My pretty but dead dreams
I built that crib with Alison on September 13th, 2015. She was in her last trimester at the time and insisted that she help but I had her just direct for the most part.
Seven years later, I finally took it apart.
Well, not me, a fella from my gym that helps us out with stuff. I couldn’t do it.
Just like when my friends came by to paint it at the height of COVID two years ago, it was just something that I kept putting off.
Alison took that picture above, almost as a joke. I didn’t know she had brain cancer at that moment.
Put it off for two things, really.
One was Alison, of course. She was a part of that crib, just like she was a part of how that room used to look. The other was that I think I was hoping that maybe Mouse and I might have a kid of our own.
But they’re both gone now and the kid deserves to have a bed that matches his age instead of me clinging onto all my pretty, but dead, dreams.
When my buddy left, I sat down to finish the bottle of rum I’ve had sitting on my countertop.
I always have a bottle of fine aged rum on my countertop.
But, I decided against it and put it back. Had a cup of tea instead.
Baby steps, yeah?
Do you see the little boy’s outfit hanging on the closet knob in the background?
For a while now, I’ve been giving a lot of the kid’s clothes to Mouse to send off to her relative in the Ukraine.
The kid last wore that in December of 2019, when we went to that Christening in NJ. I always thought the kid looked adorbs in it.
That was something that I’d been meaning to give her for some time now, along with some other stuff for them, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it.
The thought that there’s some little boy running around in Ukraine, scared and confused, younger than my own kid, wearing my kid’s clothes, bothers me in a way I can’t fully express except to say that it’s fucking bullshit.
He’d be the same age as my kid was in that pic above.
It’s bullshit that some innocent kid has to pay for a billionaire’s greed for more fucking money.
I wonder if he’s dressed in one of my son’s outfits now. It bothers me because – but for time and tide – that couldn’ve been my kid.
Well, I guess I could express it, after all…
Doesn’t make it any less bullshit. Maybe I should have that drink after all.
Her: Why didn’t you tell me you were in LA? I would have seen you.
Me: I know. I had a lot going on. Have.
Her: What’s new? You’ll see me next time, though, yes?
Me: Of course, darling. Promise.
Her: (laughing) You and your promises.
Location: earlier today, waiting for the pool shower
Mood: trying to stay in the golden mean
Music: I don’t really feel bad news anymore (Spotify)
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