The Beginning - 365 Days of Change

January 1, 1990

"Well hello, you are much nicer than my other diary...."

Dear Jennifer,

Where do I start? 18 years ago you left this planet and I thought I could hold it together.

Mom and dad have decided to live their life to the fullest.  A beautiful new red truck sits in their driveway ready to haul a massive 5th wheel, but only after they sell their house.  That is what starts our adventure and the importance of my blog.  Mom called me up and asked if I would go through a few boxes.  I immediately, being the doting child that I am, told her I would help her.... next week. (I never said I was fast.)  Next week, of course, didn't fly with my mom and it moved up to Saturday, November 12th.

The first box I opened was like Christmas.  I knew that I had put my wedding gifts somewhere! I just didn't realize I had stored them at my parents, for almost eleven years.  I kept telling Patrick I knew we had towels somewhere, I didn't think I was crazy.

I'm a proud new owner of - Spatulas, Pyrex bowls, a mixer, towels, and a cape cod bottle of sand. SCORE!

The second box was more gifts, and my engagement photo signed by everyone who attended my wedding.  Including a friend of ours who had died two-three months after our wedding. He was young, too.

Finally, I eyed the boxes in the corner. "Jennifer"  was written on the top.  I pointed to the boxes and told my mom, "Let's go through them."

Cobwebs clung to them, and I admittedly screamed like a little girl.  My mother shook her head and informed me I act like my ten year old daughter.  Wrinkling my nose,  I opened the first box.  It was a bunch of old papers, but also her final research paper from CU Boulder.  She had talked about Piezo's and some physics, and some math that went far above my 8th grade math teaching head.  I looked through it quickly and put it down. I had felt I was transferred to the land of physics and I was NOT welcome.

The rest of the boxes had college pictures, trinkets, and all her aerodynamic books, which apparently I'm a proud owner of too, since I couldn't bring myself to toss them. I like to reason with myself. "Oh man, I have a friend who teaches aerodynamics, they could really use this." The truth is, it will probably look like this.

"Hey! I found some books on aerodynamics."
"Uhm, thanks?"
"Yep! They were my sister's i'm sure they could really help you. Don't mind that they were published back in the 90s.. I don't think aerodynamics has changed too much."

They don't want it, but see, people are afraid to hurt my feelings because, well, I cry at the drop of  a hat. Yep, I'm one of those. Stay clear.

The last box we went though, even though there was more, held 3 little diaries.  I was shocked, my mom picked one up and started reading it. Last time she found a diary, she couldn't bring herself to read it. I snatched it from her hand and stated proudly, "Uhm, I can! I'm sure I've broken into many of her diaries as a kid."  The day we went through those boxes, is a day I won't forget, but did start me on thinking about a journey. That was before I met Pat, about 13 years ago on a January 1st, mom felt we needed to do house cleaning. I felt she was WRONG.

Going back to the three diaries.  My mom and I started reading pages together while my dad helped load his truck with boxes of wedding gifts, (hallelujah!) all my Christopher Pike and RL Stein books, and the aerodynamic books, which I'm sure i'm going to use.  Our voices would break occasionally, as we would laugh and remember the good times we had.

Jenny, you never wrote anything mean. You were sick all your life, and you did NOT write one mean thing about anyone, anything or your situation.  People would call you too nice, too naive, but the truth is I don't think you had a mean bone in your body, if there was the opposite of the Grinch, a kid who was nicer than Cindy Lou Who or Pollyanna, you were her.

There was one that you wrote about how much you loved mom and dad, and we all just cried.  Eighteen years have passed and people tell you time heals. They are full of shit. They have never lost anyone like you.

I called my husband when I got in the car, and started with.
"Please forgive me."  he asked Why, and I informed him we have inherited all my sisters crap.  He just opened the garage and started finding spots for it.  He was excited over our wedding gifts though!

I took your three diaries and started reading them, two hours went by, a million tears, a lot of laughing and my son pulled on my shirt.

"Mom, you and I are supposed to have a lunch date."  Ah! That's right.  We got in my husband's truck and drove to CiCi's.  That's his favorite.  I started thinking of the diaries as my son watched Powerpuff Girls and scarfed his many flavored pizzas.

Life is short.

I want to be a writer.  I've always wanted to be a young adult writer. I used to write all the time, get my husband into my stories. Look at it the next day and hit the delete button. I never felt my writing was good enough.  I decided I need to start somewhere again. Only this time, I need accountability.

Life is short, Jenny's life was 25 years.  The average female life span is what, 79 years old?  Friends of ours have passed in their 30's and 40's.

I have decided for 365 days, I will try one new thing a day.  The diaries made that significant of a difference. Live to be the person I want to become, and try new things, I only get one shot, right?

I called my mom on the phone and told her my idea. She was supportive as always. I have the most supportive parents. I was the "Arts" daughter. I was the one who colored outside the lines, the one who took 10 years to get 1 degree because I loved college, the one who never did anything the right way and always found another way to see something.  I was/am weird.

My son and I got home and I opened the door and saw my abacus lying on the floor. Christian, my kiddo, looked at me frustrated. "Can this thing help with division?" I nodded my head. You see even though I'm an arts person, I went and got my Masters in Mathematics Education. I wanted to understand why math didn't come easy to me nor other kids.  I ended up getting my answer and falling in love with the art side of math, the patterns, the beauty of numbers.

I sat down with Christian on youtube and we figured out how to use an abacus together.  My 8 year old went from not understanding how to do 12 divided by 3 to doing 365 divided by 5.  He figured it out and we spent an hour learning how to do it just right.  I sent my mom the video of him doing it.  She replied with "Well, there is your first thing you learned. Day 1 is down."  (Told you she was super supportive)

Day 1.  Learned how to divide on an abacus.

So Jennifer, if you are somewhere in the universe watching my journey, and anyone else who has stumbled on to this journey of mine,  know that life might be short, but taking it one day at a time, and knowing not what tomorrow will bring, but looking forward to the adventure, makes everyday something to treasure.

Day 1 down. Curious as to see what Day 2 brings. <3