The promise of each new spring

We’re moving to a new house next week and every time I ask the kids how they’re feeling about it, Deaglan says the same thing: I can’t wait because Dad says we’re getting those diving rockets Shannon has at her house! 

And Naveen answers me with a question to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. You mean that house with the pool that we saw last year ago?  

Yes.

It was the end of May but I remember how time felt as a kid.

Truth is, I’ve been walking around in a daze, reliving our time here; watching the past seven years in flashes on the projector of my mind. In the spare room, I only see the nursery it used to be. The sound of lullabies tinkling in the background as I nurse my babies to sleep night after night. 

I walk by walls and finger the grooves left by baby gates, freshly painted over, but the scars still there. I see each of the boys crawling and eventually walking up and down the well-worn stair case; stare a little longer at the framed pictures along the rail,  when they were just babies.

Downstairs I sit bemused on the recliner, gaze out the front window, as neighbors walk by with their dogs, pass the tree I’ve come to love. The one I eyed up suspiciously that first summer but who has become my loyal and constant companion in watching these boys grow. 

I thank it, not for the first time, for allowing our babies to swing from its branches, for being the touch point for all their games, for patiently indulging them summer after summer as they struggle to scale its trunk. I thank it for its breezy shade in the hot summer months and for the way it stands proudly through the cold winter, bare for all to see, clinging to the promise of each new spring.

I hope the new owners will treasure you old friend.

In the evenings, we kick the ball around or I just sit back to watch the kids play in the backyard. My mind takes me back to other moments we’ve had here. I watch myself walk down the aisle, in a pretty white dress, past the handful of family and friends, a baby on my hip and six white roses in my hand; I make my way toward my sweet love to say I do.

It felt so right to do it here! 

This place that made us a family, settled us into our best selves.

And when I ask Shaune how he’s feeling about it - he’s the more sentimental one of us – he hesitates. I have to remind him it’s time to move on. We really did make the right decision.

It wasn’t the plan to stay here forever. 

 

 

 

I feel healthier for it

Last week I met a woman I immediately liked.

She was tall, thin and authentic, with a feline quality about her face and movements but she had this way, unlike a cat, of disarming me. I watched her as we talked and decided I really liked her outfit. She was wearing good quality lounge-wear. I could tell it was more about comfort and texture for her though. She probably didn’t buy her clothes because they were Lululemon but because when she tried them on, they felt nice against her skin. I’m not even sure that they were Lululemon, just my best guess. The colors suited her creamy skin and auburn hair; olives and beiges.  

I made a mental note to wear my hair in a side pony as soon as I had the right occasion and felt something close to desperation to lose five pounds. Immediately.

She sat in a wingchair that I could tell had been purchased because it fit her esthetic. Her orange Persian cat lay snuggled in beside her. A few times it yawned and did a cat-like stretch but then settled down again between the outside of her thigh and the arm of the chair. It was odd that it didn’t seem odd to me at all. The cat belonged there and throughout our time together she made not one mention of it.

On second thought, I realized she’d chosen the pieces in the room because it likely made most people feel the way it was making me feel; relaxed and easy.

It’s not an easy thing though, meeting a new therapist for the first time. All sorts of anxieties run through your head. Will I like this person? Do I believe she’s qualified to help me through this particular issue? Will I feel judged so that I end up defeating myself, trying to be a good teacher-pleasing student instead of a fee-paying adult who needs to work through something? Will I act on her advice?

I’ve met many new therapists in my adult life.

Every few years I find myself on someone new’s  intentionally chosen couch. Each course of therapy is usually my last attempt at resolving an issue that has come to a head; an issue that surely developed out of the not so simple childhood that was mine. Something that will not be fixed by reading the right book or writing about it or resolving to change.

Sometimes I end up looking at the same issue from several different angles, in several courses of therapy because I just can’t seem to find a neat and tidy solution in five or six sessions. I feel healthier for it. I have absolutely no qualms about getting myself mental help. Talking things through, using cognitive behavioral techniques to change my thinking and actions seems to work for me.

I think I’ll always need to talk to someone when I get lost.

I really liked her. She was empathetic and fair in such a good way. She stopped me in all the right places, asked me some questions that despite my best efforts broke some anciently crafted dam so that I had to stop and cry into my hands, embarrassed and worrying about my makeup.

I’ll go back to see her and work through this.

 

A constant reminder

I almost never miss an episode of Intervention.

After Matthew died, I stopped watching it for a full year. One of our last conversations became heated because I’d said the wrong thing. I’m sorry now that I didn’t push past the discomfort of having him so angry at me. I wished I’d hung on, gotten to the softer side of it; maybe opened him up a bit.

On the surface my comment was so innocent. He was telling me about a new friend staying with him, and the situation reminded me of something I’d seen on Intervention the night before so I told him about the episode.

Inside though, the more he described their relationship, the more my panic rose.

On some subconscious level I must have brought up the show on purpose; a passive aggressive confrontation.

I wish I’d been more forceful with my opinions, more insistent that he get help. I wish I’d not let him talk me out of taking things more seriously every single time something like that happened.

I know I wanted to believe there was nothing I could do to help him.

It’s not that I like the stories – I watch with bated breath every week. It’s not a mindless escape like Parenthood or Law and Order. I watch out of fear. A need to know that there is a reason things turn out the way they do. I wait for that part of the show, after they’ve cursorily described the addiction, exposed a few clips of the person using; the part where they go back to the beginning.

The history.

The mother usually says something like, the happiest day of my life was when she was born. She was the sweetest most beautiful baby and I could rarely get through the grocery store without people stopping me to comment how adorable she was. Then they get to the parents’ relationship, how things were blissful at the beginning and a few years later one of the parents start drinking or drugging again. Everything changes.

I look for this part. I need it. It’s when I breathe a sigh of relief. It confirms for me that there was a reason the addict went down the road they did. They didn’t just end up like this for nothing. It gives me some hope.

I know that sounds demented.

The story doesn’t always go this way though. Sometimes the person hooked on booze or meth is suffering from a mental illness, something no one ever diagnosed them with. I find this as heartbreaking as when one of their parents wrecked their childhood with their addictions.

I won’t pretend to know how an addiction can impact the person directly afflicted. It’s easy for me to stop drinking after one or two glasses of wine. I don’t like feeling drunk or out of control especially since I’ve had my boys. Life rarely seems unbearable. I can mostly handle it even if I don’t always like it.

I know so many people who aren't as fortunate. Maybe that's why I hardly ever miss Intervention. Maybe it's not about me.

We went to see Hotel Transylvania  in full costume today. These are last year's getups and although this year Naveen will trick-or-treat as a monkey and Deaglan a knight, they both insisted on these. 

To all of my blogging buddies, I know I've been a terrible friend. I'll be around to see what you've been up to soon!