Last night was the final day of summer. It was also the first day of school for Morgan and Bailey. I am now the mother of fifth and second graders. I’m not sure exactly how that happened, but it did anyway.
Last night was one of those magical evenings. The kind that only seem to happen in the summer. 15 random family members and a few random friends all gathered at a Frozen yogurt place at dusk. Where I’d normally have been getting my kids ready for bed, I was letting them choose their own flavors and add toppings. We all sat outside on the curb and ate frozen yogurt and watched lightening in the distance. For and hour and a half, time stopped. For that hour and a half, it was still summer. Bedtimes didn’t matter, crazy toddlers doing break dancing on concrete didn’t matter. There was no homework to do or baths to take. No one was sad about the two going off to college the following morning. We all got lost in that moment. It was magical.
On the way home, the kids and I tried to list all the great things we did this summer. Movies we saw, trips we took, small fun activities that made it fun. It was a long list. They added things I’d forgotten I’d done. Having it given back to me in list form was neat. It made me realize that my goal of doing this summer right, happened. Even though I had to work all summer and the kids were in daycare/camp all summer, we still had a great summer. I made it happen.
We’ve been to the mountains twice. I painted the inside of my house. The kids have been camping in Wyoming and seen half of Chicago. We’ve bought cupcakes and made cupcakes on many occasions. We’ve been to the park late in the evening and been the only ones playing on swings. We’ve had movie dates and movie parties at the house. We’ve gone to cosmic bowling and black light mini golf. We’ve been to amusement parks and museums. I went to BlogHer and to LA for a BFF trip. I’ve cooked on the grill all summer and my house has been full of summer fruit and ice cream for months. For the first time in years, I hosted the 4th of July. We’ve had ice cream for dinner on more than one occasion and made breakfast for dinner a regular occurrence. We’ve played with glow in the dark sidewalk chalk and I’ve perfected cherry pie. This past weekend, we even went to our first Rockies Game.
This has been a great summer. I’ve had a good time and my kids have had an even better time. This may have been the best summer in years. So Fall? Bring it. We’re ready. Summer is in our bones. We’ve enjoyed every second and we’re ready for whatever’s next.
I saw a post a little bit ago written by Maggie Mason. A letter to her 20 year old self. When I clicked on the link in her post, I found even more posts write by a bunch of other bloggers. They wrote to themselves in their 20s. There is a whole little collection of them over here. I thought it might be worth doing. (I really am becoming an idea thief these days.)
Dear 21 year old Issa,
Congrats on the marriage….he’s a keeper. At least for a first husband. What? I’m not telling anything. Just enjoy okay? Try to enjoy what you have. Stop looking for the next thing. Enjoy your time with him. Soak it up. Live it up. Don’t worry so much about stuff. Stuff, money…it comes and goes. Time is what is important.
Spend less time at work. Spend more time at home. Don’t check work email on vacations. It will still be there when you get back. Use up every second of your vacation time. Use sick days for stay at home and play days. You work too hard. 14 hour days are okay sometimes, not all the time. There will come a time when you will regret this. So try to slow it down some now. The person who dies with the most hours put in at work, does not win.
Take a cooking class. Yes you live in Los Angeles. But honey? You won’t always. Trust me, learn to cook. Learn to bake. Learn these things now and you won’t have friends making fun of you online later for you lack of whip cream making knowledge.
Congrats on the little pink stick with the two lines. I know it’s fast. Hey guess what? You are very fertile. Ahem. I know it’s scary. I also know that it will be okay. Try to stop worrying. You will make a great mother. You are right, it’s a girl. A tiny perfect, little girl. Be prepared early, because she will be early. To everything, every milestone, her entire life basically. That’s just her way. Word to the wise? When your water breaks? PUT DOWN THE PANCAKES.
Before she comes? Eat out. Go spend days at the beach. ENJOY THE SLEEP. Sleep as much as humanly possible. Know that one day? They all learn to sleep. There will be nights where you wonder later if it was the right decision. Starting so young. That’s the hormones and the lack of sleep.
