week, they are caught in their parents' current, being swept away to whatever commitment we've made for them next. trying to breathe it all in at one time feels like being congested. you can get the breath down and you're still making it all work, but it feels like it takes a lot of effort and sometimes it's really fucking uncomfortable and snotty. and so, since we have all this shit figured out, we're going to go ahead and add a fifth dimension to the o'kelley universe.

in some ways, it feels like we are idiots.

in most other ways, it just feels like this is what families do.

it's no real surprise that life skips by in the blink of an eye. we do it to ourselves. our commitment calendar in the paragraph above? that's every family. even though it sounds like i am, i am not complaining. we signed up for everything above with not one gun placed to our heads. we did it. we wanted it. and now we've got it.

so, we deal with it.

hannah and caroline are about to be big sisters, together for the first time. they've already mastered the first step, which was to move into the same bedroom. not one complaint from either, they've jumped into their literal and figurative bunk beds and they are ready for their baby sister to come. i am sure they are more ready for her than us. hannah's going to be incredible. we already know that. caroline wants to hold the baby and feed her and call her sleeping beauty, which, to be fair, is as good as anything her parents have come up with so far. the girls, if nothing else, are a daily example to just roll with the punches, man "mommy". have some "chocolate milk", go "i'm gonna color this picture" and get ready for the next "iCharlie". life comes at them fast, too. they don't bitch much. they just live it. there's a lesson there.

hannah and caroline and the little kumquat and me will change again as soon as the kumquat arrives. it always has. it always will. in many ways. i'm excited for some new subject material. i'm excited to freshen this place up again soon with new ideas and new adventures that come with being a father of three.

there will still be some more "bill and tom". there will definitely be some whining about sports. but, i hope, hope, hope that there will be even more of the other, "the other" being come what may.

the resolution most likely to fail
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part forty-five))


back on tuesday, january 25th, i played cocky with my new year's resolution number "4", which was to "run". i even called it a gimme, which was completely freaking ridiculous. it was a way of self-motivating myself to believe in something that, on that day, i didn't truly believe. yes, i had bought running shoes. yes, it seemed like a good idea at the time. yes, i felt, physically, i was ready to try something different than my tried and true "rocky training montage" that i've been doing three times a week since caroline kicked me out of my workout room and sent my bench and most of my free weights to some dude who i am sure has pawned them by now. i was ready to do something different, but i didn't know if i could.

as i've said to many friends and others that didn't care to hear in the last two months, i have never, read: NEVER IN MY LIFE, run when it wasn't attached to some stick or ball sport. and even when i did, i didn't like it. mind you, i didn't consider myself lazy. i didn't shortcut any of the conditioning that the activity i was participating in asked of me, but i didn't go any farther than i had to either. running seemed like a waste of time. i had a young man's metabolism burning away all the fat and poor diet choices i made for the greater portion of my adult life. i was fine with the exercise that i got, which in the last ten years had consisted of either my old free weight program, my newer rocky training montage, six months of softball one night a week and three months of basketball one night a week. not a whole lot, if any, of cardio mixed in. i wasn't unhealthy. i wasn't fat. i wasn't partaking in anything illicit, unless you considered the occasional kiker burger a drug (some do). i wasn't even close to optimizing the potential for health that my body still had in it, though. sending one kidney to the dump, you would've thought, would've triggered my awakening. i am sure to some degree, at least indirectly, it did. but it's not what kick-started the running program.

remembering back to november, i was probably heavier than i've ever been. around 184 pounds. i remember my primary doctor visit vividly, because, after i stepped on the scales, the kind young nurse said, "ooh. looks like someone ate a little extra birthday cake this year." in a minor win, i didn't call her any names, because she didn't call me one. in so many words, though, i heard, "ease up, fatty." my blood pressure registered a little higher than normal and the doctor decided to schedule another check-up for early february, just to make sure it wasn't something they were going to have to keep an eye on. i went back shortly after making out my resolutions. about two weeks and three or four runs into what i still wasn't sure was something i really wanted to do. i had gained three more pounds, maybe five. i wasn't sure, because the same kind nurse didn't make any comments and i couldn't make out her handwriting on the last number. my blood pressure checked out fine that day. so did my kidney function. i set up another visit six months down the road. rather than dwelling on the two small victories, i did what i do best. i found something negative. i called sarah and told her i was fat. it was settled. whether i liked it or not, i was going to run and i was going to be more healthy. i was also going to lose weight, which i am told to this afternoon, isn't always "healthy". we'll debate that on a later post.

i give a lot of credit to meg denson. she ran her first 5K in the freezing temperature of winter last year. in the beginning of my efforts toward the spring portion of the running resolution, i told myself on many days that if meg could do it, i could do it. i told her of my new goal. she said that she would like to get back in the habit of running herself. a couple weeks later, we talked and she mentioned the flapjack 5K in trussville on march 26th. as overwhelming as it seemed at the time, somewhere mid-february probably, we said we'd do it.

along the way, we picked up partners in crime. jacob sutton (jacob, playing the role of my expert and answerer of most of my questions, given his cross country experience in high school), katie gibson, amy gibson, and philip gibson all shared in the idea that running would be good for them. sometimes one of the above would run with me. sometimes, several. sometimes, it would just be me. i feel qualified enough having been doing this for two months now that i can safely say that doing it alone sucks. having a partner with me was and is exceptionally motivating, even if we weren't always training at the same pace. knowing that they would see me if i slowed or stopped running to walk for a bit was a shameful nudge towards pushing harder and pushing farther. as we got closer to the date, we put vaughn banks in a corner and dared him not to join our tribe. vaughn, being the freak he is, didn't have to train with us mortals. vaughn ran a 5K in 24 minutes in early march cold turkey. we badgered him about it, but, really, we were all just jealous that it seemed to come so easy. when vaughn started his move towards the flapjack, he immediately jumped to jacob sutton level training, and they left us behind to champion their efforts and proudly claim them part of our team, even if we didn't deserve them.

moral support came from several different places, too. meg's husband, reagan, was a proud cheerleader throughout the entire two months. sarah never once gave me a hard time about leaving on a sunday afternoon to go run for an hour and then come home to complain. amy and katie's mom championed our effort and was there (along with christina tidmore) to show her support at the race.

the flapjack 5K came on saturday, and all seven of us that participated (eight if you count nicole oglesby, repping for humc, herself) reached our goals. all seven ran the entire course. all seven posted our best outdoor times (that i know of) in the two months leading up to the race. it was a spectacular success made even more spectacular because we did it together. personally, i finished 54th out of close to 200 racers. (here are the results)

the flapjack isn't the end of the running. really, i hope it's just the beginning. i took sunday and monday off as a celebration, but went back to the indoor uab track with amy today. i ran 3.1 miles (approx 5K) in 27:34, two full minutes faster than my outdoor run on saturday. amy and i walked around the track, happy to run without the expectations of the flapjack looming, that freedom and the predictable conditions inside helping us both achieve personal bests. we walked two times around the track, then we ran another mile just for the hell of it.

meg has already eyed the vulcan 10K in october as our next carrot on the stick. after today's run, that seems totally attainable. who would've thought that way back on january 25th. i sure wouldn't have. and i wouldn't have been able to do it without my friends.

thank you to everyone mentioned above in this post, for making this journey with me. thank you to my girls for being there with there big honkin' smiles at the finish line on saturday. i love you all.

'til the next race.

p.s. - today, march 29th, i weighed 170.4 lbs.

like. a. boss.

i'll probably grade myself on a curve
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part forty-four))


we had a pretty interesting conversation sunday in limbo about the idea and execution of new year's resolutions. the consensus in the room seemed to be that january 1 was a fairly arbitrary start date, but everyone was pretty keen with the notion of goal-setting, which was comforting, especially given that when i asked our collected group how many were planning on making resolutions this year, only three (myself included) out of eleven raised their hands. our hour together nailed down the fact, though, that we all wanted to find ways to better our lives and the lives of those around us even if we didn't agree on the concept of the calendar telling us when to do so.

me, i am a calendar guy. for as long as i've been setting goals on the blog and writing follow-ups like today's, my simple mind wraps itself quite easily around starting at the beginning of the year and evaluating at the end. and so, i continue that schedule today as i take my final official look-back into the year that was kevin o'kelley's 2010.

here is the refresher.

now, let's review...

