Post by Ailera on Nov 1, 2014 8:43:18 GMT -5
Mitzi Stahl
district 8 - 27 - female
Mirrors show me everything I know is there. Two eyes, one nose and a mouth. Pretty red hair I've spent twenty years trying to work up the courage to cut off. Still can't do it. Something about the texture, maybe, or maybe I just keep it because Koah likes it. The eyes are okay, maybe a little thin, but pretty and bright blue. I don't have long lashes, but they aren't particularly short. My facial features look sharp, but it works on me.
I have long limbs, and rather nice legs if I say so myself. I've got an average build. I'm 5'4" and regular around the midsection. Oh, hold on. No, not at all regular around the midsection. There is stuff going on there right now. You know. I've got the glow. Making feet. Peas in my pod. A bun in my oven. Five months, to be exact. I've always lived in tshirts and pants, but now I'm getting a little too involved with the bit.
I used to be the really overbearing type. Sweet, yes, but I was bossy and stern and no nonsense. I'm still stern and no nonsense, but Koah has chilled me out. Koah is my five-year-old son. When I had him I became the stereotypical mother. My life was him, and I devoted most of myself to taking care of him. For the first three years he never left my side. Having him has opened my eyes to not just my family, but everyone around me. I've become more of a helper than a judge. The change has also left me with a lot less of an edge than I had when I was younger, and sometimes I notice it. I'll do something and think of how differently I would have done it when I was sixteen.
I love to love, and I love to be loved. I've got lots of ideas, and I like to surprise people with creative ideas or gifts. I can be overly romantic sometimes, but my wife doesn't mind in the slightest. Right now the greatest thing on my mind is the baby and how we're going to take care of it. When I'm considering it too heavily, I'm in her room, gluing paper decorations together and working on the wall I've so carefully tried to paint nicely with the little paint we have. Writing names on a list, and most often, just sitting around the house being bored or calming Koah down.
One of the things that crosses my mind two or three times a week that really bothers me is my brother, Max. I wonder about him, where he is and what he is doing. I wonder if he thinks about me or if he misses me. Sometimes I go so far as to imagine meeting him, and introducing him to my new family. Telling him all that's gone on since he left. It hurts my heart to think too much about him, so I distract myself with Koah, and the baby, and Riika.
riika
I was the last girl, which is the general term for the one everyone mentions when they ask my parents how their kids are doing. Growing up, I wasn't too spoiled, for starters, we didn't have much. My younger brother came quick enough for me to miss out on being the little one. I have four older sisters, Katja, Yvonne, Liesel and Erika. Katja and Erika never liked me much, and I think it was mainly because I was the youngest girl. Yvonne and Liesel never had a problem with me, but they weren't the ones I was close to. Max, who came when I was two, was my friend in the house. My mother wanted me to play with him, since I was closest in age. We stayed together while Katja kept an eye on us. Or left the room. Didn't matter.
I have distinct memories of my siblings, but very little of my own. I was a floater between hobbies, and I liked to tag along behind my mother or peer into whatever book Yvonne was reading. I got into everything at least once. One day I wanted to be mature like Katja, the next I wanted to be sassy like Erika. If Max brought in something everyone else found disgusting, I loved it just to be like Max. I liked to act like Max the most, because I found him interesting. I would stare at him like a baby did to a kitten, amazed and confused, and from very far away at times.
I was close to my dad. Very, very close, and there were times I considered we were closer than he was to my other siblings. He didn't yell at me as much, or give me as many stern looks. If I took a pet out of Max's hands and brought it to him with pleading eyes we could keep it for the night and let it go the next. When I was nine I stopped doing it, mainly because the pets always found a way in my bed. I was tired of having to tell Max to catch it and put it outside. I hated disappointing him.