She’s worth it. Every single day, she is worth it. The two that come after her are just as amazing. I promise. Enjoy them. Enjoy the smell of newborn head. Enjoy the way they sleep in the crook of your neck. Enjoy the time before they learn to speak. It comes quick with the first one. Know that once they start talking, they never stop. With the second? Know she will do everything in her own time. Not her big sisters time. It’s okay. It’s all okay. Don’t be in such a hurry for them to get bigger. It happens way too fast.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Ice cream can be a dinner food. Late bedtimes won’t kill her. Read an extra book. Let her watch an extra show. Buy that toy. That outfit. Sometimes, let her sleep in your bed. She’ll be better off for it.
Learn to love coffee.
Friends come and go. This I know. You need to start learning that now. Look around. Enjoy the friends you have. Just know that later, when things get tough, you will find friends who truly understand you. The good, the bad and the ugly. Friends who you can show your true self too.
No matter what? Andrew’s death wasn’t your fault. You probably couldn’t have kept him from doing what he did. Let go of the guilt.
Find a therapist. Talk. Don’t stuff everything. Trust me, I know. Stop playing the what if game. It will get you nowhere.
Enjoy your grandparents. I know you will, but enjoy them as much as humanly possible.
Don’t listen to dad or his wife. They know nothing. You are beautiful. Amazing. Talented. They don’t deserve you in their lives. They won’t be in the kids lives, so don’t even bother trying. Save yourself some heartache.
Think about what you want to do with your life. When you figure it out, please write 30 year old me a letter. That’d be dam helpful right now. Snort.
Think before you type a little more. Speak your truth a little more to family and friends. Your words? Are just as important as theirs.
Mostly though? Love hard. Live. Be happy. Have fun dammit.
You are amazing. Please to be remembering.
xoxo, 30 year old me
-The way he looked at me and said: mama, I pway wain? He cocked his little head and gave me the dimple smile, just hoping I’d say yes. Sure bubs, I said. Go play in the rain. He took off outside, running and jumping and kicking a soccer ball in the pouring rain. After a bit he came in. You wet enough yet smoosh, I asked? He patted his shirt, his shorts and his cheeks before saying: no, I pway moar wain and running off again. All boy. This kid is all boy. He likes to be dirty. He like to throw balls. Play with trucks. Run in the rain. I adore him.
-The way she comes in at 2am. I hear her coming from down the hall. (Oh the joys of being a light sleeper.) She comes in my room, lifts up the cover and sneaks in. She gets as close to me as possible, some nights even lifting my arm up over her. I listen to her breath. I wait as she falls back asleep. I kiss her head and play with her hair. I smell her shampoo mixed with the smell of little girl. She won’t always want this. She won’t always want me. She will one day decide she is too big to come into bed with me at night. For now? I enjoy it.
-We went and played mini-golf, just the two of us a few weekends ago. She kept writing down one less number for herself than she should have. Most days I won’t let her cheat. I know for her, being called on it, is generally the way to go. Her competitive nature gets the best of her. That day though, I let her cheat. That day, I played worse than I would have on purpose. We laughed and told each other jokes. I watched her watch the teenage girls in front of us play. I watched her listen to their conversations. Watched her watch them joke around with each other. I silently thanked them for being seemingly nice, polite, well behaved girls. When Morgan said on the way home, when I’m big, I’ll be like those girls, I said, yes my love, I’m sure you will. Then I stopped and bought her a Slurpee at 7-11. Just because. At the check out, since she didn’t ask, I offered to buy her a bag of Silly Bandz. Just because.
I admit, I stole this idea from my friend Emily at Wheels on the Bus.
We were roller blading in the school hallways. It was summer and this had become our daily routine. Schools in Los Angeles, generally have covered outside hallways. Perfect for hot days and mischievous kids in the summer.
I heard her scream before I saw that she’d fallen. That scream, the one of pain.
We’d been playing street hockey, then we’d decided to try and do some tricks. Her name was (is) Jory and she was new to the neighborhood. Her parents though she was in our backyard, not trespassing on school grounds. It was obvious her ankle was broken. She was sobbing and worried about being in trouble.
My baby brother sat down and took off his skates. He then carefully took off her skates. He tied the laces together and handed them to me. Then he picked her up and carried her home. 10 years old. Just picked up a 13 year old girl and carried her home. My baby brother, the hero.
