I just bought my very first house in my very own name. The first thing I did? I put the words, “Once Upon a Time” on the archway as you enter, in shimmering gold curling letters.
But this particular fairy tale starts in the bottom of a mine, where it’s cold and dark and rocky, but there just might be jewels buried in these rocks.
Or maybe this fairy tale takes place in a forest where I’m racing through the trees on a wagon pulled by six black horses, and so many I love are getting yanked off: Oh no! there goes my father! My marriage! My best friend! My innocence! My toned arms! My flat belly!
I get to create this Once Upon a Time, and it’s not going to be a fantasy. It is something richer, deeper, truer. Perhaps in this story, I am standing on a precipice where I can clearly see how fragile it all is, how fleeting. My children are on solid ground because I have made it so. I turn to face them from the precipice. It is not yet their time to know. They already have had too many glimpses of losing love, the ground beneath their feet. But I am standing here, shielding them from the powerful truth of being human–that anything you try to grab onto and hold in your hands is just sand that falls through our fingers, no matter how tightly you hold on.
This Once Upon a time is the story of a single mother protecting her children, a woman on the other side of 50 starting from scratch, building a way to support these souls, even as I am making them.
The unknowing say, “They are teenagers. They are already baked. You are done.”
The knowing squeeze my hand and say, “Hang in there.”
My teenagers need me. I see this teen time as a really important time, a time when they need their Mom in a different way, a time they will remember. It is now I get to tell them the childhood stories that will inform who they are for the rest of their lives. This is the time I show them what it means to rise after tremendous loss. Not tell them, show them. This is when I show them how to lighten their hearts by dancing in the kitchen.
As I’m writing this I can hear my son’s heavy footsteps clomp up the stairs, a pause, and then his cracked voice yelling, “Annabelle! Where’s Mom?”
“I’m right here!” I call out. And I want him to put his hand over his own heart and know that no matter where he goes in the world, or where I am, I will always be “Right here,” my heart intertwined with his, my soul lighting his path. I want to sign some sort of contract with Rumpelstiltskin that promises to spare my children from broken hearts. But alas, there is no contract or little gremlin spinning straw and making deals.
But you know what there is?
Reaching out your hand full of sand and building a magnificent glittering castle, with room for everyone you have ever loved. You know it will soon be washed into the sea. Build it anyway. Revel in the gorgeous momentary beauty, and remember, one of the things that makes it all so beautiful is that fact that it won’t last. Nothing will. I have seen the darkness, been on my knees with grief, and I still choose love.
And so I bought my very first house on my own, and filled it with the things I love: children, animals, love, light, laughter, generosity, abundance, and of course, sparkles. I even painted my mailbox bright pink and blew glitter on it. It’s beautiful! I created my very own Once Upon A Time, and I’m not sure where it will take me, but I plan to enjoy the sparkling journey.
