Dear kids

Your sister and me at the park yesterday.

 

Dear kids,

I am writing to you from Japan.  It is two days after Thanksgiving, and I haven't seen you in three months.  Three months ago, I took your little sister, got on a plane, and flew away.  I never dreamed I would do it.  I never dreamed that after spending 25 years fighting to be with you and keep you with me above all else, I would walk away.

When this job was presented to me, I thought about the leaving and living without you, and I pushed it from my mind.  Whenever I started to think about how much I would miss you, I just put those thoughts into a compartment in my brain.  I try to think how I thought I would live for two years without you in my daily life and not lose my mind.  I try to think how I thought I would be okay.  And, again, I just put those thoughts and feelings into the little compartment inside my brain.  I think growing up as a child of divorce and then as a parent of divorce, you have to have compartments because sometimes to feel all the things at once is too much for one heart to handle.  But sometimes, those compartments cause us to make decisions without sitting with the full weight of their consequences on our minds.

So I accepted this job.  And I packed up our house.  And I quit my job.  And I withdrew your sister from school.  And then we kept waiting for the tickets and the date to be set, so we didn't have a deadline.  It was so easy to keep moving along like our world wasn't about to be blown apart.  We joked about me not even telling you, and just being gone one day- but we wouldn't really have ever done that.  And then the tickets were bought and we were leaving in four days.  And then I had it all planned in my head how we would say goodbye.  We would have dinner at the ranch and everyone would be together, so I could just give you each a hug real quick and run out the door.  And it worked- sort of.  Because after I hugged and kissed everyone, and squeezed my babies close to my heart, I realized that Brady wasn't there.  My hell, where was that kid?  And he was back at the house.  So I drove back, and you, my stubborn, hard-headed, kept-saying-that-you-didn't-even-care-that-I-was-leaving, walked out sobbing.  And as I held on to you and told you it would be okay, I got this pain right in the center of my chest.  This pain right inside of and behind my sternum.  And it hurt all the way home.  

And when I woke up the next morning to drive to the airport, I almost didn't go.  I almost stayed in bed.  I almost quit before I ever started.  But I went, with the pain in my chest, I went.  And that pain didn't leave for weeks.  For the first three weeks we were here, that pain gnawed at my heart every day, and I walked around wondering what in the hell I had done.  And when Clara cried for her daddy, or her house, or her sister, or her brothers, or Sky or Trent, or Mae and Benny, I wondered what in the hell I had done.  But everyone here says that it gets better, so I kept pushing through and telling us that we would be okay.

And three weeks later when Jason got here, I thought the sight of him would break me, but it didn't. Because Clara climbed into his arms and all I felt was the peace of knowing her heart was full, and we would be okay because she would be okay and he would be with us.  And then we went up to our hotel room, and Jason handed me a hoodie that had been at the ranch with him and I smelled my mother's house and I sobbed big ugly sobs.  And all I wanted was to go home.  And then we moved into our new house.

The first night in our new house, with the 17 pieces of borrowed government furniture and the contents of 6 suitcases and one box of loaner kitchen goods, I thought we were going to die.  The wind was so strong and it all seemed so strange, and I thought we would be blown away.  I woke up probably 15 times waiting to hear the sound of the big voice telling us to seek higher ground, or get in a closet or something because the world was ending.  And all I wanted was to go home.  But our household had been packed up and was on its way, and I had a contract for two years.  So I had to suck it up and pray to all the gods that everyone here was right and the homesickness would abate with time.

Three months in and our household goods have arrived.  I am sleeping in my own bed, with my own pillow and sitting in my own rocking chair at night.  I check out books from the base library and we buy our groceries from the commissary.  I love my job and Clara is settled in and has friends and a loving teacher and enjoys school.  Jason is learning how to run our house and has figured out how to work the Japanese appliances and traverse the grocery shopping and bill paying and other challenges of being foreigners in a country that is not our own.  I spend my free time planning trips and traveling, and I think that is what has finally helped the homesickness abate.  It is still there, but it is tucked neatly in its little compartment in my brain where it shakes just enough to keep me calling you guys in a rotation each morning and each weekend when we are at home.  