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We were loud. I know we were. Four women in a restaurant with no kids or spouses. I’d like to be fair to them and state that we were loud. But dam it, we were in a freaking Beni Hauna’s. At 7pm. On a Friday night. Girl’s night. My birthday dinner. We were having fun. Talking, laughing, cracking each other up. There was eye rolling, joke telling, story sharing and an unfortunate incident with green tea ice cream, but it was all in good fun. For us at least.
The restaurant seats a table until it’s full, it’s just how they do it. Four of us, four of them. I remember hearing them speak, as they ordered their meal. That was it. There was some pointing. A lot of glaring. And one whispered, yeah, like that one right there. But nothing else was said. It was a birthday meal for them too, I know this because the servers sang to the woman, as they handed her an ice cream.
They didn’t say a thing the entire meal. Not a single word. It was so weird. It was like being at a table of aliens. Because every other table? Was full of laughing people having a good time. The four of us? Were laughing and having a fabulous time. They? Were not.
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Wait, babe, let’s go down to the beach really quick, I said to him. We’d just pulled onto our block. Why, he asked? Just do it. Okay, he said, as he turned the car around and drove down to the beach. He parked the car at our favorite spot and we got out.
I took my bundled burrito baby out of her car seat and the three of us walked down to the waves. I sat down and unbundled her. Two days old, five pound, twelve ounces of joy, dressed head to toe in white. Her going home outfit. I carefully took off her little socks and rolled up her pants. Then I stood up, looked around (because I was unsure if I was allowed to be doing this) and walked to the waves. I dunked her little feet in the water, on the next wave. Then I took her to the sand and pressed her feet into the sand. Two days old. I wrote her entire name next to it and her date of birth, December 7, 2001. One more quick foot dunk to wash off the sand and I re-bundled her up. Then we went home.
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Las Brisas. A random Tuesday. I’d called in sick and asked my mom if she could do the same thing. I just needed some mommy time. I was debating moving to Colorado and needed her to help me make a pro/con list.
We drove the coast the entire way there. Santa Monica down to Laguna Beach. Just a little Mexican restaurant, not the best, but still good. Best Lemon Drops in all of California. It’s the location. Perched on the top of a cliff, overlooking a rose garden and the coast.
We walked through the garden, climbed down to the beach for a bit and then sat there at a table for hours. Laughing, talking. Never once even brought up Colorado.
Somehow I knew by the ride home, what I was going to do. Even though, she never said a word.
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His first birthday. I didn’t think I had it in me to do a thing for it, but somehow I pulled it out of myself last second. My tiny boy. A boxed cake, with store bought frosting. One little cake for him, one big cake for the rest of us. Couple of sprinkles left over from something else; Christmas possibly. One solitary candle. Few gifts, few cousins.
No shirt, no shoes, great service.
He looked all pensive, as he always does at new things. He didn’t cry when we sang, but he had no interest in blowing out his candle. I did it for him. He stuck one tiny finger in his cake and then brought it to his mouth. OOOOOOOHHHHH he said, upon tasting the cake. His eyes got all big. He reached for more, whole hand this time. My boy. One.
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A park bench on the coast. Watching the waves roll in. Talking some. Comfortable silence some. Laughing at the two picnic chairs left on the beach, which the waves are now rolling all over. Making up stories about the people who left two chairs sitting there. A lost in the moment type day. Where reality doesn’t seem so harsh. Where the sun is perfect, the air is perfect and the company is the best kind there is.
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Anyone want to go fishing or crabbing tomorrow? No, they all said. I was not surprised. A room full of teens. Getting up at 4:45am for fun, wasn’t something any of us did. Ever. I was surprised when I heard myself say, sure dad, I’ll come with you.
Two coffees and two breakfast burritos to go. I never knew people ate this early, I told him. He laughed. Yeah, we’re all not teens he said. Sitting on the dock in Pacifica, eating breakfast, as he put dead fish into the crab traps. Just us. I was seventeen and couldn’t remember the last time I’d been alone with him.
We didn’t catch a single fish or crab that morning.
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It’s okay mommy, she said after she fell off the monkey bars. It wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t afraid. You know what mama, she said as she walked up to me. What, love? The only thing to be afraid of is fear. It’s the thing that gets ya in the end. Bailey, four years old. My heart, my mini-me. So full of wisdom, even as such a small girl.