1) don't die - ... maybe sliding this one up to number one last year after my scare in the summer of 2009 played a significant role in my still being here in january of 2011 to write this post. maybe it just wasn't in the cards for me to meet my maker last year. either way, i am glad that i am still here. i can't say that i didn't think A LOT about the idea of dying. every day, i am not shitting you, every day i have a deathdream. i am able to shake them off and away a lot quicker than i did in the final few months of 2009, but i am obviously still not at ease with what comes next. maybe i never will be. maybe this is one of my curses. it seems unfair to me and everyone around me that i can't get my head out of today and look ahead some to "tomorrow". i am glad i didn't die in 2010. i am. now, if i could just stop thinking about it so much. score: +1

2) get "operation limbo" off the ground, up and running - ... well, well, well. my first real success story of 2010. early last year, i asked jacob sutton and joseph florence to help me with a sketch that we would perform at the beginning of worship to pimp the idea, this idea in my head that was limbo at the time. jacob and joseph, in spite of the morning's technical difficulties, were really funny like they always are. the sketch had to do with the gap that had developed at our church in the last several years where there was no real group or place for students and young adults to plug into after high school. we had a couple of fledgling young-ish adult sunday school classes, but i wasn't real confident either would speak to the group that i had in mind for limbo. so, jacob and joseph riffed on the idea that now they were in their twenties, they were just hanging out in the sanctuary with no real purpose in the proverbial life of the church and joseph asked jacob what they were supposed to do about it. jacob's response? "we wait...................until we're 30." it was hilarious. and pointed. and true. and so, limbo was born. and now, at our church, you don't have to wait if you are looking for something after you've crossed that barrier into adulthood and come to the realization that you still have no idea what the hell is going on in the world. nowadays, i don't think of limbo as an "age-group" thing (we span from early twenties to mid-thirties) as much as i do a "this doesn't make sense to me. let's make sense of it together." group. and it seems to be working. part of our evolution in 2011 will be to become more effective and affective at getting our word and work out to the masses. looking back one more time, though, we've now had 37 unique and special people come to room 218 at some point in the last 45 weeks, and we gather every sunday morning with between 10-15. numbers are a pretty weak measure when it comes to spiritual impact, but they do suggest there was a need in our church (even if we are still dangling on the outer edge of the church corporate) and limbo is trying to help fill it. score: +1

 3) be a more than serviceable lay leader - ... hmm, this one is probably not the easiest for me to judge myself on. i could take a straw poll within the church and if the standard was "serviceable", well, i might get a pass. if it's "more than serviceable", i don't know. what has happened that is good in the life of the church over the last 12 months? consensus within the congregation is that we are in better "health". that meaning, there is less overall drama. members and visitors, alike, seem to be harris fans. our finances are currently well within order. long range planning has been meeting and visioning for over six months. natural church development is starting back up and the church, right now, seems committed to that process. our connectional giving has improved drastically with the church meeting it's "target" in 2010 (for the first time in a very, very long time). leadership in the church is getting younger, in no small part to the weeds and limbo. along those lines, we made efforts to streamline the administrative board of the church in the hopes that 2011 will be more efficient. missions are still happening and giving members opportunities to serve. the halloween carnival succeeded again. the children's place daycare is a lighthouse and symbol of hope in our immediate community. i am probably forgetting many others. but, this all begs the question, what credit can i take for any of it? what blame rests at my feet if i were to list the cons of 2010, too. it's a good question, and we'll address it again soon. "serviceable" in the church is relative, thus "more than serviceable" probably is as well. i am going to give myself a point here. if you disagree, please feel free to comment and tell me why. score: +1

4) prepare for the inevitable - ... ugh. i called this one, right? not that it took a rocket scientist to predict that any college football team would eventually lose a game, and lose a game(s) alabama did. in spite of their talent and potential that was on full display for 20 minutes of the iron bowl and 60 of the capital one bowl, alabama finished a disappointing 10-3 and probably 10 spots lower than their preseason number one ranking. the first loss to south carolina was easier than i thought it would be to swallow, mainly because they were down the whole game. the idea of predicting the future of next year's team with the likely departures of 3-5 underclassmen seems discouraging currently. we'll wait til after the a-day game for that. and we'll also give myself credit for being a realist with this particular resolution a year ago. score: +1

5) don't forget about my deceitfully evil gang of weeds - ... maybe my first miss of 2010. i remember vividly the conversation that i had with the weeds on a sunday morning early on in 2010, that i was thinking of using my positive, free and clear scan in january as a springboard to get my head back in the game of making a difference in the church again. what that meant to them was that i wouldn't be available on sunday mornings anymore. my doing limbo, kathy and deb doing kids sunday school, the goldens having their hands full with noah, kim getting elected to city council, among other things pulled our sunday school class in many different directions, and it's been hard to feel like a cohesive whole all year. i don't know that blaming any one person or event or circumstance would do justice to all the mitigating factors. i didn't "forget" the weeds, but actions spoke louder than words. score: -1

6) say no to drugs... and by drugs, i mean lexapro - ... an interesting result with this one. i told myself that if i got a clean bill of health again in july, i would start to wean myself off of the anti-depressant. even though there was a little scare with a "motion artifact" in my lung that turned out to be nothing, the clean bill of health came a few days after i had my scan on july 9. after that, i took a half-dose of the lexapro through my and sarah's trip to gatlinburg later that month and then put the pill bottle in the pantry for good. since then, it's been an up and down ride. i have found my good moods hard to sustain, especially the last couple of months, what with the anticipation of the next scan this month ramping up my awareness of every little thing in my body that's not 100 percent anymore. the bottle of lexapro sits right next to my bottle of multi-vitamins in the pantry, and the last two or three weeks i've wondered if starting them again wouldn't be better for me and my family. maybe all the doctor would order is another clean scan and some peace of mind to go along with the apple a day. we'll see soon enough. this one is a technical notch in the "win" column, with mixed results as to the quality of my life since i realized the resolution. score: +1

7) find brian again - ...hmm. does seeing him on one road trip, three visits in three days count as a "win"? maybe, but probably not. i am going to give myself a half-point here, because we did have to drive six hours to see him and it probably ended up being one of the more fulfilling three days of my year, but seeing them once per year doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you are talking about someone that i care so deeply about. score:  +.5

8) find dad again - my second full-fledged fail. for me, the spirit of this one is more important than the letter number of times we saw each other, which was actually several thanks to a lunch or two, a handful of hannah's socccer games and a christmas get together. no one did anything "wrong" this year. i just don't know if i feel like we are any closer to being closer. i hope so. for 2010, though? score: -1

9) take ken to a braves game - ... another technical win, even if it didn't flesh itself out to us seeing each other as much as i would have liked to. we went to an incredible phillies game the second week of the season that included a jason heyward homer and a walk-off by nate mcclouth. ken even returned the favor by picking up the tab for the bullet through the forehead that ended up being game three of the division series with the giants. much like brian, i think if we were a little closer, ken and i would be, too. the distance and just life, i guess, has been a riddle we have not been able to solve the last few years. bottom line for the grade, though, is i did, in fact, take ken to a braves game. score: +1

10) keep loving my girls - ... the one big "gimme" of last year. i did keep loving sarah, hannah and caroline. it's hard, at times, to keep that loving from becoming conditional. i'll love you like you deserve just so long as you don't piss me off, okay? that kind of sentiment. hannah is really hard right now, and it's a combination of a lot of things i know. hanging out with older kids at daycare. observing and mimicking older girls that she sees on television and at church. having to deal with a little sister that always wants to do what she does. i know it's tough. now that she's her own little person, she wants more than anything to figure out who she is and she wants it to happen fast. she needs her way all the time. she is hardheaded. just like me. she has a quick temper. just like me. once the heat of any moment has passed, she wants to over-manipulate the rest of the day/night to make sure everything is okay. just like me. she is infuriating. i am sure...just like me. caroline, on the other hand, is three. she's a silly three and is really only a handful when our agenda takes the onus away from her being the center of the universe. no problem with four people in the house, right? ugh. she's adorable most of the time, though, and she's grown to love her daddy in 2010 much like i feel hannah always has. it's been nice. i hope that sarah and i can keep our collective heads in 2011 when it comes to the girls. our daughters really are too special to not appreciate them being in our lives every waking second. score: +1

wrapping up, let's see, it looks like i went 7.5 for 10!!! not too bad if i say so myself, which i just did. 

i read several status updates on new year's eve that spoke very poorly of 2010, and i hate that it was a tough year for so many people, including some dear friends. at the same time, i am happy that last year was much less volatile for the o'kelley family. if you removed me being constantly worried about things i have no control over from the equation, who knows what kind of banner year it may have been. that thought will be a nice springboard into my resolutions for 2011, which i'll try and have posted shortly after my january scan. 

one final thanks for everyone that stopped by hannah and caroline and me in 2010. whether you love me, hate me or are somewhere in between, whether you agree with me or disagree with me and my potty mouth, whether you came here through your own free will or were forcefully handed a copy of a post or emailed a link, thank you for sharing in this experience with me. this is an open place. an honest place. a place that makes me strive to be a better person for you and for "you".

if you would begrudge me or me in this forum, shame on you, and get a fucking life. you have more important things to worry about. go invite someone to church for god's sake instead of waiting on someone to save the church for you. 

a happy 2011 for those of you that love HACAM for what it is. comment more in 2011! if you write, write more! about anything!!! 

