the new house! from jess howard on Vimeo.

We are moving in three two days. In two days we are moving into the home i bought last summer. The home that has caused me more stress than anything else in my life.

I know i have put so many other stresses into that home.

Everything would be okay if my house didn't burn down.

And that is not completely fair. My house didn't make my mouth all wonky. My house didn't make me file for divorce. My house didn't make me nearly lose my life and my mind.

But, everything would have been so much easier if my house didn't burn down. I can't really put words to the trauma me and the kids have felt these six months. Living out of suitcases. Waiting for what has seemed like years to be in our home.

I was waiting in line at the insurance office the other day and reading an ad about buying insurance and it said that 1 in 2750 homes burn down (in my region). And, at first blush i felt so bad for all those other 1 in 2750 people. Then my feeble mathematics brain thought in percentages and that's really not that many homes, especially considering how small my community is. And i thought; fuck, i really have some bad luck.

But this? This is a new beginning for me. I will move to my lovely, brand new! home and i will be happy there. I know it. Surrounded by families, in the heart of the community. I will find home.

I will find hope and happiness. And you have been there through it all. My crowd-sourced home. Thank-you everybody for looking at my pictures and offering advice. I truly feel like you, me and the internet built this house.

Now, do you have a truck and are you free wednesday and thursday?

I've said before that the hardest thing about being a single parent is not the parenting. It's the hours they are not here.

Sometimes, the opposite is hard too. Last night parker woke up screaming and crying and when i even hovered my hand over his belly he would shriek out in pain. Tristan came running upstairs and comforted parker while i frantically searched on google for symptoms of appendicitis. She seemed so grown up in that moment. Softly soothing her baby brother.

My oldest daughter amazes me.

Parker was fine in the end, just a little gas. We all crawled into my bed together, parker in the middle, and settled in for sleep.

I think what amazes me is how all of my kids have become more independent, but at the same time we are more of a cohesive unit than we have ever been. It truly feels like we are a little team.

I filed for divorce yesterday.

It wasn't a very good day. Sitting in a lawyers office, hashing out all the details of a life in two hours. The small details. All the negative things. No mention of all the joys. All the tiny moments that made up a marriage.

It seems like a lifetime ago that i was such a young woman walking through my parents backyard, between my mother and father, towards my soon-to-be husband. All giggles and grins and beauty.

The dress i was married in is hanging in my closet. It is still a beautiful dress. I hope one day one of my daughters will wear it somewhere.

I filed for divorce yesterday.

I have been feeling so lost since i walked out of that office. The final steps. I wish all of this could have turned out differently. I wish i could feel certain that this is the right thing to do.

Instead, i feel great loss. I feel immense sadness. I feel like nobody understands. I feel so much anger in the universe directed at me.

Did i do my best? No. I tried. I always tried.

I was interviewed last week and called myself a flawed human being. When i hung up the phone i cried. I know that we are all flawed, perfection is irrelevant. But, i failed. I failed at marriage. It is a horrible feeling.

My lawyer told me that this would be very hard. That i would feel all the anxiety and angst that i felt when we first separated. That i would feel bad.

I do. I feel very bad.

I feel like i live in this constant state of neither here nor there. I am hoping that when i move into my home i will feel my feet sink in and have a place to push off from.

My house! It is almost done. There are floors and paint and a kitchen and just about everything. We are moving in in a couple of weeks. Excited doesn't even begin.

I am doing well. Pushing myself. Creating a life. Making plans. Going on an adventure.

When we were driving away from my parents house parker shouted from the backseat "a bear! a flying bear!"

I pulled over and looked at parkers finger pointing to the sky and sure enough dangling from a helicopter was a bear. It was not the strangest sight i have ever seen, but it came close.

So this is the new year. I don't have any weighty goals, no resolutions. I know what i won't do. I won't smoke. I won't let this unquiet mind break me.

I will do every single thing i can to be calm and at peace. I will seek out the positive in every person and every single moment.

The night before my doctor's appointment last week i had the strangest dream. It was long and simple. I walked up to a man i had a crush on and i lay down and put my head in his lap, he placed his hand on my cheek and softly chuckled. We sat like that all night. My dream lasted all night. Just like that, simple, at peace, cherished.