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What is that smell mama? I don’t know she said. It smells like strawberries in here. What did we leave in the car? Oh my word, she said. WHAT, we asked her? Look. She pointed to the back seat, the panel above the trunk. There was a pile of multi-colored goo. What was sitting here, she asked us. Oh no, on no, on no, my brother said as he cried. He covered his eyes, the way little boys do when they don’t want to see you. What was it baby, she asked him. It was sissies Strawberry Shortcake dolls. ALL OF THEM, I asked? Yes, all of them.
It’s okay buddy, I said. Really it’s okay. I have other dolls. Plus, it smells so pretty in here. It did too. For months afterward, the car smelled all sweet.
**I had probably 12 of those little strawberry shortcake dolls. The entire set. 100 degree day, black Volvo, 8 hours in the sun? They met an untimely death.
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Usually take one last pass through town, Stop the car and touch the ground, Watch those streetlights swayin’ in the breeze, Decorated store fronts, Rusty old gas pumps, Try to fill my mind up, With somethin’ before I go, Picture postcard memories, You know they always make for good company. –Turning Home, David Nail
Picture Postcard Memories. Somehow that line has stuck with me for days. Just a silly line in a song, but I can’t get it out of my head. In a lot of ways, I think like that. In postcard memories. Have you ever seen the movie, Elizabethtown? The girl, played by Kirsten Dunst pretends to take photos of people, of places, just to remember. When I saw that movie, I realized I’ve done that my entire life. Although, I do it in my head, so as not to end up in a round padded room, being asked to find the corner.
I have been thinking a lot about this lately. When I’m having a bad day, I try to search through my mind for happier times, simple times, just memories that make me smile. I’d like to write some of these memories down. For me to remember, for my kids maybe one day. Just so I never forget. Thought I’d try a few today. Maybe I’ll keep doing it. We’ll see. You all know how I say I’m going to do something and then I never bring it up again. But it’s a thought.
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We told Morgan for months that she was going to have a baby brother. Each time we told a random person and that person said anything to her, she’d say: nopes, no baby bruder. We thought she was just having trouble adjusting. Turned out she was right. Bailey, despite the doctor being SO SURE she was a boy, was born a girl.
She was born near midnight and it was around lunch time the next day, when my mom brought Morgan in to meet her new baby sister. I can picture her little eyes sparkling and her screechy voice when she came in the room and saw me. HI MOMMY!!!! All decked out in a new outfit from my mom; red shorts and a red striped Dora shirt. She suddenly seemed like a full grown child, compared to her teeny tiny, new baby sister.
She got up on the bed with me and held her baby sister. This Ian, she asked, because we’d told her for months that would be her brothers name. No baby, it’s not, I said. This is…well she doesn’t have a name yet, but she’s your baby sister. No brother. Sorry honey. No Ian? Okay.
A little bit later, she got off the bed and started looking around. She looked under the bed, in the bathroom, heck, she even looked in my bag that was by the bed. When she walked out of the door, I called her back in the room and asked her what she was looking for. I looking for Ian mama. He’s lost. I will find hims for you.
She thought we’d misplaced him. Like he was a shoe or something. A missing item to find.
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The pool was shaped like a kidney bean. We were in Waikiki, Hawaii on the last day of our vacation. In the deep end there was a weird window, about two feet down. We’d been going down and making faces at it for a good hour. My step-mom was in the room with her eighth migraine of the week. My dad was somewhere.
I bet my brothers to moon the window. Told them, I’d pay them a dollar each. I could have offered them a piece of gum, they were easy marks. Eight year olds are easily buy-able. At ten, I could pay them next to nothing, or just dare them to do anything and they’d do it.
They each took a turn, going underwater and mooning the window. Seconds later my dad showed up. He rarely yelled, but he yelled loudly that day. Get out of the pool right now. Come with me.
Turns out, it was a bar. With a window. To the deep end of the pool. Weird, huh?
He made us apologize to a bar full of hysterically laughing people. The bartender gave us each a Shirley temple. Even added extra cherries. Little tiny boy butts are nothing. I’ve got kids at home. You have no idea the things I see, he told my dad. Whoever thought of putting this window in, was smokin something crazy.
