The kid and I were walking up Broadway the other day and someone dropped an entire jar of pickles on the ground and no one batted an eye.
Everywhere I look, things are a mess or broken.
Everything is chaos and atrophy.
Or, at least, I’m noticing it more these days.
Probably because I’m a broken mess and my mind is all chaos and atrophy.
Alison died exactly seven years ago.
How is that even fucking possible?
Me: I realized something the other day: I may live another 40, 50 years. All that time without Alison. Therapist: And how does that make you feel? Me: (thinking) Pretty empty. Then again, these past seven years seemed to dash by. Her: (at the end of the session) Are you ok? Me: Yeah. It’s fine. I cry all the time. Her: This is the first time you’ve cried in one of our sessions. Me: Is that right? Well, I cry all the time. (shaking head) These years have gone by so fast.
Suppose life will be over before I know it.
It’s hurts to know that I’m gonna end up being an old man one day, and she never got that chance.
I’ve always wished it was me and not her.
Think I always will.
Editor note: I’ll be taking a mental health day for Sunday/Monday, so I’ll post again on Tuesday night.
This entry is out of order; back to the regular nuthin in the next entry.
The Firecracker’s dad came into town this weekend and we met up with him on Saturday for a kid’s birthday party.
It was fine for the most part but then a parent snapped at my kid when he tried to break a piñata with his foot when it fell down – like an 8 year old kid understands why whacking a piece of cardboard with a stick is ok but kicking it isn’t – and destroyed him in front of all the other kids.
It pretty much set the mood for the rest of the weekend for us.
He’d never cried at a birthday party before and, of course, it had to happen during the weekend of Mother’s Day and his mom’s birthday.
Obviously, there’s no way for the other parent to have known that.
If it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t have known and that she was a mom, I woulda been arrested.
Still, he was fine after a spell because I raised him to be resilient, but – man – I was steamed.
Him: She said I did it on purpose, but I didn’t. I was trying to help. (sadly) I’m the worst kid. Me: Don’t ever say that. She doesn’t know you at all. You’re the best kid mom or I could ever ask for. Him: Really? Me: Honest and for true.
We then went to have dinner with the Firecracker’s family at a local taco joint that I’d been to before and then called it a night.
The next morning, despite it being Mother’s Day, the Firecracker got up bright and early to make her family and us a killer brekkie with a baked blueberry and apple oatmeal dish and a baked fritatta with feta and bacon.
The oatmeal bar
My kid liked it so much, he asked for seconds of everything and also asked for more the next day.
God, I love that kid – he’s just like me where we eat our feelings.
We all chatted at my place for hours until we had to meet up with the ABFF for dinner and to remember Alison.
This was probably the worst birthday/Mother’s Day yet for the kid because he feels the loss now.
Being humiliated and yelled at a birthday party probably didn’t help matters.
It was the hardest one for me for a while because it hit the kid so hard.
Him: (looking up at the ballon) How do we know she’ll get it? Me: We hope. Him: (nodding) I hope she knows I miss her. Me: She knows. I’m sure she knows
Teacher: …that’s so great to hear about your mom! Who’s next? What about you, tell us about your mom (points at my son). Him: She’s dead. Her: What?! Him: She’s dead. She died when I was a baby. Her: (flustered) Oh, oh…I… Him: Not everyone has a mother, [teacher’s name].
He’s way too mature for his age.
I fucking hate it, sometimes.
Mother Day sucks for the kid and myself.
Wrote his teachers and his afterschool instructors as well to remind them of our situation and I guess this teacher didn’t get the memo.
My kid was pretty fucked up when I got him.
Him: It’s not fair. Me: It’s not. Him: Why is she dead? Me: (sighing) I wish I could give you a good answer.
Once again, Mother’s Day and Alison’s Birthday fall on the same day.
Which is about as shitty a coincidence as I could imagine.
Years ago…
Me: …being poor and hungry again, I think. And you? What are you most afraid of? Alison: (thinking) Being forgotten, I suppose. Me: (laughing) Well, as long as I’m alive, there’s little chance of that.
Yeah, as long as the kid and I are alive – for better or worse – there’s little chance of that.
