Walk around with bold legs.
It's no secret i love wolf parade. Perhaps because i know them all from my starry eyed youth in victoria. Perhaps because that song speaks so many words to me. Words that i can't say. Perhaps because i think it's the best song i've ever heard.
suebob said that i was like a dandelion. Strong, but fragile. I am.
I have a follow-up doctor appointment soon. I know he will ask me how i am. Can you laugh and can you cry? That's his barometer. I can laugh. I laugh all the time. At camp people chastised me that my loud laugh kept them awake. Can i cry?
No.
How do i feel? Melancholoy mostly. I still feel like me. Just a sadder, quieter version.
I have no anxiety. That's a good thing.
My sadness pumps through me. I don't even know what i am sad about. Beautiful children. Beautiful house. Husband who loves me more than i deserve to be loved.
I guess, if i am to be honest, and that is what this is all about – i am sad about all the things i am not. I'm not the mother i want to be. I don't have the friends i want to have. I am alone. I am always alone. I can spend my days at the school. But, i'm not in kindergarten. And i'm not a teacher. I'm just the mom that is always there. Playing with the kids. Ignoring her house and the life that she doesn't have there.
Shane is travelling again. He's away most of this week and then he's off to Philadelphia for five days. Then? Then i will meet him in miami next friday. Four days alone. Me and him.
We haven't been alone, well, since 1997. I don't even want to go. His business had enough points to fly me out to meet him there. At his bootcamp.
Really, i like when he's away. I like the lessening of my burden. I like it when it's just me and the kids.
I'm not ready to travel again. Going to california this summer sent me into this depression. I don't feel ready to do it again.
My very favourite part of this time of year, which has thankfully turned into a beautiful and warm early fall, is watching the canada geese making their practice flights before they take off for the winter. Training the young geese before their long journey warms my heart.
I also love the colours and the smells. Warm days followed by breezy cool evenings.
I'm feeling better. My steps are a little lighter, my heart doesn't weigh me down as much. I can see in all the colours and sounds of happy children dancing in falling leaves that, although winter is just ahead, spring will come again after that. And that makes me feel like everything is going to be okay. I am going to be okay.
I will find my way through the long, wet winter and i will spend lazy afternoons at the lake again later.
My head still aches and throbs, my dreams are filled with tiny tremors in my brain that wake me up throughout the night. My hands shake with hunger, yet food repulses me. Everyone assures me this too shall pass. I can't do handstands or cartwheels anymore. Something that i used to do every afternoon with the other kids at school. I haven't done a flip or belly drop on the trampoline in months. Lots of the little things that brought me childlike glee have been stolen from me.
I can still run races and search for little tickly spots. I can hold hands with a frightened kindergartener and assure him that everything will be okay and tell him that yes, i would like to come to your house to play. I can cherish the small moments of childhood giggles. I can do that again.
My family is not well. Tristan is sick. Parker won't sleep. I'm tired and i just want more than fifteen minutes alone.
It seems like so much to ask. Fifteen minutes. I could tell you so much.
So many words left unsaid.
But, tristan is not well. And she's big. She's nine.
I snuggled in beside her tonight, rubbing her sore tummy. Noticing that as we spooned together her feet hit my ankle.
I rubbed her sore belly, told her that i loved her and everything would be okay.
I can't remember the last time i climbed into bed with her. When shane goes away she sleeps with me and parker. Replaces shane. Poor girl.
Where has my life gone? How is it that i have this gigantic, beautiful girl, with the long brown hair snuggled up beside me.
How come i am so lucky?
I have family visiting. My house is clean, the kids rooms are clean, and my freezer is full of spaghetti sauce and homemade chicken soup. I am being walked around like i'm made of thin glass. Fragile and careful. I'm aware of how quiet i am, how tired i may or may not look, how short my patience is, and how all of the sudden my failings as a homemaker are showing. But, despite it all it is nice to be taken care of.
Tonight at dinner, a dinner made with love, parker refused to eat. Proclaimed it "gross." He left the table in a huff. I went to the kitchen with him and he had a classic parker temper tantrum and proceeded to hit me, try to bite me, and call me "stupid mommy." He closed in and bit me hard on the thigh. By instinct i pushed him away. I knew right away when i heard a snap and he instantly turned blue and started crying.
I asked shane to check his mouth. Shane was mad. At me. Parker's front tooth was broken. Half of it gone. Left in my pants and fleshy thigh.
I have never felt like a worse mother. My beautiful son. Missing half of his front top tooth.
The all school campout was an amazing adventure in fun, sleep deprivation and anxiety.
The first day was filled with so much fun. I loved every single minute of it. Laughter and games, obstacle courses and spaghetti, endless games of jess verses all the kids under eight tag, and campfire songs.
Eliza, toby and i slept together in a hut and tristan was further up in the woods in a tent with her two friends and their mom. All the kids were asleep by ten. As i heard the kids gently drift into exhausted snores you could hear the clink, clink of all the parents getting out bottles of wine and beer, chips and salsa and homemade goodies.
The parents seperated into two parties. One up top where the big kids were in tents and one down by the hut at the picnic table. We sat and we drank beer and yellow tail and we laughed at our children stories and the little moments of parenthood. Celebrating the fact that all our kids were asleep and we were without them, but together.
I forgot the fact that i haven't really eaten for a month and my body is full of medication. I got a little drunk. It filled me with anxiety and sadness. I wandered back and forth endlessly between the two campsites, saying hello to both parties. Trying to find tristan's tent in the dark woods. Sitting alone marvelling at the stars and watching all the little critters that bring the forest alive at night.
This is why people think i'm odd. I can't socialize for hours on end. I can socialize for minutes at a time before i need a break. I can talk for hours to one person that i am comfortable with. Shane is often half-way up the stairs to bed while i am still chatting away to him.
I went back to our picnic table and there was only a few parents left. The drunken mom of tristan's best friend laying down on my lap telling me how amazing i am and how much she loves me. Two a.m. became three a.m. Soon everybody went to bed. I wandered up to check on tristan one last time. My manic energy at night. It makes it impossible to go to bed.
When i was all alone and all the kids were asleep and the parents had drifted off into alcohol induced sleep i wandered around some more. I was overcome with the desire to call my brother in sweden. One last mom asked me who the hell i was calling, i told her shane. I would have, but i can't call home at four in the morning when my mother-in-law is sleeping there.
It's been almost two years since i drove my brother to the detox centre in vancouver. He had three seizures from alcohol withdrawal on the way there. He weighed less than one hundred pounds. He was going to die. I haven't called him on the phone since that day.
I saw him briefly when he visited from sweden this summer. But, we didn't really talk. Just the casual conversation that you can have while watching four children run and play.
I wanted to call him and tell him i was sorry. That i still love him and i carry him in my heart. That i see myself in him. That i can't talk to him anymore because i don't trust him and i don't want him to die. And if he does. I don't want to see it.
Of course, i couldn't call him. So i called my voicemail at home and listened to some messages. I sat alone in the field. I went to bed wondering how i could have had a day filled with so much fun and end up here sad and lonely in a field. I went to bed and snuggled in with eliza amidst the snores and complaints from twenty other children.
I slept for an hour.
Another day full of breakfast and fun. And a boy with an anaphylactic reaction to a wasp sting. An injection of adrenaline given by me, followed by a crazy drive to emergency. But that's a story for another day.