Ugly Like Me...

And then there were four...towels on the floor.

I wept at a pindrop this week. Over and over. I’d hear a song, hear a child’s laughter, feel my son sleep, tucked into me…and I’d cry. I told my husband I did’t know if it is my MS, the meds or what, but I can’t stop crying. As I write this, my left eye is swollen shut from a good, hard cry yesterday that just didn’t stop. For hours. I tried everything, but no matter how hard I tried to focus on the loads of work in front of me, my head focused on the topic at hand, my heart would fall back into Regina Spektor songs and Bright Eyes.

It was a fall feeling, in mid-August. It was the feeling of knowing what is to come and not being able to stop it. I hate the feeling of knowing, the sadness, the anticipation of everything changing when all you want is to stay…still.

Like my grandfather at 90. Knowing what was coming and only being able to sit still and squeeze his hand. There were no words. We both understood. Everything is finite.

I think that’s why I cut my hair and dyed it pink. I was growing it. It was pretty and long and black, but it was as if I was clinging to it, hiding behind it. I realized one day I was trying to stand so still, hoping time would pass me by and miss seeing me there standing in the corner. Time. Time is flying by my friends. Mid-August gives birth to school and new years and new teachers and new grades and I can’t deal with my youngest going into Kindergarten. I can’t deal with not having another baby. And yet I have to. The chapter has ended. The word has been written. It has been said. I can’t have any more children.

                                                                                  

I keep focusing on their eyes and their toes, stained clothes and their tender souls. Their towels on the bathroom floor. They buzz around me, never stopping to say. “Hello!” Sometimes they will to remind me I forgot to get them juice. And as much as I get indignant, I am crying because I know how much I miss them already. I am crying because I can’t have any more children. I am crying because a chapter is closed and I’m painfully sentimental and I mourn loss of everything, even the bad. Imagine how then I grieve for the good. This is not for pin drops or sad songs. It’s for life, moving on, with or without us.

My son’s birth marked a crazy time in my life. He was born with my MS diagnosis. He marked a time of new life and what I felt was the loss of another-mine. It was a time of sickness. But I’d watch him wiggle to roll over, he’d fight for that bottle, and I whisper him promises through the exhaustion that I’d try my hardest to do the same. I’d try to turn over. I’d be feisty like him. When I couldn’t move well, I’d tuck his warm body into mine. I could hear him sucking on his thumb. There’s a rhythm to his sucking. A drum like noise. A thump. Wait. Thump. Wait. Thump. Wait. There was a beat. I’d feel his heat and tucked into him, like he was me, we’d fall asleep. The MS demons couldn’t touch me then. I had him. I focused on the life that was in front of me.

Even MS couldn’t overshadow that accomplishment. I had a baby in my arms.

His life tested mine. And if I ever rose above, I rose because of him and Zoe. The depression was so dark. The legs were going. I was so so tired and teaching was increasingly difficult and then impossible. I didn’t know where I was going. I knew what we had to leave behind and everything felt like a sad goodbye. That’s all I knew. But I clung to my children. No goodbyes, they were coming with. Those goodbyes turned into prayers. They turned into him rolling over and me thinking I could too. They turned into words and blogs and articles and books. He made them art when truthfully, they were just ugly emotions brought on by sickness. He forced me to find the beauty.

And now he goes. Like everything else. Like summer to fall. Pre-k to kindergarten. It goes. He goes. And I am immensely sad. I go with him, through every chapter, but gosh I wish there was room for one more. One more towel on the floor. One more…page. But there won’t be. Just new chapters in the same book, and I must learn to turn the page, even when I’m crying.

 

 

Love notes and voids and "enough".

I wish I could lie and write something about fall and Halloween. Something to make you smell cinnamon and apples wafting through your window. Can you hear the crunch of autumn leaves below children’s feet? But I can’t write. I keep moving through my summer days without words. When you are a writer, words are constantly streaming through as you notice each and every “little” thing. Like most have a compulsion to take a picture and post it on Facebook, I race to my monitor to type it out. But nothing.  I don’t feel completely wordless. I carry a journal and write poetry (I guess that is what you call it?). I haven’t written with a pen and a journal in years. But that is the extent of my writing.

I wouldn’t call myself empty or wordless. The last year-and-a-half was so hard with the book. It’s twisted everything up for me. Very little joy in it. Perhaps it something different, like feeling done. Everything is complete.

