More things I live for:

1. The song "Yellow" by Coldplay, or maybe I've mentioned that. Pandora, I live for Pandora.
2. My slum lord sending me pictures of my new apartment. (To all of my UNO people, don't worry, it's not really the slums. Also, I miss you!)
3. Saying I have a slum lord.
4. All my yoga dudes saying I kicked their butts in class Monday.
5. Having amazing friends.
6. Going to NYC in tomorrow!!
7. One of my cycling dudes telling me he's worried about me riding the subway in New York. One of my favorite women at the gym responding with, "Erin, you just wear short sleeves the whole time. No one will mess with you."I like this because my gym family loves me, however, it also makes me feel slightly manly.
8. When someone gets Beetlejuiced and I don't have to be around when said person shows up.
9. Code names. Ie, Amber Alert
10. Knowing it's less than 2 weeks until football season.
11. The guy who told me my mom was beautiful and I look like her. Also, all of my high school friends who sang Erin's Mom (tune of "Stacy's Mom") to embarrass me. I'm embracing it now. Not that I want to be considered hot by high school boys, but I think that's a sign I'll be decent looking when I'm 50.
12. I'm sad to know that The Labyrinth will be playing at the Dundee Theater this weekend and I'll miss it, buuuut it does remind me that I really love that movie and all the oddities that come to mind when I think of it.
13. Long letters/emails. I miss the days of writing letters or notes to friends in class. I also miss talking on the phone before bed. Do people even do that anymore? If so, I need to find them and become phone buddies/pen pals.
14. When a good looking guy under 40 comes in to my gym. You'd think this would happen often. It doesn't.
15. Lemon bars.
16. That I added 2 classes to my schedule that are farther away from my house to teach all fall so I can avoid teaching one kickboxing class.
17. So, I find a lot of cutlery lying around outside and I've started collecting it. Don't worry, I don't use it to eat off of, I just, I don't know, collect it. I found a fork on my run on Sunday. Carried it for 7 miles.  I live for finding random cutlery. I also live for the fact that I'm comfortable enough with myself and my oddities that I can admit that.
18. I'm from Norfolk, Nebraska, pronounced Nor-fork. When I told someone the story of why it's pronounced that way he said, "so you're a Norforker?" Why, yes. Yes, I am. I think Norforker is funny.
19. Finding out that my cousin's boyfriend has been called a centaur by fellow Nebraska D-lineman, Eric Martin.
"I am the vocal one on the d-line. Cam (Meredith) doesn't really say anything… Jason (Ankrah), he's just a centaur. You know, centaurs are pretty quiet. You just give them a sugar cube and they walk away."
- Senior Eric Martin describing the vocal leadership on the defensive line.
20. That Eric Martin knows what a centaur is.
21. That Eric Martin apparently also knows that centaurs are quiet and you just have to give them a sugar  cube. 

Leaving Home

“Hannah, are you ready? It’s almost time to go,” David said to his wife.

She picked up her suitcase and the briefcase, which held all of their documentation that would get them past the border into neutral Sweden from Denmark, and took one last look around their beautiful home. Ready? How could she ever be ready? Were her bags packed? Yes. But how could she fit their whole lives into one suitcase? Were the boys ready? Yes. But how can they know that this was forever and not a vacation like she had made it sound to them?

“Oh, David, how did it ever come to this?” She sighed. Many of their friends and family had left Denmark when they began hearing of what happened to the Jews in Germany and Poland. It wasn’t long before they heard the Nazis were turning north. Their closest relative, a cousin of David’s, and his wife packed up and moved to America a month after Kristallnacht, over a year before. They were young and had no children. They worked as teachers in the city. They were easily uprooted and transportable. They hadn’t spent their lives running in the Danish countryside. They hadn’t worked their hands to the bone milking and caring for cattle for their livelihood. They hadn’t turned an acre and two milking cows into one of the most profitable farms in Denmark. They hadn’t built something they had planned to give their children one day like her parents had given to her and David.

“Mommy, now we are going to take our boat ride?” Immanuel stood beside her. He was bundled in his coat, hat, and mittens for the ride. Even though it was September and 50 degrees she had made them all wear as many layers of clothing as they could so that they’d have more when they got to Sweden.

