Because I Like This Kind of Pie

I cut leaves into my pies.

When I make a pie, I take my best, sharpest knife and I cut two leaves into the top so that the crust doesn't bubble and bake. I think this reveals more about me than my accent, education, profession, or clothing. Moreso than my heartache, my dreams, and the scar from my tonsillectomy - this gesture communicates what I am. And what I am is unfailingly in love with the idea of a good life. Not the good life, mind you. Just a good, simple life...maybe one that Bruce Springsteen would write about.

Here's the catch: I don't have that kind of life. I never did, and I probably never will. Though the use of "never" is widely discouraged as being negatively prophetic, I calls them as I sees them. That kind of iconic life was just not allotted for me at the beginning of it all. I regret this. I regret this more than the most horrible things I have actually done.

I grew up in tense, measured chaos. I won't get into specifics - that's vulgar. I haven't slept in 20 years—not really—and I don't have any hopes of sleeping for another 20.

In my spare time, I've created a kind of media kit for my life and times. The good points are exaggerated, the low points are made into hysterical 30-second anecdotes that I tell my co-workers at lunch as I roll my eyes at my silly, colorful life with my silly, colorful family. I expound on the really, really great moments and I dig little graves for the brutal moments. Ultimately, I live somewhere in between the memories and the cover stories.

At the end of the day, what happened...happened. I am many things – a wife, sister, best friend, worst enemy, good tipper. But mostly, I am a girl who cuts leaves into her pies as a way of living the dream, even if it's just for a few moments.