When I was younger I remember my mother wanting a tattoo, and my dad telling her that if she put a picture of it on the wall and she liked it after 3 months, or 6 months, or some amount of time, that she could get it. I never saw the picture- and she never got that tattoo.

Aug 27th, 2012, 169 days ago, I put my picture up. And for the last 169 days I’ve still wanted this tattoo.

I’ve wanted a tattoo for a long time, but I never had that “picture” to hang on the wall. I could never make up my mind about something I’d really like enough to have with me forever. After I got married and moved so far from home I decided I wanted to get something with my brother. Because I’ve only got 1, so he’s the absolute best (I almost said he’s the bomb and then thought he might not appreciate the 1990’s compliment). I wanted something more than our DNA, which we had no choice in, to link us together. I want people to ask me why I have this tattoo, and say I got it with my brother, and it binds us together.

We looked at some stuff for awhile, but none of it really spoke to me.

Until recently when I found my forever ink, my constant reminder. Something that’s not about my past, or just the present or what I want in the future, but all of it combined.

N 43 51’ 58.0367”

W 103 31’ 56.1533”

This is the place where I feel whole. Where I simultaneously feel so small in the world and yet so meaningful. Where my family spent almost every vacation. The memories and love I have from here are overwhelming. It was somewhere I even took my husband when we were still dating and wanted him to love as much as me.

It’s Native American history, it’s nature, it’s Harley-Davidson, it’s tears outside a frozen lake, it’s family, it’s friends, it’s meditation, it’s a party, it’s a cold ride, it’s my dad overcoming disease and it will be our ashes.

The only problem is… getting J on board. He hates tattoos, apparently. Although I’ve heard him say how hot those rocker/50’s girls are with all their tattoos. And, he even said he’d get one, one time, in a Waffle House, with witnesses, and it wasn’t even 2 am.
I’ve been leaving hints and sending him messages at work… http://imgfave.com/view/2565757. But he’s not budging. In fact recently he’s just been ignoring the idea. Whatev’s… I’ll keep trying

And in S&J personal news updates… there’s really nothing much.
Dang, makes it hard to write a news update when all we’ve done recently is work. We’re booked for about the next 8 weekends with matches, and that 9th free one I’m sure will fill up before we get there.
I think we are however in the market for a new toothbrush holder. Since we’ve been doing a little bit more house updating it’s about time we got some house “stuff” to look like people not only hoard belongings here, but actually live here. We had to get rid of the last one because someone a little tipsy knocked it over into the sink and broke it. But more importantly GaterBait liked to sit in the sink and chew on the bristles. But she only ever chewed on J’s brush… strange. Now that we’re short one toothbrush eating cat we might be adult enough to manage a new toothbrush holder, however there is still the tipsy culprit who knocked it over in the first place.

I miss that. You were just constantly being lifted up. Because although the first week drained you, and you knew you couldn’t possibly ever smile again because you’d done it for 6 days straight and your jaw hurt and you’re sunburned, and bug bitten and sleeping in a cot… The next day was easier. It was contagious within you too. You push your personality so hard that after awhile, that’s just how you are. You’re happy. You’re optimistic.

And that was the circus was for me. That new thing I’d forgotten to look for everyday, reminding me if I don’t push everyday to find that happiness in rain, I’ll get stuck.

17 days of work, non stop

16 hours I will be sleeping on Sunday

15 hours of overtime a week (more like 15 times 2, but 30 didn’t fit in my chart)

14 steps to carry a bed up for my new coworker

13 random tree stands bought at Walmart

12 hour drive, one way

11 people who will fail the class I took, I hope one isn’t me!

10 days spent out of the office

9 states driven through

8 pounds I gained eating out every night

7 o’clock start time… still killing me

6 nights in a hotel

5 bottles of wine for the trip

4 bottles opened with a key before we found the cork screw

3 hours to complete the test

2 matches to run

1 day off until the next stretch

Joey,

I love you and Happy Birthday

Nebraska Sandhills

(2009)

For the first time in my life I feel homesick, and like crying in front of people so they know how terrible I feel. I imagine this is what depression feels like, true depression, not just the kind where you don’t want to motivate to go to class, or you’re having a bad day. But the kind that starts somewhere deep down inside you, a place you can’t quite pinpoint, like maybe inside the lining of your stomach, making every part of your body unable to move. You don’t even care that you can’t move anymore because if you just lay here, don’t eat and die, it wouldn’t matter.

I have seen more cases of homesickness than most, due to a long career of being a camp counselor in high school. I hoped I didn’t resemble any of those snotty faced 10 year olds crying for their mom, but inside, that’s how I felt. Like crying and not caring how my face looked. I also knew that the only way to get over being home sick was to be active. “Momentum Sarah,” I would say to myself, “if you start you can keep going.” Unfortunately homesickness doesn’t care to help you move, it holds you still inside yourself, until you’re so miserable, you’re crying again.

So instead of doing anything, I sleep.

********

Camaro’s sit really low to the ground, with long front ends that stretch out before the driver, and give the passenger more leg room than you would expect from a sporty car. Unfortunately this extra room doesn’t give a passenger any release because even with short legs your feet are lifted up as high as your seat. All the extra space is spread out in front of you, instead of below the seat where it is needed. I shifted my weight from one side of my body to the other, reclined the seat as far back as it would go, and fell instantly asleep. Even in such an uncomfortable position, I slept. Anytime I could sleep was less time I was required to deal with the reality of being awake.

