Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Where she went…

Published on May 17, 2012 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

The following is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed are my own.

Gayle Forman’s novel WhereShe Went, {which is a sequel to If I Stay} focuses on a mostly 24 hour period of time, in New York City, when past lovers Mia and Adam’s paths unexpectedly cross. Both broken hearted and feeling like fragments of who they once were, they spend the remainder of their time left in the city (before each embarking on international music tours of their own) dancing around confronting their past together and the lack of closure they have from their relationship’s demise.

Personally I found that I didn’t connect with Adam or Mia at all. Perhaps this is because I never read the book this novel sequels. I found that Forman wrote emotion beautifully well, even if I didn’t identify with, or connect to it. I like the way she wrapped up the broken story of these two characters and I appreciated the way she told the story from Adam’s perspective, with only minimal (and necessary) flashbacks.

The absolute best part of the book is, hands down, how Forman writes music. She composed words on a page, music centric and wrote characters so musical that it carries the book so well and i did love reading that.

My biggest concern was honestly that this is a YA novel. I am finding more and more, when I read YA novels that I wouldn’t recommend them for the average teen girl. This book is no exception. Not only are there references to situations like hooking up with random groupies because of needs, or how it was normal for Adam to see Mia’s face in every girl he climbed on top of. Maybe this will come across as over protective but these aren’t topics that I feel appropriate for any teen girl. Coupling that with the strong emotional content and misery of the characters (one who is very addicted to prescription meds), just strikes me as inappropriate for teenagers. College aged kids, maybe. I can see that. I don’t know. This really just kept striking me, as I read… One thing I did appreciate was how unglamorous the life of a rockstar seemed. This is a good time for young adults to see that message put out there…

Are you musical? Does it make you happy?

in the end???

Published on May 16, 2012January 17, 2013 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

Once I was talking to a friend about something I believe regarding the miracle of my family and she snorted a retort that was something like “yeah, I don’t believe in miracles.”

No matter how much i tried to reason with her, she just kept saying “well, it’s not true because I don’t believe it.”

Ok then.

While I have my beliefs, (spiritual or other) I feel like I’m pretty easy to get along with when it comes to others differing beliefs. At least i try to be.

But i’m learning that there is one thing in which I simply put my food down, like my stubborn friend, and say “It’s just not true, because I don’t believe it.”

That area is our impending doom in the rapidly approaching Apocalypse.

Yesterday i was sitting beside my sister, at my nephew’s kindergarten graduation, when his teacher stood and said “I’d like to present to you the class of 2024.”

Everyone clapped, except my sister, whose brow furrowed and she said “isn’t it sad that we won’t see that day because of the apocalypse?”

Um. What???? {!!!!!!}

My little sister is a believer in Jesus. She’s a lover of Jesus. she doesn’t go to church, but totally would if there were no people there. Her way of compromise with the big man upstairs is watching church at home, pardon the pun, religiously… She’s kinda naive, and pretty much when someone says something- she believes it. If a big, famous tv preacher says it, you really can not convince her otherwise.

My little sister, who in her thirties still cries in a thunderstorm because she’s sure it’s going to be her demise… and these people she’s watching online have convinced her that the world is ending. NOW. She is literally, I gather, waiting in fear every day.

Which horrifyingly reminded me of a friend I used to have named Renee. I hung out with her in the very early days of our marriage when I was around 19 or 20. She was super artistic and had a cool life story. She was also my first exposure to a homeschooling mom.

except that she didn’t really school her 4 kids. When anyone asked her about it, she was really honest that it would be a waste of time when the rapture was going to happen within the next few years. Instead, they ran around naked whenever they wanted and danced to weird music while their mom smoked pot and sculpted.

On one particular evening Renee and i were working on something fairly artsy at her kitchen table when her 10 year old daughter asked her if she’d be pretty when she was 16. Renee, without missing a beat said “honey, you’ll never be 16 because the rapture will happen before then. No boyfriends or first kisses for you. No babies or husband.”

this would be about 15 years ago.

Yikes.

i wonder sometimes how her kids are… Which makes me wonder about my nieces and nephews, and my sister- the poster child and spokeswoman for worrying yourself to death about the most trivial things.

Yikes.

So yeah, I don’t believe in drug-pushing fear to the naive.

I don’t believe in giving a damn, honestly, about whether it’s going to be a rapture or a second coming, or a zombie Apocalypse.

i believe in being the best person I can be- or trying. I believe in spreading love to everyone but still cutting out the toxic people when necessary. I believe my kids are my ministry, and loving them is my job requirement. All of that other stuff? Who cares? It doesn’t matter. it’s a distraction from the daily life we need to live to the utmost of our abilities.

And if a zombie gets me in the end- I guess i’ll be a believer in that scenario just before I die.

hurt healing epoxy…

Published on May 14, 2012 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

After seven heart breakingly unique and horrifying miscarriages, (six pregnancies, once was twins) i found myself very ill and in need of a hysterectomy. I was 24. Almost anyone reading my blog knows this part of the story. Almost everyone also knows that we were supposed to adopt a new born from Arizona, but the adoption fell through. About 6 months later we took in a pair of foster twin girls that we grew very attached to. Their birth mother had consented, after 6 months, to sign the papers when a loophole processed her out of jail and she took them back the day before our tenth month anniversary with them.

The idea of motherhood, for me, was this crack spreading heartache and I found it impossible to grasp the beauty or joy of it. I had plenty of friends with children of their own, but i just could not quite fathom the amazingness of it. And then, I accepted this job at a group home. I met Lucas and Amanda there. Lucas was 11 and Amanda was 10, and I was so lucky to be there with them, and grow to love them more and more, over the course of the following year. In fact, much to our dismay they remained in that home until they graduated high school. Over that time I (and they) was told that my love was not real, that our bond did not exist and that our being a family was not good for anyone. I learned about how God is bigger than circumstance though, and the love and bond between us grew despite distances and circumstance. It was not ideal, even with visits twice a year and the occasional phone call and letters. In the middle of this distance, God literally dropped Genny into my lap. Everyday we tried to reconcile what our family meant, how real it could possibly be and what actual reality it could ever be- and those reconciliations would come up desperate and empty until my eyes would fall, once again, on the framed photos upon my nightstand. My heart would warm in a way that nothing before- or sense- had ever made it do. Peace would flood my veins and I would remember that the hows and the whys did not matter. All that mattered was truth, and the truth was that we were a family and belonged together.

And we got there.
Eventually it didn’t matter anymore. Eventually we could be honest and open. We could heal hurts and hearts and made family memories.
The three of them are very close, and for that I am beyond grateful. I am very close with each one of my kids, in very different ways. I have their laughter, the rise and falls of their voice and emotion, and a trillion other unique things about them filling what once were the cracks in my heart. Each ounce of loss prepared me to love them, each second of heart break determined me to love them more.

Some women get beautiful and amazing birth stories…
As for me, I got a love story.
A life story… Because first my kids, in essence, saved my life- and then they made my life far more than it could ever have been without them. My heart aches to say that they were meant to be mine, but I don’t believe that they were meant for the horrors they knew before us- so I guess it’s mostly that they are mine and I wouldn’t have it any other way…