2010.

the end.    

hannah and caroline and me
(part forty-three)


it's christmas eve as i start banging away at what, according to current form, may end up being my last blog post of 2010. i hope not, but things have slowed down on HACAM in the last three months. Not intentionally, mind you, but life has happened, facebook continues to happen, and an alarming (-ly wonderful) lack of drama related to the church also continues to happen.

this will be the first time in six years that the blog's post count drops, and i am not sure how i feel about that. i suppose it was bound to happen. until the day comes when someone starts paying me to piss "you" off, i will have other things that must be prioritized over writing about my girls, my church, auburn's quarterback and julio jones. last year seemed to be the perfect storm of subject matter (for kevin o'kelley). in 2009, of course, the girls continued to grow, mature, annoy and fascinate. towards the end of last year, i started wrapping my head around the idea of having "had" cancer (note: started being the operative word. until i am proven wrong again ((please, lord, let me be proven wrong again)) in january, i am still worried constantly about bad cells growing into something badder inside my body. i wrapped my head around the idea long enough to start writing about it, which was cathartic. alabama football did their thing in the last third of the year. they performed above already high expectations, recaptured my imagination, and won a national championship. rolando mcclain won the butkus. mark ingram won the heisman. julio made it all possible. 2009 was a banner year for subject matter, yes it was. and then along came facebook.

if there is one thing above all others that has contributed to the post count dropping in 2010, it's got to be my more active involvement on THE social network. i stuck my toes in the water last year, just in time to reap the facebook birthday wishes benefits, but, this year, i just went ahead and dove on in. quick-hit topics or links that i may have given attention on the blog in 2009 went straight to facebook. it was easier that way to get a quick response and gain a conversation about those topics. one of the downfalls of the blog was/is that, in many instances, by the time a friend found their way to a post on HACAM, the subject was old news. with facebook, if something strikes my fancy and i want to talk about it, i link to the story and go. i had never experienced gratification so instantly, and it was terribly rewarding. at the same time, though the blog may have lost out in quantity, in my opinion, it's probably gained in quality. the posts that now make the cut have often festered for days to some degree, and some of the fat ends up being trimmed away. i am interested to see if this trend continues in 2011, or...

will i start to tire of facebook? i don't know. it's a good question. i am still a relative facebook newbie, and i am still a huge fan of the footprint it's made on my life. i talk with people that i would never have more time for than to say "hi" or "bye" to. i can passively pay attention to long distance friends and relatives without intruding into their lives any more than "like"ing a status or telling them that their family is beautiful based on the pictures they post. i have fallen in love with the good-natured debate that i've found on topics that have reached some level of import in my life. on the other hand, i've found it interesting to observe those friends and "friends" that have started to fall out of love with facebook. they have claimed that it has taken up too much of their time, that they are too dependant on it. others have claimed to just plain hate it. others have remembered the "good ole days" when it didn't include status updates and wish for a facebook that is never coming back. a less commercial, a less farmville-y, a more innocent facebook. a boring facebook. those people that have given up on the facebook will likely claim that their life is a more fulfilling place without it. and it may be. for now. for ever. who knows. all i know is, right now, i like it. one of my 2011 resolutions will be to gauge, this time next year, if i still feel the same.

humc still gets it's share of love in the land of HACAM, but the lack of drama or controversy since bishop-gate has almost been unsettling. we are in a very serious and deserved phase of transition at this point, one that calls for less talk and more action. the natural church development process is hoping the third time ends up being the charm. the long-range planning committee still searches for our vision. and yet, something still feels...i don't know. i'll explore it more here after the new year. for now, we'll enjoy the relative peace and hope that's it the quiet before the storm of growth...if...that's even what is supposed to be happening.

it's been yet another quite a year. i'll inventory my 2010 resolutions soon and see how miserably i failed at them.

see you soon. i gotta go check facebook. (winking smiley)

january 18, 2010 seems like a long time ago


almost eleven months ago, 2010 resolution #7 was "see brian more...". it didn't really work out the way that i wanted it to. i could claim weak-ass excuses like "how time flies" or the girls or church or work or softball or the blog or too much time on facebook or too much time losing track of friends, but all of them would be just that. weak. and ass.

savannah is a long way away, even as the crow flies, sure. the sheer thought of the six to seven hours in the car with girls that are going to go apeshit halfway there has played a big part in my selfish ass presenting the "it's december. i work in retail. i gotta work." card year after year when sarah or sarah and hannah or sarah and hannah and caroline have made the trip for the last however long without me. believe me. it's been a long however long.

last year, brian was there and the girls got to see him without me. i had missed tons of time due to my surgery and there was no way i could get away. it made my heart warm, though, to know that hannah and caroline would get to hang out with him, and they did. i was jealous, but happy at the same time.

our relationship has never been the most functional even when it was our "normal". lord knows we weren't the only children of divorce in the world, but it felt like it a lot of the time. my friends, in particular, all were from families whose parents had stayed true to their vows. i don't know if that made them happy or not, but going to their houses to hang out had a very weird and comfortable vibe to it. going to my friends' houses felt, for me, like walking into a norman rockwell painting. i know that any of my childhood friends that might read this blog are rolling their eyes right now at the thought of their home being the picture of americana. whatareyougonnado? when you are child of divorce, you see, especially one that was old enough when their parents separated to know that divorce was some fucked up shit, you (i) find yourself pining for that societal feeling of "normal" for the rest of your (my) life. as you (i) get older, you (i) realize along the way a sad fact, that you're (i'm) searching for the pot at the end of the rainbow, but it doesn't stop you (me) from wanting it. badly. my friends had it. and i didn't. breakfast in the morning. dinner together around a table. family functions. both parents at open house. simple shit. shit that children of marriage take for granted. or maybe they don't. maybe they realize that kind of stuff is special. for a kid that started putting up barriers pretty young, i convinced myself that they took it for granted. and it gnawed at me for years. when i came home from a friend's house, nothing was "normal". my mom did everything in her power to make it feel that way, and for that i will be forever indebted, but it just...wasn't. not the "normal" that i told myself i wanted. when i was eight, nine, ten years old, i just wanted my parents to be back together again. i was eight when my parents divorced. brian was four. our relationship was never going to be functional. and the fucked up thing about it was that it had nothing to do with us.

growing up, most of my memories of brian and our time together have been appropriately revisioned or romanticized, because remembering the bad stuff is a fucking waste of time. we didn't have a ton in common and we held that against each other a lot. i've told the story before, but i will say that if you've never had a younger brother hurl a throwing star at you with ill-intentions, well, you haven't lived. thank god, by that standard, i have. our age difference and the fact that i was an asshole didn't help our cause as we got older. brian did his thing. i did mine. we enjoyed each other's company every now and again. played some video games. went to the movies. nothing crazy. we fought. a lot. never to the point of regret. i loved him. more than anything. i just didn't know how to do love right. probably still don't. in the midst of all sorts of chaos, though, i think about how much i must've let him down...

i figured out how much brian meant to me too late. he was already gone down a dark path that i couldn't save him from by the time i did. he would admit that. i tried a couple times. to save him. to save us. maybe more than a couple. i felt like i was doing him a favor. then i felt like i was enabling bad habits. we cut ties again and/or again. i said cliched bullshit like, "he's got to want to help himself". i prayed for him, not even knowing what that really means. a year would pass. i would call my mom and ask her about him. "he's doing okay." or "i haven't heard from him in a while." were the stock answers. occasionally, her voice would perk up a little and you could tell they had a really nice conversation. those were good days. more time passed. he did some more rehab. he tried to sort things out at our aunt's house. that didn't work. then he moved to florida. finally landed in savannah. i figured out how much brian meant to me too late once. it makes me happy that i learned from that mistake and made better efforts.

i think about him all the time. and i think back. i think about what a disservice i was to him as a big brother. how the same shit that i felt so sorry for myself about was ten times worse for him. i think about the little kid that was thrown out to pasture by people that should have loved him the most and i wish that i would have had the courage to make things better. to appear as the ghost of "what the fuck are you thinking???" to those that should've loved him most and allow them to see the error of their ways. but i didn't. or i couldn't. or i was too immature at the time to grasp what was happening.

after we reconnected a few years ago, it was how it always should have been. it took one conversation to hear in his voice what i hoped that he heard in mine. that i loved him. that i had always wished him well, just not always in very practical or helpful ways.

since then, we've been as functional as two brothers that are six hours apart can be i suppose. i think we miss each other. i know i miss him. the brian that i talk to now is the one that i took for granted growing up. smart. caring. tender. tough. when all the dcd shit hit the fan a couple years back, he was the one that i wished i had by my side, not to beat anyone up but to be the explicit voice of reason that only someone that cared about me but had also lived their life outside of the perverted walls of "the church" could be. when i found out i had something growing inside of me last summer that wasn't supposed to be there, i knew i needed him to be with me, feeling confident that just his presence alone would scare the surgeon into not fucking up when he cut me up and pulled things out.

i see me talking about him now and i realize how much of a selfish asshole i still am. i don't deserve his care or concern any more than anyone that ever hung him out to dry does, but, when i asked him to come, he came. that's who he is.

i've told him and i hope he knows that i would kick ass for him, too, if he needed it. i would even listen, too. i can't wait to listen to him this weekend. as much fun as i am sure our family will have, as much good as i know it will be for me to be with sarah and hannah and caroline with her dad's side of the family, seeing brian will be what i think about when the girls are going apeshit somewhere on the macon side of atlanta. i'll think of him chasing me around the house, throwing shit at me. i'll wish things weren't for him the way they were, because people i know who claim "i hit the bottom" haven't seen it. brian has. he has the scars, many of them self-inflicted, to prove it. once upon a time, if he ever stared at you really hard, you kind of wanted to pee your pants a little bit. he was that guy.