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Our last night in Las Vegas. We’d been there for three days. Three fun filled, easy days. Neither of us really wanted to go back to the hotel. It was admitting the end of our trip.
Sitting at the Bellagio. In a back hallway, in comfy chairs, eating gelato for an hour and a half. Talking about nothing and everything. Being shocked that we couldn’t hear a single sound, except the few other people doing the same thing. We could have been anywhere. In fact, from the second we went into that hotel, until we left it, we never heard a casino. It was a perfect end, to a perfect trip.
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I was fourteen. Summer. Camping. Half Moon Bay. I got up at dawn to go to the bathroom. It was cold and foggy and the sun hadn’t even considered coming out yet. I knew I couldn’t get back in the pop-up trailer without waking everyone else up, so I decided to go on a walk. I walked and then sat and watched the fog roll off the ocean. Listened to the waves crash. Peace. I felt more at peace in that moment that I had in years. I sat there alone and watched the sun come up. Then I walked back to the camper, where no one had even gotten up yet.
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Morgan being held by my Grandpa on his 80th birthday. She was only six days old. Perfection she was, full of that newborn awesomness. I can picture everything he wore that day, her too. If I think hard enough, I can even smell them both. I ignored his words that he might not be strong enough to hold her and placed her in his arms. He was pale and shaky, one of the last few times I’d see him standing and walking around. She’s barely six pounds Grandpa, I said. She won’t break. I watched him take a finger and gently run it on her nose, watched him kiss her head. Angel kisses, he whispered. What, I asked him? Those red strawberry marks on her eyelids. Oh those will go away in a few weeks, I said. Or that’s what her doctor said.
Angel kisses, he repeated. This child was kissed by angels.
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I can’t live these memories a second time. I wish I could, but it’s just not possible. But the stories in my head? Are something I’ll never forget.
Today I am 30 years old. You know…in case you didn’t catch that by the title. I’ve gone back and forth on having a serious issue with it. Not the day itself, more the where I thought my life would be issue.
Today I’m okay with it. Helps that I’ve spent four awesome days with friends on vacation. Truly the combo of best friend, beach and loads of cake does wonders for a person. Which is why I’m posting this today instead of when I get home. Ha.
Anyway. I thought I’d make myself a list. 30 things that I’d like to do in the next ten years. Some may not be possible, because I don’t know what tomorrow holds, much less the next ten years. But its good to have goals. Or so I hear.
I considered doing it for the next 30 years, but I can’t think past next week, much less 30 years from now. So the next 10 years it is.
1. I want to have another baby. How this will happen, I have no clue. But its my number one for sure.
2. I want to sell my house and buy a newer one. Or re-model mine.
3. I’d like to take a photography class. Actually learn how to use all the cameras I own. Maybe actually start using them.
4. I’d like to take a cooking class with the girls.
5. I want to go on an Alaskan cruise.
6. I want to take my kids to Europe. I want to see London, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Paris and Poland.
7. I’d like to write a novel all the way through, instead of deciding its crap and shredding it 3/4 of the way through.
8. I’d like to learn to just enjoy the small moments instead being sad about them coming to the end. i.e. Being sad about going home from this trip two days before I even have to leave.
9. I’d like to fall in love again one day. Maybe the true love I thought I had wasn’t really true love at all. No way of knowing really.
