I was due for a breakdown

It’s always at the end of the best days too. It hits out of nowhere. We had a great day – Axl was off from school, it was unseasonably hot and sunny, and we played out on the porch under the umbrella. My grandparents had invited us over for dinner. We stopped by the general store on the way there – I needed sunblock and tick spray – and it was the first time I took both kids with me out in public anywhere that wasn’t to visit family or out to soccer practice. I did a shitty job at parking the car. I wore the baby in his carrier, and Axl helped me wheel the cart as we wandered around the store. I let him pick out some candy and a stuffed animal. I got the tick spray and 3 containers of sunblock, and a bottle of margarita wine. We drove up to my grandparent’s house. Papa took Axl on the 4-wheeler to meet the neighbors and then up the mountain to visit deer camp. We ate my favorite dinner. We stayed a little bit past the baby’s usual bedtime, and then we drove home.

Naturally, the baby fell asleep on the drive home, and when I woke him up to finish putting him to bed, he was pissed. From 6:30-9:30, I rocked him to sleep, set him down, and he screamed bloody murder. We did this over and over and over. It was 90 degrees inside our apartment, I was baking from my sunburn, and Axl was crying about Minecraft. At some point, I just burst into tears. I was frustrated, yes, but it was more than that. It hit me that things would be so different if Pete was still here. Obviously I have that thought approximately three million times a day, but in the hard moments it physically hurts. I was thinking about how if we were home, we’d be in our central air conditioning and I wouldn’t be sweating my ass off. That Pete would have been able to take the baby for awhile and try his own hand at getting him asleep. Axl would’ve been in his own room, free to play until he got tired and climbed into bed instead of me having to snap every 30 seconds and tell him to get back into his bed. I would’ve been able to take a shower once I finally got the kids to bed. But now… we’re all in one room having to co-exist together every moment of the day and I think all 3 of us get burned out sometimes and need some space.

Sometimes it overwhelms me to think of how different everything got so quickly. Tomorrow Axl has soccer practice and I’ll be taking him. I’ll have the baby, too. I’ll feed both kids and pack them both up and drive us there and sit on the sidelines. I’ll drive us home and feed them again and make a grocery list. I’ll fold the laundry and clean the apartment and sort through the garbage bags of clothes I took from the house the last time I was there. I’ll play with them and give them baths and put them to bed alone. 

I’m proud of myself, though. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, and I don’t even know which part is the hardest – the grief or the rebuilding from scratch or the solo parenting. It’s all so fucking hard. It feels like a gift to have been given this opportunity to spend so much time with my family after being away for so long. Everyone’s generosity has been incredible. For a long time, my mom was coming over after work to help me get the kids to bed. And now I’m just… doing it all. I went from having frequent nightmares about having to drive, to just hopping in the car whenever and taking us wherever we need to go. I can’t believe I’m driving Axl to and from school everyday when in MA I was having to hire and interview strangers to do it, or Pete would need to take the day off of work so he could go get him. I can’t believe I’m just driving Pete’s car around, that it’s my car now. I can take the kids to the doctor or to the playground or to go swimming or to visit anyone we want. It’s still mind boggling to me.

And now I am sitting outside beneath the stars and moon, drinking a margarita and wishing like hell Pete was here. He’s sat on this same porch, under these same stars and this same moon. I’m sitting in a chair he always wanted to buy. It’s quiet except for the crickets. This is a beautiful life, even without him in it, and that can be so hard to swallow. I feel him everywhere when I’m outside. From the moment I knew he wasn’t going to make it, when it started snowing outside and I felt so deeply it was him telling me he was already gone, that he was already part of the ether, I’ve known he’s a part of nature now. He’s the sky and the weather and the sun and the moon. He’s the air and he’s fire and he’s thunder and he’s breeze. But he used to be my best friend, my husband, my life partner, my co-parent. He was a real, live person who was here and he was beautiful. I know he’s beautiful in this form, too, but I miss the real him. The human him. It all just feels so unfair sometimes, even when I can manage to grasp that there is beauty here, too.