that stare is still there, i bet, if he needed it to be. i see a different look in his eyes now. a glimmer that personifies hope and the kind of person i want my girls to grow up to be. smart. self-sufficient. strong. and sweet.

see you in a couple days, dude. when i do, i hope time will move slowly.

hannah and caroline and me
(part forty-two)
((my first real mistake as a parent))


mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys...

or football fans.

i was having a conversation a couple days ago with a buddy about how i loved a (good-) spirited debate. surprising, right? my definition of debate, though, especially in the realm of this blog or on facebook must be naive or misshapen or skewed or something. if i've learned anything from HACAM and facebook over the past five years, it's that i am "dangerous", "stupid", "sexist", a "bammer", a "mind-reader", "cold-hearted", "mean", "bad for my church", "tactless", among other qualifiers, most of these from people that i've enjoyed, at some point in my life, fraternizing with. it's hard to argue with any of them i guess. mainly, because if i do, people will call me names again.

i imagine these, my most glowing qualities, come out and to the surface while i am watching an alabama football game. since hannah was born, absolutely nothing has changed with my attitude or the way i comport myself during these games, at least the ones that mean something to the greater "process" and the ultimate end of a conference and/or national title. i clap and yell with glorious support when the team executes a play to perfection. i flail and moan and kick and scream and hurl venom towards the field or television when something goes wrong.

all the while, hannah (and now caroline) are somewhere in the vicinity of the game, too, taking it all in.

readers of this blog that don't use the word "fuck", don't worry (yet). neither of the girls have taken to the interwebs with their own journals contributing to the downfall of civilization by using their own variations on their daddy's "dirty words". that'll come, though. don't you worry.

when we got in the car after the game last friday, though, indisputable evidence of my (and her mommy's) influence poured out of the first baby girl. as we pulled away from rebecca's, hannah started crying. soon, her crying turned to bawling and within a few seconds, she was inconsolable. after letting her cry it out for a few minutes, i asked why she was so upset. it was because she was worried that a friend, whose parents root for auburn, would brag and make fun of her the next time they saw each other. damn.

was she upset that alabama lost the game? maybe, but not so much in the literal outcome of the literal game. she was upset that her friends who had chosen to root for auburn would have something on her the next time they got together. i resemble this sentiment, wholeheartedly.

i love a spirited debate, mainly because, removed from the subject in question, whether that be a football team or lunch at krystal, i pride myself on being able to separate the sinner from the sin, if you will. if you don't like alabama as much as i do, that's fine. if you think a whopper is tastier than my little piece of heaven, that's fine, too. i'll argue why i think i am right, or feel right. i might even argue why i think you are wrong. i am not going to call you a douchebag, even if i think you are being one. that's just the way it is.

kids, specifically my first grader, can't be this rational. not yet. kids are the worst trash-talkers, because it's all emotion that's vomiting from their mouth. they don't care about making good points. they just "nanny, nanny, poo-poo" all over their classmates faces with no regard for the emotional trainwrecks they are leaving in their wake. i know this because i was the worst at it. i can specifically remember an instance from my childhood when i lost a friend for over a month because i kicked his ass in tecmo bowl and wouldn't stop talking about it for a week. it was "mean". "tactless". "stupid". all of those. i suppose i knew better. my mom would've kicked my ass had she known about it. but i didn't go to school with my mom. and hannah doesn't go to school with hers. or her dad. we can't protect her from kids being cruel. we just get to pick up the pieces after someone's broken her heart.

the sad part about that meltdown in the car after the iron bowl was how predictable it was. by my injecting her, week after week, year after year, season after season with the idea that football and alabama football is worth giving your friends a hard time about, i let the meltdown happen. i produced it. it was my creation.

as i said, i know kids are mean. that part i can't change. they are all emotion. it's part of their charm and part of the reason i want to stick my head through a glass door half the time.

i also know kids are impressionable. and i've impressed upon my child that she should give a shit when a friend of hers who has parents that have impressed upon them to be an auburn fan comes bragging about a victory in a football game. because i've done this, i've given her a reason to worry about something that she didn't ask for.

that kind of sucks.

as she gets older, i'll have to make sure she is able and trained to respond to others with something more substantial than tears. i'll have to impress upon her the value in (good-) spirited debate.

then she won't have any friends either.  

500 posts of summer kevin
(a retrospective)
((hannah and caroline and me))
(((part forty-one)))


you've claimed to hate something, but for some reason you're drawn to it anyway. you've understood the logic, and yet you've hated it for the same logical reasons. you like to journal, or you did. but you don't anymore. you've had thoughts that ranged from the silly to sincere as to how people have journaled of and about you. you've been flattered. you've been mad. you've swore you'd get even. you've been proud that you didn't. and so here goes... -me, october of 2005

had you asked me on monday night, october 24, of 2005 if i thought the blog would have lasted over five years and five hundred posts, my honest answer would have had to be "no." i've never been known as someone that's stuck with something very long. aside from my family and, what, 3-5 long time friends, the only thing in my life that i've ever been able to throw myself completely into was church, specifically the seven year run when i served on the staffs of huffman united methodist or common ground.

i don't know that i would say that i am a flake in that regard. i've never been terrible at following through with commitments, per se, but to take on something like a blog, a hobby and time-killer in every sense of those words, and stick with it and the original vision through which it was created impresses me. it really does. i am proud of myself. it's a nice feeling.

as has been documented on this uniform resource locator(s) ad naseum, the genesis of this place was not complex. in the early and mid-2000's, social media was transitioning from niche to mainstream. every young person, seemingly, in my youth department had something called a livejournal or a myspace page that they would use to communicate either their angst or joy with their internet community. for the longest time, i was only an observer. the outlets, while frowned upon in general, were fascinating snapshots into the working minds of teenagers and college students that i held near and dear to my heart. they were conversations that our daily routines would never allow us to have one on one or in other more corporate settings. sure, sometimes they would lash out against parents or friends or others in their lives and, sure, some of it seemed to be done without regard for rational thought, but it didn't make any of the entries any less compelling.

at the time that hannahandme.blogspot.com was born, hannah was about to turn two. i could feel the beginning of the end of one era of my life happening and moving from being paid by a church to not being paid by a church felt like a seismic shift. sarah and i were growing busier by the second. the huntsville experiment would have been hard to make work without hannah in the mix. with a baby girl as part of the equation, it was nearly impossible. i started looking for and brainstorming my own not-so-private outlet. i've loved writing for a long time. i'd, at that point, built up enough passer-by experience with blogs and the like that i figured i could stumble my way through my own. wouldn't it be cool if i started writing things down so that somewhere deep into the future hannah (and now caroline) could be introduced to parts of her father that she may have never known? and so, it happened.

five years and five hundred posts later, HACAM (formerly known as HAM) is still running strong. not a day passes that i don't think about sitting down and writing something to my girls. unfortunately, not many days pass that afford me the disposable time to make that happen. my pace has slowed in the last couple of months, but i am hoping that the end of fall soccer means a little extra time to invest back into the blog. back into ongoing series like "to be or not to be" and "conversations with kathy" or ever-going series like "hannah and caroline and me".

to the handful of people that have been with me from the beginning and continue wasting their life by making this blog a part of your daily routine, i can't thank you enough. you know who you are. without your constant constructive, critical and supportive feedback, i would have probably hung this thing up the first time a united methodist pastor commented that he wanted to see me because of some jacked up opinion i shared "for all the world to see". "fear the community", anybody? :)

to the rubberneckers that have been handed a sheet of paper with my asinine reflections upon them and were forced to read them against your will because the department of homeland security demanded you to, i am sorry. and i agree with you. my existence threatens all of us, and i should be destroyed.

to those that i've hurt with my "potty mouth" or posts that obliterated some perception you had of me prior to your reading one out of the now 502 entries, that was not my intent. if i wanted to push your buttons, i'd kill one of your threads on facebook.

speaking of facebook, to those of you that have met us because i now shamelessly promote this place to 271 (and counting or subtracting...depending on who i pissed off yesterday) of my closest "friends", thanks for visiting. "pass some time" while your here. just don't expect anything that will add even one iota of depth to your life. remember, in the immortal words of the pearl and the jam, "this is not for you". pimp your blog on facebook, too. everyone is doing it, right? i'd love to read your thoughts.

to my brother, brian, that won't read something unless i text him asking him to, i love you. you are the third muse. every time i write something, i kinda hope you read it and wonder what you think. i wish i could see you.

to sarah, who got tired of me asking her "what did you think of the blog?" four and a half years ago, thank you for your support and i am sorry, more than anything, that people being little bitches about something i've written hurt you once, let alone the seventy-five other times.

and to hannah and caroline, well, here's a tip of the hat to the first 500. my labor of love has only cost me one kidney up to this point, and i do not blame that on you two. i love you both more than anything this world could ever offer me in return. i can't promise you that some slippery little misfit will never hurt you. but i can promise you i will call him a fucking douchebag on the internet when he does.