Last year looked so perfect on paper. Professionally, it was great. Reality- it was a year-and-a-half of loneliness, pushing, fighting, meeting, kickstarter, book launches and signings. This was all my burden. I had my BF illustrating, but none of this was his worries. He didn’t give up his bank account and set up kickstarter or worry about meetings. It was mine alone. It is a lot to carry, especially when you are sick and writing for other companies and running your own and have two kids. And then Paris came, and I went…alone. Thank God I found my friend Robert and clung to him, and then worked and presented at the conference because I have never felt more alone than I have in Paris. Work was the only thing that didn’t feel foreign to me. I felt comfortable at Drs 2.0. Joyful even. But going back to where I was staying, would gut me all over again. I missed Tony more than anything.

Side note: People say it is a blessing to have another half. I disagree to an extent. Knowing how much you NEED someone is the shittiest feeling in the world because someday, even if you have a happy ending, one will go before the other. Someone will suffer.

After Paris, I landed safely at Newark International as he was flying out of Newark International to the US Open (for most of the month). The universe has a wicked sense of humor. BUT, I saw the man holding the sign with my name on it. I was so grateful there was someone who politely would listen and respond and I could understand, I wouldn’t shut up about my husband and children to my driver. Finally someone who understood my language. We take that for granted by the way. Go somewhere where YOU don’t speak the language and you feel somewhat-freakish.

So this driver was the subject of every feeling I had. I verbally vomited all over the beautiful man. I think I even hugged him. He even helped me with my baggage. NO ONE in Paris did that. They let out exasperated gasps for stumbling with and shooed me away. They did not help. So I was overcome with the fact that I understood this man AND Insert subtle weeps here, that he was polite and helping me when he saw me struggling.

“But my husband, if only I could see him for five minutes. His plane is taking off as I was landing. What I would do for five minutes. Just five minutes to hug him and wish him well.”

He had what sounded like a Hindi accent, “I’m sorry ma’am. He sounds like a nice man. You are a nice woman and trust me, he will be home before you know it. It’s okay.”

He led me to a Kim Kardashian looking SUV and we drove. I had tears falling. I’d never been so happy to SMELL the Turnpike.

And then the man goes, “You know I drove a man to the airport earlier. He was much like you. He loved his wife and his children and was so sad he was leaving them. Oh, his face lit up when he spoke of them. Actually, you know what? I have something here for you.”

Now at this point I’m looking behind me like possibly there was someone in the trunk that he was talking to? Tied up? He reaches into his console, takes out a piece of Paper:

Mama, can you believe we had the same driver!? He let me write you a note. I love you so much and wish I could have seen you for a bit in the airport. Welcome home Mama!! You did it! I’m so proud of you! I love and miss you so much. ~Love Papa

It turns out the man drove Tony to the airport and mentioned he had another Newark International run, so Tony asked if he could look at his list of pickups…and there was my name. So he asked the man if he could leave me a note. I NEEDED that note. The universe always knows what we need.

I sobbed. I sobbed and sobbed until the nice man said are you okay ma’am?

I let out a slobbery, “Yes, I’m fine.” Tried to wipe the snot on my beautiful French cardigan in a gross attempt to get myself together. I then attempted to do what I always do in weird situations; I created a diversion. “Is that subway you are eating? I love Subway! What kind do you get? I always get a vegetarian. Why do they only put TWO pieces of cheese on there? Ya know I asked once and it’s because of those calorie counting cards. In order to stay true to them, they can only put TWO of whatever meat or non-meat you ask for! I always assumed they were just being cheap” That was all I could come up with, and then I gave him macaroons from France.

I keep going back to that day. Maybe that’s why I feel done? Maybe it is because I just feel complete now. I am home. I am with my husband and my babies. Writing used to fill a void. But I don’t feel that now.

Making through all of that and, finally, to Paris and back…I want to just be. I want to be with my family. I want to read. I want to cut my hair-done. I want to dye it another color (pink)-done. I want to play with my compost heap and the light in my backyard to see where I should plant what and when. I want to pray and reflect and walk until I hear God tell me where to go. I want to spin around until I feel dizzy with my kids and fall. I want to roll down hills. I want to sit and stare at my sunflowers.

My best friend’s studio is empty. It’s the same studio where I’d write every Sunday for that year-and-a-half. I have decided will go back and begin my Sundays of writing again, but I can’t promise I won’t just sit on his fire escape and watch the world roll by. It just seems much more fulfilling than writing right now.