Our First Year Together

We took the girls to the county fair today.

You don’t understand. I LOVE THE FAIR. I love it so much, only capitalized letters can possibly capture my love affair with fairs. Polish sausages with onions and peppers. Foot-long corn dogs. Multi-colored cotton candy in bags. Deep fried things on sticks. Airbrushed hats. Embroidery while-u-wait. Mechanical bulls. Teeny-boppers dressed skankily. Toothless rednecks with mullets. Carnies. The Zipper.

Yes, I love love love the fair.

Last year at this time, the girls were tiny balls of cells embedding themselves in my uterine lining. I didn’t know. I mean, I suspected. I kind of knew. But I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get pregnant again right away (I’d miscarried just two months earlier). So I drank a few beers at the Budweiser tent. Chris and I rode my beloved Zipper and the Egg Beater. I smoked. I smoked a lot, with the abandon of a woman who secretly suspects she’s pregnant but is so self-indulgent she hasn’t given up cigarettes just yet.

Tomorrow, Monday, marks one year since I found out I was pregnant. I woke up feeling hopeful. Maybe a little scared and guilty too. I had a stash of early pregnancy tests ready, two days before my period was even due. With the early spring sun streaming in the bathroom window, I ripped open the foil packet to my First Response Early Pregnancy Test. No need to read the directions — I was a pro already, having spent entirely too much time Googling pregnancy test result photos. Piss piss piss. I set the test down, went about my business, peeking out of the corner of my eye for that second pink line.

And there it was. Faint as hell, but there it was.

I often think about my past. The way I’ve treated my family. The dangerous situations I’ve put myself in. All the horrible things I’ve done and said to the people I love most. Sometimes, the guilt and shame make me want to stab my ears with steak knives. Honestly, that bad.

So, while stuffing my face with a pretzel dog at the fair today, I glanced at these two (two!) little beings who trust me and their father more than anyone else in the whole wide world and I wonder what the fuck I’ve done in my miserable life that has given me this incredible privilege of raising two (two!) painfully beautiful little people.

Happy first year together, little people.