with love, daddy

34 is just a little older than 33
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part forty))


this time last year, i was certain i still had cancer in my body.

this time this year, i am still pretty certain that there is something bad lurking in there somewhere.

i don't have a real reason to think these thoughts. my neck is still jacked up, but i've been told not to worry about that. occasionally..., okay pretty much every day i'll feel some sort of twinge on the left-hand side of my back and think, "fuck me. there is a tumor in the other kidney now". i've been told this line of logic is irrational, too.

we lost it yesterday morning with hannah. i mean...lost. our. minds. she's been on-again, off-again congested for a couple weeks now and was pretty gunked up yesterday morning. naturally, we were out of liquid everything, so sarah suggested she take a pill. hannah freaks out. starts crying. backs herself into whatever corner that she can find. sarah starts negotiating in a very nice and concerned mommy voice. "you can do this, hannah. you put the pill on the back of your tongue. you put some kool-aid in your mouth. you lean your head back. you swallow." game over, right? hannah tries the first time and somehow performs an unintentional magic trick. the pill ends up in the kool-aid. sarah fishes the pill out of the kool-aid. hannah retreats, saying "it's nasty" and doesn't want to try again. sarah tells her that's not an option. she's already made the mistake of telling hannah that, now that the pill is wet, it really is going to be nasty. hannah will not try again with the first pill. sarah throws it away. she opens another pill for hannah to try again. this time, hannah gags and kool-aid ends up on the kitchen floor. it's now time for all of us to leave the house. we were running early. not anymore. all the while, the negotiating tactic has gone from cool and collected to "kick the door in, shoot...ask questions later" to sniper-level "we gotta take this fucker out. NOW! NOW! NOW!" i have been invoked as a weapon. "hannah, if you don't swallow this, i am bringing daddy over here and, well, you don't want daddy over here." another fail.

i come over and it's my turn. i ask hannah for her undivided attention and make sure that she hears me when i tell her "you are ruining the morning." excellent, right? i try and encourage her as best i can that she can do this. it's not scary. "here, why don't we try this. daddy puts liquid in his mouth, then puts the pill in to swallow it. try that." she takes the kool-aid in her mouth and then proceeds to toss the tiny pill under her tongue. god. dammit. she swallows the drink. catches the taste of the nasty-ass whatever kind of pill is in her mouth and spits it back out. she's crying. sarah's crying. caroline has no idea what the fuck is going on, but she is still pretty fucking stoked about her new boots that she got sunday, so she's super-cool.

negotiations have now moved from "we gotta take this fucker out. NOW! NOW! NOW!" level to "fuck it. let's just blow the city up. atomic bomb, please." i am ready to rip my lovely, sweet, smart, gentle, playful, wonderful first daughter into a million little pieces. i will rip her into a million pieces and i'll do it in front of her mother. her mother and i will laugh, laugh, laugh at each other the maniacal laugh that only parents at their wit's end with no discernible answers know and we'll take caroline to school and pretend like none of this ever happened.

hannah tearfully looks at caroline and mouths, "help. me."

caroline looks back and says, "zip my boots, mommy", making no sense at all.

sarah was finally like, "dude. we probably need to back the fuck off for a second." it's just a pill.

so, we backed off. we talked. i crushed the pill up (instead of my daughter) in hannah's kool-aid and she took her medicine. i walked out after making up with hannah. it took me a good hour to come down from never wanting to see her again. i picked her up from daycare after school and gave her a big hug. she was past the morning. i was thankful for that being the case.

this time last year, i was certain that i still had cancer in my body.

this time this year, i still wonder, but i move on with my day in the hopes that i don't.

episodes like yesterday morning and the fury with which i momentarily think unhealthy thoughts about my daughter(s), family or friends are telling. they tell me that i care again, which is different from twelve months ago. twelve months ago, i just stared into space a lot and worried about when i was going to die.

i am happy to care again, but i ashamed of how easily i can and have stepped into occasionally being a dickhead to the people that i care about the most. i suppose it's easy to do that. rather, i hear that i am not the only one guilty of it.

maybe, if i am lucky, another good report in january will free me from even more demons. maybe some of the fear and anxiety and anger and spite that boils over and into situations like yesterday morning will no longer be a part of me.

more than likely, they will be a part of me, though.

i'll just have to handle it better.

hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty-nine)
((a mommy scorned...))

editor's note: so, are you tired of coming back and checking to see if any comments have been added to "a penny..." that might add fuel to your fire??? welp, here's the supply to the ever-increasing demand, only...it's not from me this time. it's from...someone else.

that's right.

after years of negotiations, the wife has finally come down on her appearance fee. please keep in mind that she totally hates me, too, so the venom that she is shooting in my direction should be taken for what it's worth. two, count it, TWO grains of salt. 

without further ado, i present for the first time on HACAM, mommy o'kelley.

-------------------------------------------------

Now read this!!!


Kevin has asked me to blog on at least a dozen occasions. Really, I’ve been holding out to do so about topics that I can’t get out of my head, like how I don’t feel for a moment that gay marriage is a threat to my marriage or how I really hate that there are people in jail or prison at all or many other topics that move my soul and mind.

But, it’s come to this. I have to be honest. Our church family has so much potential and does so many things for its members and community. But, in the 10 years I have been coming to this church, this church family has hurt me the most of any group or individual I have ever encountered in my life. I have experienced a taste of what it must be like to be married to a politician or a coach or a minister. Apparently being vocal and being a leader invites others to say horrible things about you. Apparently it is an open invitation to vilify every action and misperceive every comment. It justifies others in making requests that you change your behavior or stop speaking your mind or just go away.

The “concerns” and opinions that make their way back to me (and I am no idiot- what I hear is only the a sample of what is actually said) and my family and my friends are usually comical in some way. My initial response is, “seriously? THAT was offensive? I thought that was the mildest of what could be bothersome.” And usually I’m amused. However, as drama and comments mount, it becomes poisonous. Some things hurt Kevin. Some things hurt me. Some things hurt our friends. But overall it is the most sickening feeling I’ve ever had.

I think I can imagine some of the asides in these “have you heard about Kevin’s blog?” conversations:

“and what about his sweet wife?”

“I feel sorry for her”

“that language! Does he use that at home?”

“I heard he beats her up. I’m sure he does.”

“I heard he hates girls. His poor daughters.”

Or maybe it’s more like:

“she’s as bad as he is.”

“she tries to make points in meetings, too”

“I heard her say a bad word once, and one time she didn’t show patience when her 3-year-old was screaming and throwing herself in the floor in the gym.”

“she lets her child sit on the stage during dinner.”

GASP!

Honestly, given my experience with the reactions to Kevin’s blog, there is no way to predict or know what other people might be saying. It’s obtuse. And frankly, I’m too tired to even think about it anymore. I get that Kevin’s blog can be offensive. I’m pretty sure he has said that before. Having had my share of arguments with my husband, he can be pretty difficult to argue with and can be infuriating. He always knows he’s right. I usually know he’s wrong. We usually reach some sort of consensus. Whatareyagonnado?

Let’s just be clear about something. If any one of the people talking behind his and our backs or any of your backs (now or at any time in the last few years) were to publish their comments and thoughts in an online forum, would you be so quick to judge those comments? I would hope so but I am fairly certain that it wouldn’t. After all, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And the past behavior in these situations really sucks.

I know that many of the people talking about Kevin’s blog have never actually read Kevin’s blog, and thus, this edition from me is somewhat wasted on the innocent. However, I can only hope that word can travel as fast that I feel like I am in an abusive relationship with members of my church as it did that Kevin looks at the internet on his cell phone during church. For the love…

During the sermon or announcements or hymns or anthem or any part of worship, how many of you can deny that you daydream? Write notes to one another on the bulletin? Make your Sunday to-do list? Look around and think about the choir’s hairdos? Wonder if we’ll get out of church in time to make it to Lee Garden before the crowd? Fall asleep? Would admission of these very human behaviors catch as much flack if you posted it on your blog or facebook? If you noted this in person or online, would word travel so fast? You all know where he sits, right? He’s not hiding it from anyone.

What really is at issue here? Is it the action/words or is it just that you are tired of Kevin O’Kelley?

It’s starting to feel a lot like the latter. We’ve seen this all before. The last time a group of church members turned on one of its own we lost a family and the “young” people who were associated with it. Actually, there are those of us whom that has happened to who haven’t left, too. Let it be known that Kevin O’Kelley does not stand alone. He has a wife and two young children. There might even be more spawn of Kevin one day (God help us all!). He has a Sunday school class (who he is on hiatus from) who loves him and looks forward to seeing him on Wednesdays and Sundays and sometimes other days of the week. He has created a Limbo atmosphere that is the biggest “attraction” we’ve had in years. But you probably wouldn’t like what any of those folks have to say either. I can almost guarantee it, because it’s out of your control. Maybe you want all of us to leave. That really would solve a lot of problems. At least until you (collective) turned on someone else…

Another aspect of this situation (and those in the past) that I feel the need to comment on is the sheer time and energy that is spent on Kevin’s blog and the loathing of said blog. Sure, my husband spends a LOT of time on the blog writing about LOTS of things he is passionate about. I can’t imagine there are those of you out there who spend near the energy discussing his man-love of (insert current sports star here) or his conversations with Kathy or his music reviews (although if you listened to some of the music he likes, you might think even less of him, if that’s possible- there are bad words in it).