Me: You know what I realized about that musical we saw, Merrily We Roll Along? Her: What? Me: It annoyed me that they told the story backwards but I just realized that’s how I…well, people…look at life as adults. Backwards. I’m at an age where everything in my life I look at in reverse.
If they did, Europe as we know it would probably have been Muslim instead of Christian, meaning the US would have been Muslim as well.
But the Ottman Turks failed in their conquest so Europe remained, for better or worse, Christian.
The crazy thing is that 341 years after that battle, there are still remnants of the siege lodged in the very wall of the cathedral: A Turkish cannonball remains fixed in time and space on the south wall of the building.
I’m always interested in things from our – distant – past that affect our current lives.
As I try to raise this boy, I think back on my own life and childhood and how I felt and thought about things.
I see life so much more through the eyes of my parents, particularly my dad, and I understand him more.
Don’t fully agree with alla the things he did but I get why he did so much of what he did.
This lady named Mignon McLaughlin once said, The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it.
That’s true. I always feel my parents and my past around in the things I say and do.
The kid doesn’t really understand how much of me was made by them and how much of what he thinks I’m giving him, actually come from them.
Ms. McLaughlin was right about our pasts always being there, but – sometimes, though – we can see it as well as feel it.
Back in 2008, told you that someone said that our kids are our receipts. The proof that we existed.
So, the kid is our receipt.
He’s the cancelled check that says that Alison and I were here, and that we did something good at least once.
Him: What are you thinking about, papa? Me: You. Him: (laughing) But I’m right here. Me: (nodding) So you are…and I’m so happy you are.
Just finished Pax, by Tom Holland – the book that the NFL Player gave us all for his bday party.
Man, if you thought Game of Thrones/Wheel of Time was messed up, fiction’s got nuthin on what the Romans were all about.
Life in Rome was dark, oftentimes. Very dark.
On a much cheerier side of dark, however, Halloween’s happening soon.
While I love seeing the kid dress up, it’s also a reminder that holiday season is right around the corner, which has its own darkness for me.
But I’m trying to be positive this year.
It doesn’t hurt that the Firecracker’s around and offers her own positivity around here.
Her: I made a flourless chocolate cake. Do you want some? Me: Yes, please! Her: You can come by and pick it up when you’re ready.
And the kid’s always doing something that brings me joy.
This past weekend, the Firecracker, her kid, me, and my kid spent a lazy Saturday sitting out in a playground for a kid’s party, drinking sodas and eating carbs.
Gotta say, I think that I engage with the world a lot just because I have to with the kid.
And sometimes, he gives me joy in the most unexpected but simple ways.
Him: Papa? Me: Yeah, kid? Him: I made something. Can I show it to you? Me: I dunno, I’ve got a ton of… Him: (disappointed) It’s ok… Me: Wait. I’ll finish up and you can show me in five minutes. Is that ok? Him: (happily) Yes! Oooooh, I can’t wait to show you! I built a roller-coaster! Me: (laughing) I can’t wait to see it.
You’re the girl I’ve always loved, that’s all I know.
Him: Was mommy sad? Me: (long pause, sigh) She was sad she had to leave me, but heartbroken that she had to leave you. She cried for an entire day. Him: How did… Me: (interrupting) I’m sorry, kiddo. I…I can’t talk about it for so long just yet. Is that OK? Him: (nodding) That’s ok, papa. It’s ok. (gives me a hug)
Hi, Pretty Lady!
You would be 44 this year. That blows my mind.
Instead, you’re forever young.
I’m getting older – with a LOT more grey in my hair.
Only you would have noticed, though. I’ve been shaving a lot more because that salt-and-pepper beard of mine you used to love is essentially mostly salt these days.
I’m ever so vain. You’d probably say, “That’s my old man!”
And I would pretend to be offended but secretly amused because I knew you loved me.
The boy’s just amazing. He’s everything we ever dreamed of and so much more.
Can’t tell you how many times a day I wish you were here to hear him say something hilarious or sing something beautifully. Or see his perfect handwriting (obviously, he got that from you and not me).
He’s been asking questions about you. I’m always at a loss as to what to say. For years, I’ve told him I’d tell him about you, “someday.”
