Do you see how kids f*!@ your life?

Today I had the pleasure of dining with an elder "gentleman," under whose tutelage I thankfully never was. We caught up on old times and he asked me if Annabelle was talking yet, to which I replied in the affirmative and then he asked me if she had said MotherFu*!@* yet. Do what? Apparently he remembered me as somewhat of a curser. I told him that I didn't curse any more, just an occasional outburst of "balls." His response: "Do you see how kids f*!@ your life?"


Now, to say that I was somewhat of a curser is like saying that the Mona Lisa is a little sketch housed in a small building in a dreary city. That made me wonder, do I miss cursing? Was that something that was so intrinsic to my personality that I am less because of it? Because let me tell you, there is nothing for blowing off steam like letting a string of the foulest obscenities you can think of, roll off your tongue like butter. I had one sequence I liked to use in particular that was so raunchy that I can't put it in this blog because it shocks my dad and he cringes when he hears "you girls" say foul words.

My mom says you go through stages in life. She calls them etapas. And when one is over, ya bastante--you move on. And you don't move on and forget, you look wistfully back, but you move on. For instance, before we had Annabelle, we once went out for drinks at one restaurant and then headed over to Cyclone Anayas for Margaritas. At some point, something disagreed with me and I ended up in the bathroom, vomiting profusely. I thought I had a stomach ache, but then Hyphen came into the bathroom and informed me that I would get arrested for PI if I didn't pull it together, it was only then that it occurred to me that I was drunk. We drove home and I was furious with him for being so unkind to me that it was only a small consolation that I puked in his beloved car.

The Cyclone Anaya time of our marriage is over. Ya, bastante. I am glad it happened. I look back on it fondly. But I can never go back. Does this make me sad?

I don't want my baby to say "I said no, god dammit!" as one of my friends' kids did. So I stopped cursing.

I was good at cursing. I loved cursing. I am glad I did it, it was wonderful while it happened, but I can never go back to that time, even if I wanted to. That was one thing about me and does not define me and did not make me who I am.

Somehow, I don't think I am talking about swear words anymore.

Oprah once gave some advice (shocker) "You will create new normal," she said. And you do that. You do that when you have kids, when you change jobs, when you leave a job you loved, even when you quit cursing.

My current etapa leads me to the frio river where I will be camping this weekend with family and friends. We are leaving tomorrow and so far Hyphen hasn't had his usual travel meltdown, but the night is young.