10. I want to take my kids to Disney World and Universal in Florida to see the Harry Potter exhibit.
11. I’d like to re-learn to play the piano.
12. Put together a photo book for my mom, aunts and uncle. Pictures of them as kids and of my grandparents.
13. Make a book with photos of all my grandma and great-grandmas recipes.
14. I’d like to take my kids to a concert every summer.
15. I want to go to DC and see the Smithsonian.
16. I’d like to someday not need to go to therapy.
17. I want to see Central Park and have frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity in NYC.
18. I want to take my two best friends to Los Angeles and show them all my favorite places.
19. Find a job I love.
20. I’d like to go to the east coast in the fall and see all the trees changing color.
21. I want to learn to worry less and enjoy life more.
22. I want to find a place to go cherry picking.
23. Find a great bakery to buy good cupcakes in Denver.
24. Take Harrison to a sporting event, once I figure out what his sport of choice is going to be.
25. Take the girls to tea.
26. Try and find out where my dad’s family came from in Poland.
27. Learn how to nap.
28. Try para-sailing.
29. Own jet skis and use them every summer.
30. Actually do ten of the items on this list.
This is a hard time in my life. Very hard. In my trying to make it through each day, I find that I’m forgetting things. Small things. Things like, I’ve needed to buy more Tums for a week. (Can someone explain to me why I still get heartburn when the boy is nearly 16 months old?) Things like, my printer has needed ink for three weeks. Have I been places where I could buy these things? Oh yes, many times over. But I forget when I’m there, because my brain is on overdrive trying to figure out things, that it just doesn’t understand yet.
Where is my plug for my iPod? Why can’t I find my 2008 taxes? Did I give Morgan, Bailey’s lunch today? All very good questions. Things I’d normally be able to give you answers for. Right now though? You guess would be as good as mine.
Anyway, I have a few things that I wanted to remember. In case I forget later. I thought it may be good to write them down here.
-I’ve been having trouble getting Bailey to eat. It’s slowly getting better. She’ll eat for me, but she’s still not eating much when she’s with her dad. It’s the stress, it just makes her un-hungry. Also, she’s a complete mama’s girl. However, when you are only in the 4th percentile for weight, you can’t afford to miss many meals.
Anyway, last Thursday she came into my bedroom in the morning and we had this conversation:
Bailey: Mama, guess what?
Me: noticing that she is butt nekkid. Um, I don’t know, you forgot how to put clothes on?
Bailey: No.
Me: An alien ate all of your clothes while you were sleeping.
Bailey: NO MAMA.
Me: It’s nekkid day at school and I missed the memo?
Bailey: laughing. No silly.
Me: I give up love. What?
Bailey: I’M HUNGRY. Like super-dup really hungry mommy. I NEED pancakes.
Me: cries.
I took them to ihop for breakfast and then took them to school an hour late. Sometimes, it’s just the right thing to do.
- Harrison does this thing where he makes you get up from where you are sitting to follow him. He pulls on your finger and makes you follow him around. Sometimes it’s to retrieve his Mater car from someplace where he can’t get it. Sometimes it’s to show you the fridge. Or the mess he made of the dog food again. Sometimes, he wants you sit somewhere else. Like two spots over on the couch. Or on the other side of his train table. It’s very adorable. We call it, Harrison’s adventures. He’s taking us on an adventure. When he’s done with you, he lets go of your finger, but not until he is done. He’s a very cute little dictator.
-The girls and I have been watching American Idol. Although I’m a mean mom and I make them watch it the next night. I can’t handle watching it live. Commercials and I don’t really get along. I also need to able to fast forward during some of it. The other night, we were watching the second episode from last week. Morgan and I were both covering our face and plugging our ears at the same things. Go past this mom, she kept saying. It’s too painful. This person shouldn’t be on the show. Agreed baby girl. Agreed. Last year, she made me suffer through it all. This year? She’s come over to the dark side. The, I can’t stand to watch people make fools of themselves on TV side. It’s about dang time.
-I have posts that I’ve written. Posts that I’m unsure if I’ll post. Or if I do, I will try to give you guys some other stuff to read as well. I adore you all. But I know, that you worry. That I worry you. I know that I’m depressing to read these days. That honestly may not change for awhile. But I need you to know that I am okay. This space is my outlet. It always has been. I write things here, that I’d only say out loud to my mom, my best friend and my shrink. I promise you all, I am okay. Not great, not even good, but okay. I am taking care of myself and my kids. We are surviving. One day, we will get used to this. We’re not there yet. But we’re all taking the right steps.
-In other news, I’m going to be working on my blogroll for the next few days. It will be on the page marked friends. Right now if you hit the friends button, it just has the post I wrote about 31 unknown bloggers in it.
If you’d like to be on my blogroll let me know and I’ll make sure to add you.
I keep thinking that I should be doing better by now. That somehow I should be able to make myself feel better, be less sad, stop feeling as if my life has completely crumbled. I am constantly reminded by others that it is okay. Okay to be sad, okay to cry, okay to grieve. It’s okay. It’s not been long. It’s really only been two weeks. Tomorrow.