What you don’t think about is that Kevin spends even more time thinking about the things that he writes about before they ever hit the page. And the marked difference in how Kevin spends this time and how many others who “can’t believe” Kevin’s blog choose to spend their time and energy is that I personally witness that Kevin spends equal time (maybe more) thinking about and participating in very important aspects of the daily life of the church. This week alone he has attended 2 meetings (both after leading soccer practice- Oh! The young minds he may taint there!) and has at least 2 meetings at the church in the coming week. He helped lead a Bible study. He coordinated a team that played over 2 hours of church softball on Monday. He will leave home without his family at 6:45 Sunday morning to prepare for Limbo. So, in coordination with all the time and energy that has been put into the blog, he’s matching that tit for tat in his daily actions at, for, and within the church and community. It’s like he never left the church staff. He’s just as busy as he was when he was the youth director there.

I’m in a similar boat in wanting to be involved in our church and community, except I don’t have the energy to fight you people anymore. I would prefer to put my thought and energy into my work and my activities in the church. I love my husband. He is not always right, but he is not always wrong. He rarely argues without good meaning and intentions behind it. If you took some time to see him as a human being, you might realize that too.

I swear my next post will be about something different.

Now, discuss amongst yourselves. Please print this installment along with the others you plan to print and distribute to your Sunday school class in your campaign to raise a rally against one of your own. I’ll put it in the Disciples’ Council meeting notes if you’d like. Just let me know.

a penny for your thoughts
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part thirty-eight))

torn.

it's what i've been for months.

torn.

torn between advocating on behalf of anonymous commenters and people that wish the pastor would send me to "christian delinquent" camp and members that wished djg had a magical influence over my hypocritical ass...torn between advocating on behalf of all the people that think know that i am the worst lay leader in the history of lay leaders and dropping this whole deal to sit in my pew, twiddling my thumbs with the all of you.

this morning, limbo started finding it's way to the crux of our situation. for 27 weeks, we've been pounding the pavement of what our function within the walls of huffman united methodist church was. did we have any function at all? was this church that was so generous to allow us one of the empty-ass sunday school classrooms to meet in representative of a system/structure/organism that we i believed in any more.

our talking point was an article whose author believed that 60 (!!!) percent of this country's population was culturally and relevantly removed from the way churches went about their business. the author (allan hirsch) lobbied his readers to embrace a new paradigm, one that encourages members of the outdated churches to take the spirit (not the letter. out of context scripture vomited from your mouth scares people. get it?) of the gospel of jesus christ to the 60 percent on their own turf in their own culture. it was an interesting angle and take. who knows where the dude came up with his numbers, but, in turn, it begged me to ask limbo this question(s).

is the "church" and church you are familiar with worth saving? is all of it's symbols and tradition and romance something worth working out the kinks, or is it time to say, "you know what? this shit isn't working. let's try something new."

a disclaimer should be entered here. no matter what you or we think of "church", there is one thing about this morning's conversation that is INDISPUTABLE. if not for huffman united methodist church and the people and our shared history and the resources and freedoms or sometimes lack thereof, there would be no limbo. it's just that simple.

on one side of the argument, you've got anonymous commenters and the like that are so blindly in love (a good thing, mind you) and loyal to their church that if some dickhead-sounding whippersnapper questions the church's means and motivations, well, then you absolutely wouldn't want to take communion from that asshole.

another side of a different coin might be interested in the idea that "church" by definition is limiting, just another governing, hierarchical body constructed so that type a's may assume leadership positions and enforce their own agendas under the guise that "jesus is lord" but might actually be operating under the "joe. q. awesome everyman is lord" concept, rarely discerning, frequently reactionary and built to eventually fail as every business model ultimately will.

before i closed our conversation this morning, i told the group that once hannah left for children's worship (didn't realize there would be none due to youth sunday), i'd yank out my phone and starting reading about football again.

reagan then asked the million dollar question that even anonymous commenters haven't asked.

"so, why even bother?"

it's a great question. a fair one. completely legitimate. and i answered him this way, the same answer that i hinted at in "the first post of september".

because i believe in the "idea" of "church". more specifically, i still believe in the "idea" of huffman united methodist church.

just because i am the definition of "hypocrisy" or a dickhead or a douchebag or an asshole doesn't give me the right as a parent to completely destroy the girls own experiences with church by poisoning them with mine.

do i see the limitations inherent in infrastructures that even call for positions such as "lay leader" (like i am qualified to lead anyone in a spiritual setting). well, of course i do. in my opinion, though, the same walls or boundaries or limits are part and parcel to any relationship. if you actively choose to marry something other than yourself, you are compromising part of yourself. if you actively choose to relate to any one thing, you say to yourself, "my experience tells me i am better off with you/it/etc. than without. let's do this shit." and when you relate to anything other than yourself, you give up on the idea that you will be solely responsible for the health of the relationship. it's not up to you anymore. it's up to y'all.

and so, as it relates to huffman united methodist church, i choose to be in relationship with the organism that is that community of faith. i choose to go every sunday even when i know people talk to the pastor behind my back. i choose to do so even when i am confident that the worship service will be, "second verse, same as the first."

i do so because i choose to. and here's the rub, anonymous commenter(s). i make all this noise because i genuinely believe in what i am doing. i believe, even if we absolutely refuse to change and make ourselves "better", that i am doing the right thing.

sucks for you, right? or not. just depends on what pisses you off and what doesn't.

i remain torn. i don't want to get in humc's way. there are days that i feel like i am more obstacle and less bulldozer.

i remain torn. i don't know if this system is what the god i love and spend time with had in mind for his work here.

while i am figuring it out, though, good thing there are several different stations for you to dunk your jesus bread in. while you're at it, maybe you can see those different stations and different options as a metaphor for our church experiences. different paths, different journeys, all finding our own way through the dark.

signed, the thorn in your side.

the end of the world
(part nine)
((without love))
(((hannah and caroline and me)))
((((part thirty-seven))))
(((((caroline turns three)))))


"is breathing just the ticking of an unwanted clock counting down the time it takes for you to comprehend the sheer magnitude of every single precious breath you've ever wasted?"





"time flies by."

or does it?

"it doesn't seem possible."

spoken by someone that lives a long way away.

"we can't believe she's so grown up either."

even her parents aren't paying attention!

i am being snarky, obviously, but this "time flies by" sentiment, well, i just don't buy into it anymore. for, right or wrong, to use a very predictable sports metaphor, everything slowed down for me last summer.

i mean, really, that's life anyway. or experience. or time served. or whatever. once you do something long enough, you get better at it unless you are intentionally sabotaging your own efforts. you see where "the blitzes" are coming from. you can "audible" around the obstacles. life, just like sports, slows down and you are better at it.

along with that, you hope to become more appreciative of it, too.

"all in nature ends in tragedy and i was the first to finally fade away from my grandfather's memory..."

these types of things happen way the fuck too often. i saw a commercial yesterday that said a woman was diagnosed with breast cancer every THREE MINUTES. is that fucking right? jesus. every three minutes, someone, some human that we share this earth with's life and their mindview is completely turned on it's head. and that's just from breast cancer. that doesn't count kidney cancer, or any other (fuck you) cancer or heart disease or stroke or alzheimer's or name that nasty/messed up anomaly that can happen to the human body. we go tripping along the light fantastic until life smashes us in the face. we are left to reimagine our foundation or hope that the one we had before the beating was strong enough to hold, strong enough to rebuild on top of. sometimes, it is. sometimes, it's not.

it took a couple years for a caroline to give a shit about who i was and deem me cool enough to share her air. thus, this birthday was pretty special for me and her. not that i went out of my way to do anything especially memorable. i didn't dress up as a clown and melt her face with fear. i didn't bring an elephant to her party. she did seem genuinely excited to share things with me, though, and that is pretty majestic.

in my eyes, caroline is a really old three year old. time hasn't flown by. it's gone by just the way it should have. slow and agonizing at times. breathy and easy at times. borderline orgasmic when she and her sister are playing with each other on the floor or laughing together or giving her parents a small window into the future and what will certainly be adventure after adventure after pregnancy (hopefully, not) and adventure.

"so much misery. so much indifference. so much suffering...this world is nothing more than what we make of it..."

you know, i don't really know shit about anything. but i would argue that life only moves too fast when we are looking backwards. in the now, a second is always a second. 60 seconds make a minute. 60 minutes make an hour. then it takes 24 damn hours to make even one day. that's a long-ass time. if you let it be that.

this world, our lives are nothing more than what we make of it. effing cheesy, really.

but true. here is to a beautiful little girl that, along with her sister and mother and my friends make my life go by just fast/slow enough.

