I was sort of dreading valentine's day. All the holidays are difficult right now. Combined with my crazy head and hectic work week i was feeling a little knot in my stomach that i was going to have a classic bad mommy moment.
It worked out though. Parker and i went out and picked out a small gift for each of the kids, some playmobil, some craft kits and a fountain pen for Tristan. My valentines from Brenda arrived just in time. The girls loved them, as i knew they would. Toby opted for little boxes of smarties with a "to and from" box on the back. They sat while i cooked dinner and did all their cards – without any fuss or frustration.
I made one of our favourite dinners, linguine tossed with smoked salmon, and we had a lovely evening. At bedtime we talked a bit more about love and relationships and mommy and daddy. Just casual, but always keeping the conversation open for them. Then i sent them to bed, cards ready to go in paper sacks.
Valentines morning they jumped out of bed and in a whirlwind of dirty socks, teeth-brushing and cheerios they were in the car ten minutes after they woke. Returning home in the afternoon with bags full of treats and valentines and retreated to their bedroom to compare the hauls.
Work, which i had been dreading, went amazingly well. Everybody was happy. There were no boyfirend/husband/partners grumpy because they were out spending money on something they resented. All the couples, and there were lots of them, were sweet and cute and lovey-dovey, and had i not magically transformed into a woman who was not bitter about love and relationships, i probably would have spent the evening giving caf to the decafs, veal broth to the vegetarians and spilling red wine on every white blouse.
But i didn't. Instead i gave everybody SAJ Valentines in their billfolds and drove home with a pocket full of money and a little faith in my heart.
And i walked in the door to a bouquet of flowers, a card, some chocolate and a bottle of wine.
Faith – Restored
Lux was the youngest of four children. Two boys, two girls. A six year gap between her and her sister meant that by the time she was twelve she was the only child left at home. She spent her childhood lost in a gaggle of neighbourhood kids. Constantly surrounded by children. Summers spent roaming the nearby streets. Endless games of kick the can, four square and mother may i. Going home only when her mother leaned out her kitchen door and shouted all their names.
Often, being youngest, she would be the first in bed. The summer sun still lighting the dusky night. Kids outside her bedroom window, continuously changing the rules for kick the can, or capture the flag.
Her childhood was a happy one. Surrounded by siblings. When they all left, she became an only child. A lonely child. Her parents had moved past parenting. Her mother going back to work. Finding a new career. Finding some freedom after twenty years of raising children.
Her highschool years were spent sleepless, siblingless and alone. Neighbourhoods changed. Childhood friends long gone. Music and books filled her room. The top bunk piled high with newspaper and magazine clippings. She became an avid scrapbooker. Filling hardcover sketch book after another with handwritten quotes, stickers, photos and lost love notes she found in the halls of school.
She could often be seen in the cafeteria during school, writing furiously in one of her books. Alternately changing tapes on her sony walkman. Homemade mixed tapes full of songs half-hazardly recorded from the radio. Money saved up to buy one of those all in one double tape deck, record player and radio white plastic stereos from the local department store.
Her room, with the daisies, was filled with posters of James Dean and The Police, Marilyn Monroe and the Go-Go's. She was not unlike so many girls her age. Struggling to figure it all out in the midst of angst and hormones, baby fat and pubic hair.
this is what i look at to make me feel all warm and gooey inside. i'll post the second installment of my ongoing story this evening. i'm thinking every other day will be more realistic.
I am doing well. I know people are watching me. Worried. Waiting for me to fall. Hoping for the best.
The kids and i had a wonderful day. Actually, couple of days. We went for a long walk along the traintracks and the edge of the lake yesterday. Catching up on our weekends apart. Tristan had been in vancouver living it up and being spoiled by my parents. The other three spent the weekend at their dads while i continued to detoxify and withdraw.
It is going as i expected. Moments of anxiety, panic, sadness. Lots of pain and nausea. But, i know it should get better. It will get better. I talked to a doctor on the phone tonight when i began to panic after looking in the mirror, at night, and realizing that my pupils were very constricted. Pupils so small i could barely see them. It freaked me out. Here i am, feeling sick and dizzy, nauseous, pale and sweaty. Really, i've been feeling like i am very ill. Really sick, like i'm laying on my death bed. I imagine that sometimes. When i am laying in bed, holding my head, i really am dying. This is way worse than withdrawal. I have a secret underlying condition that is killing me and i am blaming it on withdrawal. But, i don't. I was on a medication that doctors routinely prescribe without a single mention of side-effects or discontinuation effects.
Anyway, if you click on parker up there you will see a bunch of cute photos from today that will assure you all is well.
xx
jess
As a teenager Lux lost herself in the small details of her life. She would lay in her bed at night tracing the shadows that danced along her wall. Her bedroom was painted sunshine yellow with a wallpaper trim of daisies. Her mother had put it up for her when at the age of twelve she began having nightmares.
Her nightmares came every night. She would wake up often too terrified to get out of bed. She would knock on the top bunk, trying desperately to wake up her older sister. Cecilia would wake up groggy and crawl into bed with her little sister. She would stroke her hair and tell her to close her eyes and imagine a field of daisies. Something happy. A happy place.
As years went by Lux began staying awake all night. Keeping the nightmares at bay by not sleeping when it was dark. If she kept herself up until the moon began to be replaced in the sky by the sun she would not have bad dreams. Instead she would dream of her daisies and wake after a few hours of sleep to face the teenager day under the haze of sleep deprivation.
The world worked its' way around her while she lived life a couple paces behind everyone else. Noticing the way the boy with the locker beside hers would empty his pockets left to right bottom to top and finger each object gently before putting them all back again right to left top to bottom. The way girls would travel in groups, effortlessly tossing their hair as they giggled and swaggered their perfect hips. Oblivious to the way their happiness tortured those who didn't step so lightly.
Lux began watching the carpet in the hallways at highschool. It was easier than faces. She counted blocks of colour and followed lines of patterns to Algebra. She picked up stubby dropped pencils, hairpins, forgotten notes and love letters. She would arrange them all in a shoebox in her room. Passing the hours at night. Arranging thumbtacks and crayons by colour. Smelling the wax on her fingers.