And in just 10 days I am coming home to watch you, T, graduate from college.  I am so excited to see you all.  I often imagine hugging each of you and feeling your weight, smelling your smell and seeing your eyes.  It brings me great joy and great pain, so luckily I don''t do it as often as I did when I first arrived.  But now, as I am preparing to come home for a short trip, the homesick is growing every day, and I don't know how I am going to leave you all again.  Because, I just realized, it has only been three months since I have seen you.  And this time, when I hug you goodbye, it will be six months and one grandbaby until I see you again.  And my heart is already breaking.

I love you and I miss you more than anyone could think possible to miss their children after only three months, but I am missing you for two years all at once, every day.  I cannot wait to hold you and hug you soon.  My heart breaks already from leaving you again.

You are my heart, my world and all the stars.  I love you across the sea and into tomorrow,

Mom

The hardest part

 The hardest part of depression is hard to pinpoint.

There is absolutely nothing good about it.

But the hardest part is not trusting my own mind.

I wake up and feel like the entire ocean is laying over me.

I force myself out of bed, and struggle to the shower.

I manage to get dressed and feed myself.

I fold a load of laundry, and I am so tired that I lay myself down on the couch I had been sitting on and fall asleep for two hours.

I wake up, and the ocean is still crushing me.

Am I sick?  Is something wrong with me?  Do I need to seek medical help?

Or is it just depression?  Is it just in my head?

I don't know.

But I wash, fold and put away three loads of laundry.

And I feed myself.

And that is all.

I spend the day sleeping or laying down.  So tired that I cannot function.

So tired that I don't have energy to care or move.

I just pray tomorrow is a better day.  Maybe I will figure out if I am actually sick or if it is just depression coming back again.

Tomorrow is here.

And the goddamn ocean is sitting on my chest again.

My husband asks if I am going to get up today.

I am going to try.

And I force myself out of the bed.

Take a shower, put on clothes, brush my teeth.

Walk like a zombie through the house with pain in my chest.  

It is hard to breathe.

When I speak, I have to hold in my diaphragm because it hurts to talk.

My husband says he can tell from my face we should have cancelled the breakfast.

And I want to shout that I am doing my best.  I am up.  I am moving.  I am wiping down the table and picking up the house.  But now I have to worry about my face.  I am trying.  But I don't say anything because I do not have the energy.

Because I cannot care.  I cannot worry.  I just have to keep moving.  Keep slogging through the water that doesn't abate. 

I make it through our breakfast.  I snuggle my grands and we decorate eggs.  I can do all the things. None of the kids see that anything is wrong.  When they leave, I use the energy they brought and shared with me to replant the flowers that were wilting in their tiny plastic pots.

I will not lay down.  If I do, I will not get back up.  I am so tired.  Living is heavy.  Breathing is hard.  So I am pretty sure after two days that nothing is wrong with me.  It is just depression come back.  It is just depression trying to kill me.  To drown me.  To bury me.  

It is my body trying to give up.

It is my mind telling me that I don't care and I don't feel and it doesn't matter.

It is my heart beating painfully in my chest.

It is my lungs trying to breathe when it hurts so much.

It is my soul aching for rest.

It is just fucking depression.

And it wants me to die.

But somewhere deep inside of me lives something that knows I cannot trust my body.  Or my mind.  Or my heart.  Or my soul. Somewhere deep inside is the part that my children feed with their love.  The part that keeps me fighting when every other part of me is ready to give up.

I will never give up.  

This little part of me that hides from the monsters will never let me.  

em 4/10/22

Pedestal

You say our children put me on a pedestal

that you can never reach me

that you can work forever

and they will never set you high

If I am on a pedestal, it is a pedestal I built 

with my blood and my tears 

my sacrifice and my love

It is a pedestal to raise my children up; it was never meant for me

 I built it piece by piece to give them everything

Everything I had and everything I never had

The dreams I wanted for myself and never reached

the dreams I hoped they would create themselves

The guilt of being a single parent, the fear of never being enough

The agony of trying to be two parents instead of one

  

But mostly it was built of my love

A love unyielding and unbending

A love forged before they took their first breath

A love worth giving everything that I am to grow

I gave them all of me, every particle, every fiber

I showed up every time and I stayed by their side

And for that, they held on to me as I lifted them up

onto a pedestal made of my heart

em

3/2/22