Sparkle

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I lost my sparkle.  

Wait, let me start again.

A few months ago, my sparkle vanished.  It was taken by a wicked troll because I wouldn't give her chocolate.  

No, that's not quite accurate either.  

I lost my sparkle.  It just sort of went away for a while.  Things got messy, my brain felt full of cotton with a few pins left in.  And now, thanks to an assortment of awesome friends and family, and a tiny bit of work on my part, that sparkle is coming back.

I guess I should give you some back story.  As far as you know, "my sparkle" is code for my fuzzy pet bunny who went to live on a farm.  No bunnies in this story I'm afraid.  Not real ones anyhow.  

My partner, son, and I moved to Texas four years ago.  We moved for two reasons: First, I am impulsive and thought it was a great idea, why the hell not.  Second, partner got a good job here.  A job which would allow me to stay at home with our son.*

It was scary to move to Texas.  The farthest I had lived away from home was a three hour drive.  A drive that I knew well because I came home entirely too often.  Partner had never lived more than 15 minutes from almost everyone he knew.  We would be on our own, with a spastic three-year-old, in what is arguably one of the most conservative places in the country.  What the hell were we thinking?

So I started to fold up my sparkle.  It is huge, you see, my sparkle.  Imagine a map, one of those big road trip maps.  The ones that never fold back just right, and you can't quite see and navigate safely while driving.  That is my sparkle. It is rainbowy and glittery and glossy.  It is loud and obnoxious.  It makes you get show tunes stuck in your head.  And for reasons I don't quite understand, people are either drawn to it or are repelled by it.  I was alone all day with my son.  I was lonely and scared.  And I didn't want people to be thrown off by my sparkle.  So little by little, I folded it up.  

At last it was pocket-sized and I was miserable.  My sparkle is my driving force.  I was like a stalled boat in the water with no paddle.  Not still, I could drift a bit.  Sometimes I could reach down and try to paddle with my hands.  I didn't capsize.  But I also didn't feel that I could do anything: no fun, no purpose, not even get to shore.  I was stuck in deep waters, scared of drowning if I took a risk.

Many loving people rescued me.  They figuratively and literally repaired me enough to get to shore.  It hurt sometimes.  It was mortifying, it was scary.  And it was all done with love.  

Now that I'm on solid ground I am starting to unfold my sparkle.  Some days I can show it off, let it glint in the sun.  Some days I hold it tight.  It is my security blanket, you see, and sometimes I need to keep it close to make sure it doesn't go anywhere.  But it is there, and it is getting some fresh air.  Purely this act of writing in this blog is evidence of that.  Thank you for seeing my sparkle for these few minutes.

And then an imaginary bunny came hopping by and gave me a cupcake and a kiss.  

*Being a stay at home mom, especially to our son, deserves its own blog entry.  Hell, it deserves its own blog.  And shots of tequila, all around. Man I love that kid, but whew, he is the complete opposite of a boring kid.