“Yes, baby.”

“Hannah? I have to do it now. Are you ready? Put everything in the car we have to be at the boat in three hours. I have to do it now,” David said poking his head into the bedroom where she and Immanuel stood.

She nodded. “Come, Immanuel, let’s go find Adam and the three of us will play the piano and sing one last time before we go.” She toted the bags to the car and she and Immanuel called Adam in from the yard to sit down at the piano. David trudged out to the barn with his shotgun over his shoulder. Hannah suppressed a sob as she saw Lady, their Shepard, bounding along beside him.

“Momma? What’s wrong?” Immanuel asked.

“Oh, nothing! What shall we sing?”

“‘Op, Lille Hans!’ ‘Op, Lille Hans!’” Immanuel chanted.

“No, that song is for babies. Please can we sing something more fun?” Adam whined, since he had turned 10 and was now a “double digit,” he thought the sweet things of his childhood were behind him. How Hannah wished she could keep him and her five-year-old Immanuel innocent forever.

CRACK! A gunshot echoed through the air.

“What--?” Adam started, but Hannah began banging on the piano keys and singing “Op, Lille Hans” as if her life depended on it. Immanuel joined in and began dancing around the sitting room. Hannah sang louder. She could still hear the gunshots. “Grab some pots for drums!” She shouted on a break from the lyrics. Immanuel grabbed pots and wooden spoons from the kitchen. Adam took two lids and banged them like cymbals. The boys stomped and sang and banged their pots.

Damn, David thought as he puked again. He stood panting over the corpse his favorite cow. He’d killed her and her stall mate first not sure that he’d have the courage to save them for last. She hadn’t done anything to be his favorite. There was just something about her big eyes that seemed so humanlike. She had always pranced a little when he came in for milking. She was the only cow he talked to. Hell, when Hannah and the kids were staying at her parent’s house in Randers that cow and Lady were the only two living things he spoke to.

Lady. Damn. Damn! Damn! Damn! They had been so focused on the boys and setting up the boat and destroying the cattle so that the Germans couldn’t use them, they hadn’t decided what to do about Lady. She lay whimpering in the corner of the barn. The gun had scared her; and yet she didn’t leave him. She still trusted him. She couldn’t go with them. If she stayed at the house there would be no one to feed her. If he let left her outside she’d freeze or starve to death soon. There was no one they knew who could afford to take her in and things would be tighter once the Nazis arrived.

He bent down, cupped his hand under Lady’s chin and kissed her nose. Her tail thumped the floor. David scratched her belly one last time in her favorite spot and she squirmed with pleasure. With shaking hands David reloaded the gun and stood over his dog.

On what felt like the thousandth round of “Op. Lille Hans” David stumbled into the room. Tears streamed from Hannah’s face, but she couldn’t stop singing.

“Hannah, it’s done. We have to go,” he croaked.

She couldn’t stop singing. “Hannah!” he shouted. “Hannah!” The boys had stopped singing and their instruments dropped to the floor. Hannah continued to sing. David put his arms around her. “Hannah, I did it. It’s over, we’ll be OK.”

She drew her fingers away from the piano and David led her to the car. Hannah gasped when she saw the flames licking the side of the barn.

“Shhh,” David whispered. “Don’t let them see.”

She nodded. “Why?”

“I couldn’t let them lay there and rot.”

She nodded again. With the boys in the backseat and the bags in the trunk, David grasped Hannah’s hand with one of his and with the other he drove them away from home. 

Sometimes life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you are going to get. Sometimes life is like having to go to lunch with your evil grandmother and you know exactly what you are going to get and exactly how much it will suck. Is it better to unknowingly bite into a piece of dark chocolate covered coconut or to see the nastiness coming head on? I'll take the surprise. At least you can always spit it out and find another.

Sometimes a picture of the love of my life pops up online and I want to post "OMG I love you" on it and then I realize Oh, Johnny Depp doesn't have Facebook and if he does, we aren't friends. Damn.