"...too bad this child looks nothing like her daddy, ...right?"

i am so sorry. but happy birthday anyway, caroline.

hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty-six)


vacation.

friday, sarah and i drove to a chalet in pigeon forge. the first night, we had driven close to five hours to partake in two activities we very well could have found on chalkville mountain road. dinner at cracker barrel then a movie. the theater we saw inception in was hilariously outdated. it felt like the lobby of the old center point cinema six back before center point was the dollar movie destination. the theater's capacity was 85 compared with the 310 or so of the biggest trussville auditoriums. four of those 85 seats were out of order. we weren't sure why. they were covered in plastic, so any number of things could have happened. in my mind, i went with quadruple homicide. the movie experience, itself, wasn't that bad. the picture was fine. the sound was loud enough. the story was fantastic. that we drove five hours to find ourselves fifteen years back in time, well, we just found it funny.

saturday, we found more adventure. we spent a couple hours in a truly epic titanic exhibit that didn't celebrate the tragedy as much as it did the stories of those onboard. it was really well done and i can totally see a september 11th "attraction" 50 or 75 years down the road that will be equally tasteful and a fitting reminder that it's never about what happened as much as it is finding meaning in what happened. after titanic, which was preceded by our first of two trips to smoky mountain brewery, we headed to gatlinburg proper. i forgot how much the strip felt like one big carnival. all the storefronts have the same charm as the booths of any traveling fair. the attractions look second class from the outside, but, if you pay money for one of them, chances are you'll find yourself having a first class time. we ate at hard rock and then went to walgreen's. that's right, walgreen's. we redboxed a movie and bought yahtzee to take back to the cabin because i had been craving the game for a couple weeks. there is a walgreen's and two redboxes on chalkville mountain road.

sunday was nice and relaxing. we found the best french onion soup either of us had ever had. we stuffed our face and then went back to the cabin to watch precious. it was a severely depressing look into the poverty stricken world of a 16 year old, overweight, still in middle school girl. she delivered the second of two children fathered by her father during the movie. we saw that the first was born with down's syndrome. the second one is healthy. the mom is abusive. precious finds out towards the end of the movie that she is hiv positive. it was a real pick me up. well-done, but a downer for sure. after the movie, we went back out to find ice cream, mini-golf and beer and wings to close out our weekend, three of four we could've found on chalkville mountain road.

we drove five hours home to birmingham yesterday and ate lunch on chalkville mountain road at waffle house. we weren't very far into the trip when i started pining for the girls. perhaps it was precious, perhaps it was being away from them for the longest time in a while. perhaps it was other things. whatever it was, i missed them. badly. it was a good thing to get away for a while, even if we could have saved a whole lot of money by staying at the comfort inn down the road. in the long run, though, i think we both agreed that our next trip would include the girls, not finding a way to leave them behind.

we picked them up early for them from daycare and we all got back home a little before three yesterday afternoon. i exercised and the girls napped or lounged around on the couches. we had a nice family dinner around the kitchen table and, after, the girls started yelling at each other and i ended up spanking hannah for some serious not-following-directions.

yep. we were back. not that spankings happen every night. or dinner around the table. but we were back together. back pushing each other's buttons. back sharing space, sometimes comfortably, sometimes reluctantly. back being upset and making up later with hugs and time on the couch. back laughing at each other and with each other. back being family.

going on vacation was nice.

it's good to be back.

hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty-five)
((don't cry, caroline))


so far in her very young life, caroline's temperament seems (on the surface) to be a lot like her daddy's. in contrast to hannah's first couple of years, caroline is a pretty easy going kid. very sweet. mostly calm. easy to please. she has to share everything with hannah, so she is already being hardwired to push her own wants and needs to the backburner, because, truth be told, hannah's usually going to get her way.

it would be fair, as a parent, to argue the relative health of our, as parents, allowing this particular method to perpetuate itself. before you argue, though, remember that sarah is a child psychologist. she has been trained and over-educated to appreciate and react appropriately to the needs of all children, let alone her own. my guess is that if she saw us conditioning a behavior that would, in any way, lead to a dysfunctional and/or unfair disadvantage for our baby, baby girl, she would "recommend" that we discontinue the cycle.

i have been doing the single-dad thing again since wednesday and yesterday morning foreshadowed this, friday morning's events. i just didn't know it. i got the girls up from bed today. we had a tame, if not pleasant, start to the day. all went according to plan...'til we headed to the church.

...

wednesday morning, caroline moved up and out of ms. susan's class at the children's place. in theory, she seemed fairly excited with the idea of being "a big girl" and moving into ms. kim's class. ms. kim's class doesn't have a changing table. if the kids are not potty-trained (caroline isn't even close) coming into the room, it is likely through peer pressure and a distaste for wearing soiled underwear that they will be sooner rather than later. as with each class in the daycare, a move up means a little more structure, a little more learning and a little less babysitting. to those points, we felt like caroline was more than ready. ahead of wednesday, when we talked to caroline about moving to ms. kim's class, she was really into it.

i picked the girls up from their classes wednesday afternoon and caroline didn't seem any worse for the wear of her first day in the new class. she was playing on the playground with her new group. she ran up to greet me like she always does. it was happy.

thursday morning, though, was not so smooth. we dropped hannah off and the ride to the church was uneventful. pulling into the parking lot, caroline was singing some "baby" by bieber the magnificent and rapped a little with ludacris. it was pretty damn cute. we got to her class, set out her breakfast and i tried to give her some love. she started to withdraw. i tried to talk her through her routine as ms. ellen encouraged me. no response. i walked caroline over to the door for a final hug and kiss. she started to sniffle. i asked her if she would shut the door behind me. she started to cry. ms. ellen came and picked her up. she started to scream. as i walked away from her, ms. ellen shoo-ing me off and telling me it would be okay, i heard the volume of her wail increase the farther away i got. what a terrible way to start the day.

...

future-back to the same time this morning. the house part of the morning went beautifully. we had some snuggle time, the three of us, on the couch before we left. we dropped hannah off, no problem.

then all went wrong. her dread for another day in ms. kim's class began almost immediately after we pulled away from chalkville. "i don't want to go to ms. kim's class.", she exclaimed, the paci in her mouth muffling the request. "i want to go to ms. susan's class." wasn't so much a demand as it was a plea. back and forth she went like this the whole way to the church. "i don't want to go to ms. kim's class!" "caroline, you are a big girl. big girls go to ms. kim's class." "i want to go to ms. SUSAN's class!" in between the outbursts, she worked her way up from pouting to hysterics. it was terrible.

we reached the church and she refused to get out of the car. i called sarah for reinforcements, but it didn't help. i pryed her out of the car and was able to calm her somewhat as we made it into the church. as we moved up the ramp in the hallway, she began to point past ms. kim's room down the hall. one last try. "i want to go to ms. susan's class!!!"

i turned into ms. kim's class still carrying her and i could almost feel her heart break into pieces. she erupted in emotional anguish. i sat her down so that i could begin to get her breakfast out of her bag. then, the worst part.

our little two and half year old baby, baby girl reached up and opened the door to her room. she raced out, turned left and headed back towards the entrance of the daycare. i made my way into the hallway in time to see her hauling baby tail down the ramp only to be stopped by the security doors. she pounded at the glass as if she had been imprisoned and held against her will after being wrongly accused of some crime she wasn't old enough to understand. her crime? having parents that work. she's a smart girl and knows how to unlock the security door. so, she hopped to her right, hit the green exit button and then hopped back to the door. she pressed against the door again just as i made my way to her. she pulled away from me and backed herself up against the director's locked door, her soul, measured in tears, flat pouring out of her.

i finally found a grip to pick her up and pulled her up to me and against me. as i held her to my chest, she wrapped around me with her arms and held tight. i "shush, shsh, shsh"-ed into her ear and calmed her down. she did the "i am crying so hard i am hyperventilating" thing as i swayed her back and forth. she finally stopped crying. two mothers passed us and looked on knowingly. they knew they couldn't help. i am sure they had done this before. i had not.

i asked caroline if she would feel better if i sat down with her in ms. kim's room while she ate her breakfast. she didn't say a word, but she did her caroline nod and we walked back in. i set her breakfast out and sat down in one of the mini-chairs. she wouldn't sit in hers, instead choosing my lap. at that point, i wasn't sure i was going to be able to leave her.

thankfully for the both of us, ms. susan came in. she saw me holding caroline and came and took her from me. with her eyes, she told me to go and said out loud that caroline would be fine.

i left to come to the store, haunted by the experience.

the image of my sweet caroline running away in tears from her room and banging on the glass asking no one in particular to help her escape will not soon leave me. honestly, i don't want it to. it will serve as a metaphor for the emotions that i and her mom and her family and our friends will serve and protect to the best of our ability as she grows up.

i became a little bit more of a dad this morning.

mommy comes back tomorrow.

hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty four)
((she's almost a first grader))


it would be cliche for me to say something like "it's hard to believe this year has gone by so fast." or "hannah, can you believe that you are almost out of kindergarten?" like people are wont to say. or hear things like "soak it in. she'll be grown up and gone before you know it." and think "yeah, you're right" and nod my head in approval. this year has not gone by fast, though, even in hindsight. not a day of it.

