another day in the life

I’ve been avoiding writing for so long. I want to say “I don’t know why,” but I do. I do know why.

Since I’m not yet in therapy, writing is the only time I’m forced to sit and be with my own thoughts. It’s showing up for myself. It’s great, it’s important… but sometimes all my sanity feels delicately placed like a house of cards. Keeping my kids fed and loved and getting our basic needs met and keeping our home clean and getting my paid work done are all things that depend upon that house of cards staying upright. And sometimes I can’t afford stirring up a gust of wind by sitting too long in my feelings.

Everything is wonderful and my life sucks, and I’m trying to learn that both of those things can be true.

The wonderful: We are very close to owning a house that we may be able to move into by the new year. I started massage school a month ago. Axl started kindergarten and absolutely loves it. I started a second job working with babies, and Ford comes with me so he’s started school too. I think I’m on my way to making 3 new friends, all of whom would be the first friends I’ve made since living here if it all pans out. I’m really enjoying all the quality time I’ve been able to spend with my family since living here.

The suck: Someone very close to us is dying, making that potentially the 3rd person we’ve lost this year. Getting 2 kids up and ready for the day and getting them off to school and myself to work and then picking them up and getting them dinner and spending time with them and getting them in bed all alone is fucking hard. I still cry during or immediately following grocery shopping. I try to think of Pete when I fall asleep at night and all my brain conjures up is the traumatic day of his death and the days that followed over and over and over. I’ve got chronic neck and back pain from sharing a bed with Axl and having to contort and get kicked in the ribs all night. Even 9 months in, the paperwork and lists of tasks that need to be done in order to tie up the loose ends of someone’s life never seem to end. I feel like I am carrying around this pit of sad that I keep stuffing down with toxic positivity and a stubbornness to prove I can do anything and everything.

I am going through a phase where every memory of Pete feels sharp and hurtful. I want them to feel warm and comforting. But they’re just cold and sad right now. I know the warmth will come back around but right now it’s sucks. He’s everywhere and it feels like pushing on a bruise. 

It’s Monday. I was crying by 6:30am. I was trying to braid my hair out of my face to prepare for my outside-the-house job in childcare, and Ford was crying endlessly from his gated play area. I scooped him up, put him in his high chair, gave him a snack, turned on Sesame Street, but the crying continued. I cried as I braided, as Ford cried from his high chair, as Axl huddled under a blanket on the couch because our Big Feelings had become too much for him. Me too, buddy. Me too.

I dig through the baskets of clean laundry my mom takes from my apartment while I’m at work, that she lovingly folds and returns for me, that I never seem to have time to put away. I find what I’d usually classify as pajamas but all I can focus on is putting an end to the baby’s shrieking. So I pull on whatever is clean, and scoop him up. Axl is still in his pajamas–a pair of navy sweatpants and a white crew-cut t-shirt, still crisp. I ponder my sanity level and how much I can handle and decide–fuck it–those are his school clothes for now.

I pick Ford back up, which ceases the crying, and with him on my hip I one-handedly gather all our lunch boxes one by one from the fridge. An ice pack into Fordy’s, and into his tote bag (still coffee-stained from Friday when I threw my tumbler inside after running out of hands) it goes. An ice pack into Axl’s, and into his backpack it goes. Same for mine. My eyes pause on the frozen breakfast burritos I bought for myself to make sure I eat breakfast, and I laugh out loud at the thought. Next, our water bottles. Plop, plop, plop, a Yeti in each bag, Axl’s large and unwieldy because we can’t find any of his regular ones. I set the baby down–more tears–so I can quickly make a cup of coffee and start assembling our multiple bags so that I can carry all of them, plus Ford, plus my coffee down the steps and to our car.

We make it, like we always do. Right on time–early, in fact–like we always do. I get Axl to school and Ford and I to the childcare center on time. Morning nap is a mess and one of the toddlers splits her lip open somehow (she was fine, thank god). I have to file my first incident report. I’m not hungry on my lunch break, so I suck down Yerba Mate instead. When I am getting ready to leave work early to go get Axl for his 5 year check-up, the doctor’s office calls and says he has no need for a well-visit since we were just there when we moved to town. I ask if I can switch the appointment to a visit with Ford since he somehow developed a rash on our way to school that has since spread to his whole body.

I pick Axl up early from school anyway. The pick-up line had already started, so instead of pulling up to the front of the school and letting Ford take his much-needed nap in his carseat, I scoop him out of his carseat, which wakes him up, and we schlep up the hill on foot. We get Axl, who is thrilled to hear he no longer has to go to the doctor. I try and drop him at my mom’s on the way but he refuses. I run to grab paperwork I would need for Ford’s appointment. I peel into the doctor’s office exactly on time, somehow.

I am growing used to these solo doctor’s appointments; things Pete never missed a single one of until he died. But I survive them by shutting myself off completely. When we got home my mom asked if it was awful when Fordy got his shots and as heartbreaking as it was to say, I answered that I think my heart is turned off right now. I went through the motions of the appointment while also coaxing Axl off the floor and off the doctor’s stool and out from behind the table–all things he’s too old to be getting away with but he’s 5 and removed from his routine and nervous for his brother so I don’t lose my shit. Ford is perfectly healthy and growing great, tall for his age just like his brother and daddy. The rash is viral, most likely left over from a slight fever he had over the weekend. Axl got a sticker. Ford cried but I held him and soothed him and he calmed right down. The doctor forgot that I’d told her all about Pete’s death at our last appointment, so she asked if “Mom and dad” were both doing well. I just nodded, because some days I don’t have the energy to correct everyone.

I took the boys to McDonalds on the way home as a consolation prize for surviving the trip. I drop Axl off at my mom’s and sit in my car while Fordy naps in his car seat, too afraid to move him after he finally got a moment to rest. A terrible storm opens up and we get soaking wet getting up the stairs and into our house. I get us dry and ready for bed.

And now it’s 8pm. The baby is asleep. Axl should be asleep, but he’s still watching his iPad in bed. That means I’ll have to go lay with him as he falls asleep, which I only dread because I know I have to then get OUT of bed to finish my daily chores and jobs before I can actually go to sleep. I’m out of clean bottles, and I’ll need one when the baby gets up in the morning. Axl’s lunch for tomorrow still needs to be packed. All of today’s lunches are still sitting in the car. I need to check my email for my customer service job and send a few time-sensitive responses. I just remembered an important task that’s due tomorrow too, so it looks like I’ll be putting some time in on that. To keep up with massage school, I need to put in at least an hour of work tonight; more like 2 if I truly want to catch up. And I’ll still be behind, because I need hands-on practice hours and I’m always too busy and there’s no room in my apartment for my massage table.

The clean clothes still won’t get put away. I probably won’t manage to shower. I never made it to the bank to drop off the paperwork I was supposed to. I didn’t request the records from the doctor that I needed to. I didn’t make my much-needed DMV appointment so I can get my Vermont plates and get the car in my name instead of Pete’s. Besides the 40 minutes or so I’ve spent writing this, I haven’t really had a single thought to myself. I haven’t honored my grief at all, which just makes it grow stronger and more jagged in my chest. Honoring it and giving it space is what dulls those edges. But I’ve convinced myself I just don’t have the time for that. Shards it is, for right now.