But, that’s not fair. So, I suck it up and try my best to tell him about you for as long as I can bear.
I’m able to last a bit longer each year.
Each year, it gets a little better. Not because I love you any less, but because I accept this bullshit that is my life and our situation all that much more.
For now, I often just tell him that, She’s the girl I’ve always loved, that’s all I know.
It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday.
The boy made you a gift but says he’ll give it to your mom instead because you loved her so much. He does too.
But it a special kinda painful that your birthday, Mother’s Day, and the day you died are all within two weeks of each other.
It’s a special kinda fucked-up but, then again, this whole situation is a special kinda fucked-up, which is on-brand for us.
I was going to write so much more but, like when I talk about you to the boy, I just don’t have the stamina for it yet.
I’m so grateful for the gift you gave me of the boy, honey. He’s just perfect and I am humbled every day to have your treasure to love.
Read yesterday that scientists discovered that a humpback whale named Moon that they’ve been tracking for a decade had broken her spine.
For 10 years, they followed her from Canada to Hawaii – 3,000 miles – something she had to do for food and to teach her calf how to do the same.
Sometime recently, a ship hit her and broke her spine, dooming her.
There’s no question she’ll die, it’s just how long she’ll survive in excruciating pain.
But she longs to live. So, she swam the same path she always swam – except upside down and in pain and a broken tail.
She swam 3,000 miles doing the breaststroke.
Look how broken she is, yet I find her beautiful, nonetheless. I’ve always found people and things that struggle and scuffle against their fate, beautiful.
She’s going to die and I wonder if she knows.
I’ve long said that females seem stronger than males in many regards.
The stories I’ve read about Moon aren’t clear if she made this last trip with her calf or not but I wouldn’t be surprised.
As I said before – and quoting Agatha Christie – A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things, and crushes down, remorselessly, all that stands in its path.
It dares all things.
Including swimming upside-down for 3,000 miles with a broken back and tail.
It the Japanese art of repairing broken things with melted gold.
Essentially things like pottery bowls are put back together with melted gold and the result is something beautiful despite its scars.
I always thought Alison was so beautiful, despite all she’d gone through.
There’s something beautiful about tenacity, especially when it’s driven by love.
Me: They thought I was 35. Him: Were they white? It doesn’t count unless they were Asian. Me: (laughing) All three were Asian.
I feel myself retreating into my head again. But, I’m remembering things, so I’m not alone.
For better or worse.
My therapist thinks I’ve been making great strides in putting this mess that is my head back together again but I’m not sure.
The rage is better – all the hours at the gym seem to help with that – but I look at my face and don’t recognize myself a lot. And I’m tired.
Three different people from my gym thought I was 35 when I’m really pushing 50. Actually, one guy thought a woman there was the oldest person in the room when I was actually 17 years older than her.
But I wonder what I’d look like without all the trauma from 2014 to, well, today.
I feel those years aged me more than pretty much anything.
This is one of the few good pics I have of me from 2014, with PerfectCircles, at my fave dive bar.
I’m 41 in it but I usually got that I was in my 20s.
I’m flattered that people think I look so young but that vain, shallow part of me – which, granted, is pretty sizable – wonders how much younger I woulda looked like without all that fucking shit we went through.
Which, of course, is hopelessly stupid and banal considering all that I’ve lost.
And we’re all on our doomed journeys, some shorter and more tragic than others.
I suppose that, like Moon, there’s not much to do but keep going until the end.
Her: What’s going on? Me: Well, pour me a drink, darling, and I’ll tell you. But you won’t enjoy the story. Her: How does it end? Me: (shrugging) Like most true stories, love: In tears.
A batch of 60 double-chocolate oatmeal chip cookies
A batch of 60 oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
Four chocolate cakes
Two banana breads (which are just cakes)
Alison was always the baker while I was always the cook but she’s not here so I gotta do this.
It’s a different skillset than cooking but it’s still enjoyable.
It’s always been the cleanup that I hated; that’s what made Alison and me such a great couple – she loved to clean, I loved to cook. It was a good yin-yang.