i vividly remember walking hannah to her class on the first day of school. i remember what she looked like with that big backpack on walking away from my car the first time i dropped her off. i remember grilling her about her day every time i pick her up from the church after work. i remember her doing homework. i remember checking her out because she didn't "feel good". i remember her reading a bedtime story to us. her first real school year has gone by exactly as it should in exactly the right amount of time, and i am happy for that.

there aren't many silver linings to losing a kidney to a cancer that you didn't ask for, but slowing down the ever increasing pace of life has been one of them. even though i have no reason to believe otherwise, if someone says to me, "she'll be grown and gone before you know it", i cringe and hope that i am alive to see her leave. if someone tells me that she looks "so big", i nod my head and approve not because i am being considerate but because i am absolutely terrified that i will not be able to guide her or caroline through the trials of being a teenager.

god, cancer fucking sucks!!! it took a part of me. it takes bigger parts of others. the unluckiest may lose it all. it destroys or, at the very least, affects lives in the same peripherally damaging way as divorce. who knows how many grey hairs i've added to sarah's head or how many years i've shaved off her and my closest friends' lives with my inability to celebrate that i was one of "the lucky ones", instead replacing my doctor's orders to eat, drink and be merry with elephant-sized worry.

i used to dream. a lot. i never remember my dreams any more. not since last summer. why is that? i digress further.

time has slowed down significantly for me. that's for sure. i hope that it remains this way for a while. each day with the girls is one more opportunity to love them and kiss them and tickle them and then whisk them away to bed so i can watch the next to last episode of LOST.

hannah's a smart, no-longer-little girl. she was proud of herself this morning that she has received a green, smiley face every day of her kindergarten year. she should be proud.

she's ready for first grade.

yep.  

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part thirty-four))

(since two moms have called me out already (one of them, hannah and caroline's own) on the worry that the ultimate sentiment of this post may be lost in the first few paragraphs that seem to imply that girls, and therefore MY girls, are somehow second-rate, i am going to do something that i never do. edit myself. or rather, retroactively qualify a post in the hopes that, in ten or however many years down the line the first of my girls find or are given this website as my gift to them, the thirty-fourth installment of my ode within an ode to them does not make them think that i was somehow disappointed with their presence in my life.

what the below "digress"ion touches on is something that those that have known me for any period of time already were aware of. before we had hannah, i was very much infatuated with being the father to a son. not having any clue as to what, exactly, i wanted out of a boy other than to coach him in little league, hearing that hannah would be a girl was not a shock nor disappointment at all. i figured she would be the first of many children, and many of my friends and family told me they thought that a girl was exactly what i needed. and they were right. it took all of five seconds for me to tell sarah that i felt "my heart grow to make room" for her. since those first moments, she has had and will always have me wrapped around her finger. she can be infuriating of course. but i love her with every ounce of me and would give my life to make sure she had every chance at hers.

caroline is no different with one exception. the girls' mommy can attest to my tangible feeling of disappointment after we were told that caroline was a girl. sarah felt like things were different with the second pregnancy. she felt like she was having a boy. i got excited. "seth" would be here before we knew it! i wasn't so far behind kiker and andy that we wouldn't one day overlap at the ballpark. the boy would balance out the girl. the boy would annoy the girl. the boy would protect my dear, sweet hannah when they were both old enough to use each other in that fashion. it would be perfect. and then, of course, history wrote that we would have our second girl. the "1A" to my "1" in hannah. the (s) that would be added to "my muse" on the blog. the girl that is much more "like" me than hannah. the second girl that has me in every way. the second girl for whom i would give my life to make sure she had every chance at hers.

what you (and you, my girls) will read below is my always weak attempt at humor poking fun at what has now become a running joke within my circle of friends. that being that i wasn't rolling in the dirt or eating enough meat or doing something with a wrench enough to make sure my part of their creation was going to turn them out to be a dude. athletically, is turning out to be "the next mia hamm" or "the next serena williams" a dis? i should hope not. but, if the below is read as their being the next "any girl" would rank them as being of less worth than "any boy", well, i hope you (and you, my girls) know me well enough to know that's not the case.

by the time my girls end up reading this, they'll probably have a pretty good idea that their dad is stupid. and not beyond cracking jokes at their expense. and not beyond starting a blog that hopes to one day convey how much i have loved them ever since i have known OF them in a way that this stupid "boy" will never be able to say out loud.

thanks, sarah and kathy. who knows how much credit i would actually give you if you were guys. ;)

and now, back to the post...

i've held back on this post for a week longer than i usually would, because i wanted it to have a little more time to marinate. a week ago thursday, our six year-old hannah scored her first goal in what was her second ever soccer game.

that fact, in and of itself, was cause for celebration. much has been made and many times i have whined about my lack of ability in producing a boy. twice my seed has been planted. twice the fruit that harvested was born with nary a twig and most definitely no berries. does this make me less of a man? of course it does! if i was more of a man, like kiker or andy or aaron or every other buddy that i have who has stumbled into a son, i would make a boy. it's just as simple and genetically a fact as that. it has been written through my own actions and experiences that i am not worthy of offspring that might carry forward my name and legacy. my hands are not rough from work outdoors. in fact, i have been told they are quite smooth, much the same as a comely young lady's. i do not kill innocent creatures with guns. i do not wrestle. i do not fight. i do not carry a sword. i do not fancy myself a mixed martial artist. i now suck at sports. i am pretty sure i am going blind in at least one of my eyes. my elbows hurt (really??? my freaking elbows?). i bitch about headaches and neckaches and cancer all the time. i do not plumb, nor work with electricity. i can barely put gas in my car. i don't like bad smelling things. i would more than rather look for help around my house in a phonebook versus my lacking fortitude for fix-it-ness. i mean, look at this list!!! for god sakes, i am a WOMAN. when the queen mother earth blessed me and sarah with children, i had bound and determined the gender-specific fates of our offspring well before our very awkward first dance. it seems to be that i am, quite literally, a pansy.

i digress.

what the above does illustrate, though, is that i was never going to have a boy to rear. to pitch to. to teach how to swing a bat. to bodyslam. to bloody his nose. to race down hotel room halls in sockfeet. i just wasn't. so, when it comes to living vicariously through my children the athletic exploits i was never able to accomplish myself, the best i was going to be able to hope for was the next mia hamm or serena williams (without the sass). neither of those were bound to happen either, but they are girls and i have girls. it was going to be my only shot.

future-back to a week ago thursday. hannah's second soccer game. the ball squirts away from the bunch in the direction of the goal her team is scoring on, she touches it once with her right foot, swings every so mildly-wildly at the ball with her left, she makes solid-enough contact, and wouldn't you know it??? she scores!!! we are taping at the time and catch it all. i must have watched the video a hundred times over the last ten days. you can hear how excited i am. a proud daddy, indeed.

after several viewings and several days worth of reflection, though, it is no longer the goal, itself, that sticks out to me. during the last five to ten seconds of the tape, i catch a glimpse of how happy hannah is post-goal. she isn't really sure how to celebrate, so she goes over to her closest friend on the team and smiles with her. her coach leans over and gives her five, and then comes the most fantas-mic part. she loses herself for just a couple of seconds with a smile as wide as the sea fitting her face perfectly. she hops and skips elegantly towards the middle of the field, the toe of one of her cleats scraping very gracefully and purposefully across the top of the grass. in the moment, she seems utterly content. wonderful and happy. proud. of herself, which she had and has every right to be.

as that moment has baked in my brain the last several days, it has served me with many questions and one true answer. the questions have been ranging from "did she mean to do that?" to "what about that goal on that day and in that game made her react in such a happy way?" what forces in her life and what influences from me and her mother and television and school and daycare and church and friends and family led to, in that moment, the smile and the hop and the skip?

the one true answer is that i don't really know, because i am sure it is a combination of all of those influences, some amalgamation of hannah marie o'kelley's life that is already building a construct of who she is and what make her tick. what brings her joy. why she will ever be sad.

the only hope i can have, as her father, is to try and build her up through her daily routines and out of the ordinary experiences more and more chances for her to feel the euphoria that she so obviously exhibited after she scored her first goal in her second ever soccer game.

chances are, just like any solid to spectacular baseball player makes 7 outs for every 10 plate appearances, i will fail masterfully at being a father. what will be important will be what i make out of the teaching and/or celebration opportunities i am given, grooved down the middle of the plate if you will. being mindful of her likes and dislikes, emotions and anxieties, good moods and bad, maybe occasionally i'll be able to figuratively see the ball coming out of the pitcher of life's hand and put her in a position to be everything that she sees herself wanting to be.

until she is old enough to figure those things out for herself, that's all a mommy and daddy can really do, right? try to actively love very hard and put their children in as many opportunities to excel and be happy as we possibly can. to exaggerate every victory and downplay every defeat in an effort to balance their life in such a way that they have a fair and fighting chance when we hand over their keys to their adult world.

when we later watch this video with hannah, it won't be the goal that we celebrate nearly as much as the smile on her face. we'll ask her what made her so happy and help her understand "the why".

that's all we can really do, right?