     When I'm stressed out, I have very vivid and emotional dreams about the people I love. I had a dream the other night that I think could turn into a really cool paranormal short story. I've never written anything about the paranormal and I hate short stories. However, I can't let go of this dream! It's been haunting me and I think if I write the story, maybe I'll be able to let it go. The problem is that I don't know what the story is. My dream was basically a conference of all the people I loved, dead and alive, move toward the afterlife after my own death. The ones who were alive were telling me goodbye and that they'd be ok without me and the ones who were dead were there to answer my questions and take me on. On to where I don't know. Basically, I thought I'd died and I woke up bawling before a story came about. Or maybe there was no story. Any way, what I've come up with is kind of a personal essay that's actually quite depressing.

I didn’t remember what happened before I was climbing the stairs to the attic above Paulyn’s Dance Studio. I hadn’t been in the studio since I was fourteen. I didn’t even know they had an attic, and really, maybe they don’t, but I know that’s where I was. Funny how that’s the place my soul decided to go when I died. I wasn’t even good at dance.

I climbed the stairs and it was dark and everyone was waiting for me at the top. Even the ones who weren’t dead yet. That’s still the weird part, I think. I mean, I get that when you’re going to the party to help you cross over into the afterlife that all your dead loved ones might be there, but one’s who’re still alive too? That’s a little odd. But, I guess, who am I to question the laws of the afterlife?

“Grandma!” I cried when I saw my mom’s mom. I barreled over to her and she tinkled over on her little tiptoes to me, pulling me in for a hug and huge smacker on the cheek. My grandma is dead. I hadn’t seen her for three and a half years. Damn that hug was good.

Crappy couches that looked like they’d all come from various Goodwills around town, like the First United Methodist Church’s youth group room, squatted all over the attic. Floral ones, ones with ripped pleather, ones with stuffing coming out—you know, classy stuff that obviously belongs in the attic of a dance studio, at the top of the stairway to Heaven.

Grandma held my hand and sat me down on a fuzzy pea green couch that I’m pretty sure could have been the hide-a-bed that used to be in our cabin. I ran my hand along its cushion. I wonder how Paulyn’s got this couch, I thought. Didn’t we throw it away, like, in the nineties?

I cuddled up closer to my grandma.

“Erin,” she said. “Don’t you want to know why you’re here?”

I looked around the room. My mom, my Uncle Terry, my cousin Darby, Aunt Linda, my cousin Nicole, my old roommate Laura and this child I’ve had dreams about since I was young (I’d been assuming she’s the child I’d somehow acquire when I was old—key word acquire) were all there. I don’t know if maybe you only get a few supporters or these were just my supporters who were available to help me on, but that’s who was there. Maybe they’re the ones most in-tune with the spiritual world. Or maybe they were all sleeping at this time and came to me in their dreams. I have no idea.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “You all died?” My head fell between my knees and vomit that clashed nicely with the pea green couch exploded from my mouth. Holy crap, I thought. Pull it together, Erin. If these guys are all dead, there’s a whole lot people who are going to need you to take care of them

“Oh, Sweatpea.” My mom sat down beside me, sidestepping barf, and put her arms around me sobbing.

“Erin, you died,” my grandma said.

“Huh?” My head snapped up. I looked at my mom, but she just wailed, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to speak anymore. She was wearing a green and purple paisley top with white capris. The outfit I thought looked best on her even though, even in white pants, she had no butt. Thank God I didn’t inherit that from her. I am her from the tips of my toes (our second toes are a tad longer than our big toes. Freaks us both out.) to my love handles to the freckles on my nose, but I have a great butt. Sometimes I think it’s one of the reasons people want to take my fitness advice.

 My aunt Linda sat down to hold my mom. They’ve both lost it. My grandma, stronger than her daughters, tells me that she and my angel are here to take me on. That I can go whenever I’m ready or stay as long as I want.

“My angel?” I asked.

The little girl with soft brown hair and big blue eyes hops off of the arm of a hideous yellow suede couch and holds out her hands to me. She has wings.

“I dream about you,” I told her.

