When I was a little girl, we’d watch The Wheel of Fortune on TV in the evening after dinner.

I think it was on at 7 or 7:30 and I remember trying desperately to figure out the phrases before the contestants. I learned the most common letters: L, S, R… But one thing always threw me: I never understood why they would stop and “buy” a vowel.

I knew the rules of the gameshow, right there along with a younger Pat in his brown suits and an even younger Vanna in her sequined mini skirts. But I always wanted the contestants to figure out the sentence without having to use their hard won money on a measly E or O. I thought that they were throwing away cash just to try to fill in the blanks.

Today, in the midst of my how-did-I-get-here afternoon, with my first grader taking way too long on her homework and my toddler dumping the toys in the newly tidied family room, I thought that I’d like to buy a day, rather than a vowel, to fill in my own blanks.

I think I’d like to buy a day from each of my daughter’s infant months…the sweet baby smell and the hours when all that stretched in front of me were naptimes and nursing schedules.

I’d like to buy a day from the first year of my marriage, when the most difficult thing we faced was trying to make our $600 rent on our 1 bedroom apartment and our best friends lived across the complex from us. Borrowing sugar and flour was more than easy.

I think I’ll buy a day from my junior year of college when my new best friend and I would skip our class work and watch movies in our dorm room when it rained outside.

Or maybe I’ll buy a day from the December I met Chad. I knew from the very beginning I would marry him. I’m not lying. I just had to convince him.

If I could live a day from the past, with all of the knowledge and experience of me now, maybe it would help me to fill in the bits of lost memory, the parts of me that I have forgotten. Maybe it would help me understand why my husband’s words sometimes sting, or I get angry at my girls too quickly. Maybe it would help me know myself better. Maybe I’d be more grateful.

However costly, I think I’d like to buy a day to help me fill in my own blanks.

…and it is also the last day of the year.

My video blog, a couple days late. And of course, the still shot would be a less-than-attractive shot of my face…I guess that’s what I get.

October 28 from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

A little girl doesn’t own much. All of what she has is a gift from her parents or other loving adults. Even the things she holds most dear, her “specials” were given her by someone else.

But, my littlest one needs her soft floppy dog to sleep. His name is Nashville (her older sister has a special stuffed dog named Memphis) and he sleeps with her beside her pillow every night.

She needs him so much, that my mother went back to get it from her house on Monday. Naomi had spent the day with her grandmother and after a morning and afternoon of playing, they left got in the car to come back home. Ten minutes into the drive my mother realized the floppy dog was left back on the sofa, alone, without his toddler.

She turned the car around to get him. For Naomi. Even though it meant she would be stuck in afternoon traffic.

Because the special dog, (just like her special flowered blanket with the silky side and the fuzzy side) is hers. It is hers and only hers.

In a home where little girls are expected to share their toys with each other, and daughters who don’t want to share are reminded where their playthings come from, most things are somewhat community property. Books are in common shelves. Games are in places where all can play. Even their rooms are entered freely by each other (at least at this point in their lives) and doors are usually left open.

Even my bedroom is often a spot for family movie-watching or computer time. It has become a family room of sorts during daylight hours.

We teach our children to share everything and try to teach them to be generous and giving.

But sometimes, there is something that is only theirs. Naomi’s Nashville, her floppy dog that deserves a trip through the washing machine, belongs to her. And I think its okay for her not to share it.

Every little girl needs something to be their own, untouchable by her sister.

Because someday, when she is a mother, and her own little girls crawl all over her all day long, she may not have much that only belongs to her. A mother share her water bottles, her bananas and her bowls of cereal. Mothers share their pillows and their television shows and they let their daughters borrow/have their clothes when they are old enough. Mothers share everything.

But a little girl can have her things, like Nashville and her fuzzy-silky blanket. And her mother won’t ask her to share and won’t even touch them (unless it is to “steal” them to put through the wash when her daughter isn’t looking).

October is closing and we are all waiting.

The pumpkins are aging and waiting to be bought or carved. My girls are wearing their faerie costumes and waiting for a bag of chocolate. The soil seems to be waiting for the rain here in the dry southwest. I am waiting to fall back.

Waiting to buy the turkey. Waiting for the nation to decide on a leader. Waiting for the first grade pilgrim party.

We are all waiting for the next month, the next calendar page. The month of thanking and earlier sunsets.

Thank you, October, for summer-like nights and trips to the apple farms; for eastern autumn colors and western sunsets. Thank you for closing up shop and bringing in November.

There isn’t going to be a video this week.

Apologies to those who are expecting one. I am at a stand still. I am seriously stuck dead stopped in the whole weight loss journey.