It’s only been 6 days since I realized this is permanent. I didn’t know that for sure until then. Six days. I lost all hope that day. Not sure why I still had some, but I did. Six days isn’t long, it’s not even a full week.
I wanted today to be the day that I stopped crying the second my kids go to bed. Or the second I drop them off with their father. The day that I stopped wanting to cry all day. The day that I’d start feeling like I may be capable of doing this.
I wanted today to be the day that I didn’t dread my day from the second I woke up. The day that I could see something good in my future. I wanted today to be the day that I answered all of the sweet emails and comments from all of you.
I wanted today to be the day I started actually reading posts again and engaging on Twitter. Doing more than opening and closing Facebook. Emailing people again.
Today is not that day. I am just not there yet.
Instead, this is what I know I can do for today:
Today I will remind myself that it’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to not be okay. That there is no timeline on grief.
I will remind myself this afternoon, when my kids go to their dad, that they need him as much as they need me. That I will get used to this new schedule. That they will be home for bed.
Today I will rejoice in the fact that Bailey ate an entire donut and drank an entire glass of milk for breakfast, instead of worrying about the fact that she hasn’t eaten in a week. I will remind myself that she’s five and it’s been a week. They’ve only known for a week. That as long as she eats something, she will be okay.
I will call and un-enroll Harrison in toddler class. The last thing he needs right now is more change.
I will make more blueberry cobbler, because it made Morgan happy.
Today I will send you over to the Babble Top 50 Mommy Blogger list, which someone added me onto. Whoever did that, I adore you. To each of you who voted for me, I adore you too. Now, will you all do me a favor? Please go over and vote for Mamaspohr. Please. For me? Thanks.
Today I will thank each of you right here and now, for your sweet emails and comments. For offers to talk, for sending me your phone numbers. For text messages, Tweets and DM’s. Truly, you have no idea how much it means to me. I’ve read it all. I just haven’t found the energy to respond yet. Just know, you have made me feel so supported and loved and that is priceless.
Today, I will be realistic in my goals for myself.
I’ve sat here with this page open for ten minutes just hoping I could find some words. Any words. Writing normally helps me. It focuses my mind, helps me find my words, but so far, no go. I am having trouble with words right now. I don’t know what I think. I don’t know what to say.
Not to you all, who deserve them, for all of your amazingly sweet comments.
Not to my husband, who I am having trouble talking to at all. When we do talk, all we do is yell, argue and name call.
Not to myself.
This weekend has been horrible. I was wishing for Monday, by noon on Saturday. It hasn’t improved since then. Nothing I have tried to do has worked. Everything I have touched has turned to shit. Every word I have said has been perceived as mean.
This year has just sucked. If I could press a button and make it the week of New Years, I would. Next year just has to be better. It has too. I can’t handle another year like the way this year has been. I am not strong enough to handle another year like this.
When I look at my life, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how to make things better. I don’t if I can make things better or if I just need to learn to accept that this is as good as it gets.
What I do kow is that something has to give. Something good has to happen.
I feel so lost right now. I don’t even know what would make things better. I would love to blame this all on not being pregnant, but it’s just not that simple. That’s just the last straw on this year.
I am barely keeping my head above water. I think I’ve lost myself this year. I only hope I can find myself next year.
I shouldn’t publish this. I know. I know it will worry some of you and for that I am sorry. But I’m going to anyway. I need to, for myself. I need you all to know that I will be okay. In two days, maybe a week, I will see something positive and be okay. Right now though, I am not seeing it. I am not seeing the good. I have had a really bad weekend that has made me question everything, including my marriage. And that breaks my heart.
I will be okay. I always am. I have gotten out of bed every day and I will continue too. But I am going to publish this. So that I remember. When that day comes this week, next week or next month; so that I remember how much has changed.
Vitamin water is not an evening drink. When you are thirsty at night, drink water. Or wine. Do not consume an ENERGY drink. Just because it says water in the title, does not mean it is not an ENERGY drink. Because believe me, your tiny adorable son could care less that today is a holiday and mommy got no sleep, when he wants to get up at sunrise. He likes to greet the sun, it’s his thing. It’s not his fault that you drank an ENERGY drink at 9pm and then couldn’t sleep until 2am.
Signed, your tiredy self.
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