Staying out of the way at school was a talent of mine. I made one or two friends that I sat with at lunch, but I wasn't a fan of big crowds during my preteen years. I didn't bother anyone, and no one bothered me, but I did get irritated when I was my little brother not having as much luck as me. By high school I was more outspoken, and I had a small crowd of friends. I had more of a social life, and a bossier attitude. I liked to joke around, but as soon as things got out of control I was pulling everyone back down with my serious face. I liked to be in control of conversations.
I tried to stay close to Max, and we did talk a lot. I asked him how he was doing, but I tried not to dote on him as much as my other sisters did. I wanted to be more of his friend than his adoring sister. So I talked to him about what he wanted, what he did. When he met the peacekeeper I did all I could to make sure he wasn't being overly influenced. I lost control about the time he was fifteen, but I stuck by him anyways. I tried to accept the idea he would become a peacekeeper, and once he did I was talking to him about it all the time, and my father didn't approve one bit. What I didn't expect was that he would leave so suddenly. And without saying goodbye.
My father was furious. Even I couldn't get to him some days, and I began to look for other people to talk to besides my family. Buying vegetables one day, she came face to face with a grocer she couldn't take her eyes off of. She was tall, she was pretty, and her name was Riika Moffett. After that day, I seemed to need vegetables more often, until Riika caught onto the game and asked me on a date. Soon twe were going everywhere together, and my father was wondering why I didn't visit as often anymore.
A year and half later I announced to my mother I was getting married to Riika. She was thrilled, and all of my sisters save Katja fell over each other to congratulate me. When my father found out I wasn't going to marry a man, he burst at the seems. I didn't talk to him for a long time afterwards. Meanwhile, soon after my twenty-second birthday, Riika and I were married and arranged with a man who sold some of his sperm to us. We moved in together and soon I was pregnant with Koah.
While I was pregnant with Koah we lived in a fairytale land. We had every joy and tried not to worry too much that we'd both lost the support of our families. Riika was working three jobs, and I worked until my sixth month, but every time she came home all we saw was each other. We talked about our days, discussed neighbors, wondered about the baby. Then Koah was born in our living room, and the fairytale was over. Riika wanted to stay home and be the one to watch Koah, but I was too attached to him. For the first two months of Koah's life I was overflowing with guilt he had to hear us shouting at each other every four hours.
Eventually Riika gave into my pleading and took another job, but she found one with more stability and was able to come home at five every evening to play with Koah. After Koah turned two I began to work at bookstore, but we decided we wanted another child. We took our chances again and bought sperm from a man. At first, I wanted Riika to have the child, but she insisted it would be me. The pregnancy was a lot easier than the first, thought it wasn't as fairytale. Most days we got along, and others we didn't. We named the child Caliph. I worked at the bookstore again, and Riika took care of the kids at home. We were a normal couple, as normal as we could be, with mostly ups and few downs that lasted only an hour.
When I was twenty-five, Caliph died. Neither one of us were sure what it was, but we were certain is was something from the father we had chosen. We hadn't bothered to know if he was healthy, but there was some disease that killed our son. Riika threw herself into three jobs once again, and when she was home we were constantly fighting. There was a time when we considered divorcing, until a cloudy day in September when there was a light knock on our door. Riika was at work and I was on the floor playing with Koah, and before I could stand up the door opened and my father walked in. He heard he had a grandson. And he wanted to see him.
For some reason I'll never discover, when my father and I sat on the floor with my son fixing our relationship, something was happening that fixed my relationship with Riika. She came home, and with only a little hesitation from my father they accepted each other, and she was smiling at me like nothing had ever been wrong. We talked out our issues over the next two days. When she met my family she wanted to be part of them. Katja refused to look at her, but Yvonne was most accepting of them all. About seven months ago Riika and I started looking for a man we could trust. It was awkward, looking for someone willing to give us what we needed for another child, but eventually we found someone who seemed healthy. Willing to get out of the picture once it was handed over.
Five months ago, I told Riika I was pregnant. Things couldn't have been better for us after. I have my family behind me, supporting us so we don't have to work as hard to provide for the baby, and Riika isn't all over the place. We have more time to love each other.
odair