I woke up from a dreamless sleep only because my leg was becoming numb all the way from my hip to my ankle. It burned like small fire red needles were being slowly pushed into my skin because I had no room to adjust anymore. Nathan was driving my car this part of the eight hour drive. Mom asked me not to let him drive once we arrived in the bigger, crowded city because he had the aggressive habit of constantly accelerating around cars, so I rested now, while he maneuvered around cars on the interstate with one hand rested on the top of the steering wheel, and the other laying lifeless in his lap.

I looked over at Nathan, today he became older than 18. Maybe he even looked it. He shaved exactly 2 days ago, the day of his high school graduation. Now there was dark hair growing across his jaw line that didn’t quite fill in to a full beard. Instead it grew in sparingly in patches that he deemed too small to shave off. He had the broad shoulders of a boy turning into a man, and muscled arms from a year of lifting to play football. His dark complexion matched his hair and eyes. They were strikingly different eyes than mine which were sterling blue; because his were a chocolate brown so dark you couldn’t distinguish the color from the black middle.

When he walked across the stage last Sunday he looked tall until he stood next to the other seniors. Our father was not tall either, only reaching 5’9” when his was hair patted down. Watching Nathan graduate was hard to handle, not because I worried about him going to college. He was ambitious and taking a pre-med route; he made good choices, was level headed, and hard working. I was not sad that he was leaving; I had already located myself 14 hours from his college of choice pursuing my own dream. That moment was terribly excruciating because I held out a cell phone in front of me hoping the microphone the principle was talking into would create a loud enough sound to be audible through the phone.
“Randall Tyler Anderson” followed by clapping and some cheers from her family. He was next.
“Please work,”   I prayed. My stomach felt like a hard knot that was slowly moving its
way up to my throat.
“Nathan Phillip Broeker”
“Please let them hear,” I was hoping. I waited until after the applause and yells and watched Nathan exit down the stairs of the stage before ducking my head below the crowd, “Did you hear it?” I asked. I could hear my mom choking back loud sobs. “Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Hearing my mom cry made me want to start bawling again. Neither she nor my father saw their baby walk that day. The pictures they see will never recapture his orneriness, although they will see he wore an old Sturgis Motorcycle Rally shirt under his formal gown. They will not see his pride, just a gold medal that means he graduated with honors.

Being parentless during that time I spent the rest of the day of the verge of tears. Every time I greeted a newcomer to Nathans’ party I smiled, welcomed them inside, and pointed them in the direction of the new graduate and the food line. I stood at the front of the door for a reason, so I could answer the question “Where are your parents at?”, and save Nathan from having to answer.

We were the only car driving down the thin gray road. It led us towards an unknown stage of our lives. The idealist dreams we had of being protected together as a family was shattered by a small white line on the scanned picture the doctor sent home on a cd. It looked like a smudge in the picture, maybe just an error in the machine. But picture after picture proved that this mark was not going away. At first Nathan and I just continued with our everyday movements; wake-up, eat, smile, sleep. We didn’t speak of the smudge on the pictures, or what would happen if this unknown disease was degenerative or even lethal. At the end of his graduation party we opened each envelope and gift. We both tried to parent each other, me attempting to control the events, running between the house and the party, fixing the decorations, setting out the food and greeting everyone, and Nathan by being his relaxed self. He never worried something wasn’t going to go right, or stressed about the success of the party, he simply went with the flow, letting me release my emotions into the chaos of the preparations.

Rarely in the last two years had we had time to spend between just the two of us, and now the situation was less than ideal. Before I had gone to college Nathan and I had a close relationship, but I never imagined we’d need to pull together closer for support. The last two years when I had been 14 hours away we rarely spoke on the phone. However when I came back home it felt like that time away had been days. He would pick up telling me a story like just yesterday I’d heard the beginning. He would recall his adventures of senior year and we’d even reminisce old adventures we’d had. Like the time we had gone to haunted graves together, and I made him walk behind me so nothing snuck up on us. The last few hours made me realize how I was now coming to respect Nathan for the man that he was becoming. I knew over the last few months with dad’s health slowly decreasing Nathan had been put in charge of watching him and making sure he didn’t overwork himself. Even when the doctors didn’t know that a growing brain lesion was what was making him feel sick, they knew something was wrong. I wasn’t there to help, or be comforting; I know Nathan had to handle everything on his own. The only thing I could do in return for him was host a graduation party, call mom to hear his name called when he graduated, and divert people from asking him too many questions. It didn’t seem like enough for what he’s already had to do.

The office has provided me with the opportunity to get pretty good at some finance-related skills though. Like, I’ve mastered typing numbers. I made that project number uno of importance when I got this job, cause I thought there’d be a lot more number crunching, and typing fast on the calculator, but really there’s not. I use the calculator more often to figure out how many more hours I have to sit here to get to a 40 hour work week, than to add actual bank stuff. But for a while I did enter some serial numbers into a spreadsheet, and that’s where I got my real practice. I’m pretty confident I could type a whole page of numbers without looking at the pad at like a 97% rate.

Here’s the other good thing about working in finance; I’m never required to make ideal chat with people about my job. Because as soon as you tell someone you’re an accountant- done, they have no more questions about what you do. You’re officially the most boring person they’ve ever met, and sometimes, I’m ok with that. Cause really dentist, I don’t want to chat with you, I want you to clean my teeth so I can get home and play guitar hero in my leggings and knock off uggs.

I can’t talk about my job without mentioning my husband works here too! So I always have someone to eat lunch with. And our company requires we have Yahoo! messenger chat so we can talk to people in other buildings. So basically all day long we just send each other funny cat pictures through IM’s. It’s way better than texting cause if my boss walks in it looks like I might be talking to shipping about an important account error (Which I’ve never done, but I’m assuming that be a legitimate use).

But the best part is… unlimited internet access. Hence, the start of my blog writing. So, Welcome 2013! Let the year of writing begin!