Now, I do it all, for better or worse. But he’s happy and eating well, and that’s all that matters.
Everything’s made with high-fiber, high-protein flours like carbquick or almond flour, monk-fruit sweetened chocolate chips, oatmeal or nuts, and erythritol or coconut sugar for sweeteners so everything’s actually not-bad for him and some are actually good for him.
But he doesn’t know that, he just knows he likes them.
And I try to play the role I need to play to make sure he keeps wanting more.
Me: How is it? Him: Sooooo, good. Can I have another? Me: Well… Him: Please?! Me: (mock sighing) Fiiiine, I suppose you can have ONE more. Him: YAY!
The kid’s ability to be innately social is something I find endlessly fascinating – only because it’s such a foreign thing to me. I’m very social but by design.
He’s just naturally social in a way that Alison and I were not. Not sure where it comes from but, like I said, it’s so interesting to me.
For example, the kid went to a birthday party last week where he met another boy that invited him to another birthday party, which was this past Sunday.
And then he had another birthday party on Friday – in a building that I sued once that went all the way to trial and decision, which is a whole ‘nother story – where yet another boy invited him to a birthday party on Saturday.
One party was at Medieval Times, someplace that Alison always wanted him to go to so I’m grateful for the experience.
Him: I’m hungry. Me: How is that possible? You just came back from a birthday party at Medieval Times. Him: (shrugging) I didn’t like the food. I just had the cake. Me: (stopping everything I was doing) You didn’t like the food?! Whose kid are you?! Him: YOURS!
Honestly, this kid is as popular and social as I was not at his age.
Not sure how I feel about this but I’m hopeful we can manage it so that he doesn’t make it into a burden nor burn out with it early.
Me: You had THREE birthday parties this weekend. I think that’s as many I’ve gone to my entire childhood. Him: I know, I’m tired. Me: (laughing) Awww, poor popular you.
Put up the tree. Finally.
I remembered where every single ornament came from.
I’d forgotten so much and it’s too much to remember all at once. Way too much.
Him: Why are you looking…? (makes a face and stares off into the distance) Me: I’m just…papa’s in his head again. Him: Oh. It’s ok, papa. Me: Thanks, kid.
Location: tonight, covered in flour but happy to see the kid happy
Mood: so. full. of. cake.
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Him: [I’ve got the flu.] Would it be possible for you to teach class tomorrow night? Me: Sorry to hear that. OK.
I’ve actually covered class a couple of times in the past, so that part was fine – kinda fun, I gotta say, because I got to focus on some things that I both really like and need to work on.
What I messed up in, though, was that I scheduled my second colonoscopy for the very next day and had to be up at 5AM doing god-awful stuff to myself.
So, I went in, taught the class, rolled around, and bolted as soon as I could get off the mats and shower.
Her: You did a good job. Me: You think? Her: (nodding) That’s one of my favourite moves and you explained it well. Me: Thanks! That means a lot to me. I appreciate the vote of confidence.
If you’re a long-time reader, you know that I got a colonoscopy almost exactly eight years ago.
Don’t remember much about the first time except that she came to pick me up. See, when you have a procedure under anesthesia, you’re required to have someone pick you up.
I remember that Alison took a half-day off from work and came to get me. Didn’t tell you any of that part because it was a such small thing about our day-to-day life.
Had no idea that day that she would be dying less than a year later.
Who the fuck would ever think such a thing?
I didn’t tell you that when she opened the door, she had the widest smile when she saw me.
With the exception of my son, don’t think anyone was ever that happy to see me ever in life.
She thought I was greatest thing and I thought she must have self-esteem issues to think that she couldn’t do better than a fella like me.
Don’t remember what she said when she saw me. I’m sure it was something like, Are you ok, honey?
But I remember that smile. I loved it so.
I remember I was still dazed from the anesthesia and when she came in – despite our being together for years by that point – thought I was the luckiest guy on the planet that such an important, smart, and pretty girl would take time outta her busy day to pick a nobody like me and make sure I got home ok.
Ah, fuck.
I’ll finish this tomorrow.
I hate the goddamn holidays…
Location: home, putting up a Christmas tree and trying to forget things
Mood: sober for now
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