I want to be cherished this year. I want to fall madly in love. I want to be wrapped in arms and legs and giggle furiously.

It feels like an impossible dream. That kind of love doesn't happen anymore. That is a love of youth and innocence and freedom.

I once watched a woman smash a raccoon's skull with a boulder to put it out of it's misery. I was a young girl and the image has never left my heart.

I want to teach my children the value of life. The beauty in the mundane. I want to take them to the beach and marvel at every grain of sand as it runs through our fingers. I want to take them to visit my 96 year old grandmother and show them how every line is beautiful, each wrinkle telling the story of a life lived - the glory of old age.

I want to wake up every morning to the rushing sounds of footsteps and childish excitement bursting forth in my new house.

My mum likes to tell the story of moving across canada, before i was born, and my brothers guinea pig (smuggled on) escaping from it's shoe box on that orange canadian airlines 747 and running between the feet of passengers creating a "wave" of jumping and screaming. I like this story.

My life has been so shifty lately. I imagine sitting still this year. Happily settling in for the long haul.

it rains in vancouver. it rains in vancouver ALL the time. i remember this from when i was young. i sleep a little better with that rain pounding above my head.

Let me think, let me get this all straight for you.

I went to my appointment on thursday afternoon in a building that my father and i both agreed seemed very post-apocalyptic, floor to ceiling glass for 8 stories. Leather sofas repeating floor after floor.

I was a bucket of nerves, had been for at least a week. All butterflies and irritable.

I filled out some forms at the "Mouth and Mucosa" clinic. Trying desperately to ignore those words, instead having them repeat in my mind over and over.

mouth and mucosa. mouth and mucosa. mouth and mucosa. mouth and mucosa.

The exam room was unremarkable, just like any other dentist office. I waited as medical students darted past the doorway, making deliberate sideways glances at me.

The doctor came in and we went over my referral, yada yada, boring. He has me put those coat hanger things on the sides of my mouth and pull it open like a turkey ready to be stuffed. They examined me using words like "very interesting." They took pictures with normal light, blue light and with my mouth died blue. Then they asked me to participate in a study, i said yes, which meant more scraping and taking of tissue and cells.

Then it was done. mouth and mucosa. mouth and mucosa.

It was done and the doctor sat down to talk to me. I am going to explain this as best i can. It is a little confusing and i have two doctors in my family helping me wrap my head around medical technology.

I don't have cancer. Good news. What i do have is some high-risk cell abnormality in my mouth that can be termed "dysplasia." How i understand it is thinking of a line. If "A" is a healthy mouth and "C" is cancer i am sitting at "B." I will never be an "A" again because to remove the abnormal cells surgically would result in a serious speech impairment or with lasers a high risk of aggravating underlying cells into becoming cancerous. So, the concern is that i have high risk cell abnormality and i am on a line that leads to cancer and that i am extremely young to have dysplasia in my mouth. The doctors have no concrete idea of what the rate of crossover to cancer is for this condition, hence the "Study" that i am participating in.

What does all of this mean? Well, it means that for the rest of my life i will hop on the ferry every three months and go through that same photo, photo, photo, scrape, scrape routine. I will be followed very closely and just wait and see.

Somewhat frustrating and somewhat a relief.

Thanks for all your thoughts, well wishes and prayers. I am heading home tomorrow and will begin my new years.

I had a good holiday.

I feel almost silly saying that, but i did. I love my little family with all my heart.

Things are moving along. My house is almost done - they started painting today. I have bought fixtures, appliances, paint in a billion colours, countertops, cabinets, flooring. I didn't realize how much all that was stressing me out until i finished. I finished and now it all just needs to be put together. A matter of weeks. Crazy.

I'm still all up in my head most of the time. Processing, healing, moving forward. I feel most lonely in rooms full of people and, sometimes, in the middle of the night when all is dark and quiet and there are no puffy with sleep childrens faces to check on.

I have a healthy life to start as soon as i get back from vancouver on sunday. Better food, more food. A roller derby team made up of a bunch of moms. Hiking up and down the damn mountain, physically and mentally. Perhaps even a(nother) new counselor.

So? Onwards.