There is really nothing to say on a video that can’t be said right here.

So, nothing lost; possibly something gained. There it is.

There.
it.
is.

I’m still processing the whole “why” of it. I haven’t given up. I’m just (as all real people are) discouraged that during the times in my life when I’ve had much weight to lose, it has been relatively easy to discipline myself. During the times (now) that I have much less (15 pounds still), the discipline is much more difficult.

So I am still trying, but I just don’t know if I am ready to face all of you on a video to say this. How much easier it is to type it than say it!

So don’t totally give up on me. I am still working hard at it (I’ve ran 12 miles over the past two days). I just can’t do a video this week.

I feel stuck.

Everyone has one.

When was the last time you asked someone to tell you theirs? Their story. And did you listen?

Or when have you shared yours?

There is power in story. Humanity IS one. Our lives are surrounded by them. Everything we do and say adds to it. The story. Your story. And mine. Because we are all connected. Our voices are part of the choir, our feet are part of the marching crowd. Each of us makes up a piece of the tapestry. Together we are The Story.

But by ourselves, we each have something to say.

My daughters are beginning their stories. They are building and adding as they go, not even understanding what it is they are doing. They are just trying to live and obey and be a part of a family. But what they are doing is writing their stories – the beginning of them, anyway.

Most of our stories aren’t even finished. Some of us haven’t begun (and we long to JUST START SOMETHING). A lot of us are somewhere in the middle of beginning to understand what it is to live and what it is to be free. Some of us are racing down the other side. But we all have a story.

And they are powerful. Because they are hope. They are salvation and redemption. Our stories are OUR experience. They are how life has beat us up (or in some cases, passed us by) and how we’ve come out the other side different. These stories are grace.

And because of this, we have to, we must share. We need to tell our stories. Sharing our stories gives purpose to the hardship and difficulty.

So tell yours. Blog it. Call your mom who doesn’t know the half of it. Tell your husband. Help your children understand YOU. Call your best friend and make her have coffee with you because she is the only one you know who will listen – and care. Or, write a book.

And then after you have spilled. Listen. Just listen. Because their story is as important as yours.

I learned something about leaves and people this last weekend.

When I was in 2nd grade I stabbed Brandon Cleary in the leg with a pencil.

I totally remember it. It wasn’t my fault. My teacher put my desk next to his in an attempt to reorder the classroom and I just didn’t like him. He probably picked his nose and flicked the booger at me or maybe he made a mean face at me. Anyway, I stabbed him the thigh.

Of course he howled and I got in trouble.

But seriously, it wasn’t my fault. If he wasn’t sitting close to me he wouldn’t have been near enough for me to stab him. What could I do? I have always had issues with self-control.

Apparently, lack of self-control is genetic. My first grade daughter sits next to a “Brandon”. He’s probably totally innocent of real wrongdoing, but for some reason, he bugs her. He talks to her in class when they should be working. He touches the stuff on her desk when they both should be listening. I asked her if she likes him and she replied that she doesn’t like him or not like him, but that, Mom, aren’t we supposed to love everyone anyway.

Oh, yeah. Of course we are. Forget that I asked you that.

Last week he threatened to tell on her for something she didn’t even do. So she grabbed/squeezed/pinched his arm. She got in trouble and was forced to “pull a ticket” which is the first grade equivalent to detention (she lost her recess privilege). We talked about on the way home from school: what happened, what would have been better choice in the same situation.

She said (her idea, I promise) that next time “Brandon” bothers her, she was just going to put up her “wall”. I was curious what she meant. She put up her hand next to the side of her face, fingers spread wide, and told me that she was just going to try to ignore him the next time he did something that might get her in trouble too. Her wall. She was going to pretend that he was on the other side of a wall.

Hmm. Great idea, I thought. In the past week, I think it has worked for her (although she did get in trouble for pushing Andrew in PE because he “wasn’t running fast enough”). I remind her every morning to put up her “wall” and to try to keep control of her actions, words and feelings.

Actually, this sounds like a good idea for adults. The barista gets impatient because I’m not ordering fast enough? Put up my wall. The guy behind me honks because I don’t speed off the line at a newly green traffic light? Put up my wall. Telemarketers at dinnertime, breakfast time and anytime? Put up my wall.

Either way, I need to take a lesson from my first grader once again and not allow the words and actions of others affect me the way I allow them to. I can’t control others but I surely can control myself.

A wall might have helped me in 2nd grade with Brandon Cleary, but then again, maybe not. I think he was a booger-eater.

Everybody needs one.

(Not that it matters but we didn’t actually GO to the witch museum, but posed in front of it. Salem is a strange place in October)