“I know. You call me Ande Rae Darby. Ande for the Andes mountains of the land and language that you love, Rae for your mom and grandma and Darby for you. You thought I was the child you’d find yourself raising one day. The child that you didn’t want, but would land in your lap somehow and you’d take care of and love her just like you take care of everyone else around you.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you.” I gripped her hands tighter. My eyes darted back and forth between her clear eyes. For as long as I can remember I never, ever wanted kids. However, I did feel that some day one would be, I don’t know, plopped down at my doorstep or something, and I’d rise to the occasion and parent this lost child. She had to know, just because you don’t go out seeking something doesn’t mean that it’s not a blessing when it finds you.

“I know. You would have been a great mom. When we leave here though, you can be whatever you want to be. Everyone is taken care of,” she said.

“What if I’m not ready to leave?” I asked. There are so many things I haven’t done! I thought. I haven’t seen the Mayan ruins, or published a damn book yet. I haven’t been to Spain or Africa or competed in my first Ironman. I haven’t even been to freaking Harry Potter World in Florida! My mom and brother will never survive without me! God, I'll never fall in love. I'll never get to grow old with someone and walk hand in hand on the beach and celebrate 50 years together and find that one person whose screwed up is the perfect match to my screwed up. 

 “You stood on top of Machu Picchu, wrote a novel, helped your brother grow into the person you are most proud of and were happy to wake up every day for the last year. Do you know how lucky you’ve been? You committed yourself to living every day. And you did.”

“But only for the last year. I wasted 23 years trying to figure life out. I’m just getting the hang of things and I die?” I asked.

“Do you regret anything?”

“I just wish I’d figured it out sooner.” My shoulders slumped and I let go of her hands to catch my head before it fell into my lap. “Where are we going?” I mumble.

 “Wherever you want. The afterlife is what you make it. What you believe,” Gandma says.

“I don’t know what I believe,” I said.

“Yes, you do.” Ande grabs my face with her hands and makes me look at her. “You certainly know what you don’t believe. You’re afterlife will accept all people who were decent human beings. It’s simple with good food you never have to cook if you don’t want to. Everyone you love will be there as you need them and there’s a library like in Beauty and the Beast. Music plays fit to your mood whenever you need it and you never have to wear a bra. There are lakes and green grass. It’s essentially Nebraska summer and fall all year round and you can travel to any place you would have wanted to see in this world. This is your definition of paradise.”

“But where’s the passion and the drama? Where’s the randomness of real life? That’s what makes life interesting. What about bad days? You have to have bad days to appreciate the good ones.” I jerked away from her touch. Panic squeezed my heart. I couldn’t breathe. Did I need to breathe? I wondered. My heart was sure banging away in my ears, even in death. For the first time I thought I might lose my composure too.

“It’s all what you make it. The afterlife is a grand story and you’re the author and main character. You can give yourself whatever drama and passion you want,” Ande said. “Now you can make all of those stories and daydreams you used to create for yourself a reality. It’ll be fun, you’ll love it.”

“But it won’t be real. It’s me, for eternity, stuck inside my own head with just my imagination to entertain myself. The people and places I love will just be props I can move about in my own stories. That sounds more like Hell,” I said.

“You don’t believe in Hell,” Ande replied.

“I’m not going,” I said. I looked to the people around me who were supposed to be there to support me and make my transition easier, but none of them would meet my gaze and one by one they faded away.

“You already have,” Ande said and she vanished too.

I was alone now, in my room in the house where I grew up on Sunset Avenue, Norfolk, Nebraska. I knew I could conjure up my mom or my dog or whoever I wanted to sit with me, but I also knew it wouldn’t really be them. I wondered for a moment how I died, but just like in life the past doesn’t matter any more than the future does. What matters is this moment. In life, who knows what each moment will bring? In death, I realize, my one moment is eternity and I’ll never wake up again with the excitement of not knowing what the day will bring.

I lay down in my daybed, pulled the covers over my head manifested an eternity of sleep. 

     I may have done stupid things in the past, I may obsess too much about the future, today may have been a Monday and I definitely didn't want to leave bed, but I got up, and this may be the two yoga classes in me or dark chocolate Reese's in my mouth talking, but I'm glad for today--thank you for guilty pleasures: bikes, Monday morning talks with Jenny G., "What's Your Fantasy" Radio on Pandora and the aforementioned Reese's.

You can always tell a man who was raised by women. He's polite and never leaves the toilet seat up. #maybeineedtofindamama'sboy