-
I’m Not Sure How You Survive That
It’s been a long time since I wore 3-inch heels. They sit in my closet, beautifully shiny and begging me to go out. The thing is, I’m perpetually sad, and going out won’t change that. But I’m tired of being at home all the time. In any case, the heels finally won out a few days ago and I got myself downtown. I was going to a political event – something Shawn and I would have done frequently if he were still alive. Most of the people there didn’t know me, and I found it interesting that I was able to carry myself so that it appeared I had it…
-
To Update the Account
At 5 am the day Shawn died, I called and woke up my friend Becky. I needed her to get my will and bring the advance medical directive to the hospital so I could take over the medical decision-making for Shawn. She woke up our friend Michelle and they called a lawyer, who helped look over the documents. They got everything digitized and brought hard copies to me by the time the sun came up. I never needed them. Shawn died too quickly. I didn’t have to make any truly terrible decisions about his end-of-life care. But I’ll never forget them arriving at the crack of dawn, paperwork in hand.…
-
I’m Not Grateful
I really should just stop looking at Facebook, at least at the end of the day. I actually like hearing the updates from friends and family and I don’t even mind the cute (and curated) photos of everyone’s kids and vacations. But – and I mean this in the kindest way I can say – the quotes that appear on my screen are often really awful. Here was one I stumbled across today: “Motherhood sucks me dry of my time, of my energy, of my independence. But when I fall into bed at the end of an upended day, when the tired I feel is already bleeding over into tomorrow,…
-
Frozen
I was dropping off Tommy at a play date the other day with a friend. The mother, my friend, had invited a few kids over, and as I turned around, I saw one of Tommy’s classmates with her dad. He looked at me, trying to place me. Our mutual friend said, “Oh, I’m sure you know Tommy’s mom.” He froze. I stood there awkwardly, balancing my youngest kid on my hip. “I’m Marjorie,” I said to him. “I think we met at the parent social but it’s great to see you again.” He fumbled through some sort of greeting, but it didn’t matter. I’d seen him freeze, and I knew…
-
Keep Walking Past That Door
I have another root canal today. It’s my second one in the past few months. For the first one, I had to leave Shawn at the hospital and go get the root canal and then come back immediately afterwards to be with him. He was having a hard time getting around at that point, and so he would make big goals like walking around the entire hospital wing three times. He’d wait for me to come to the hospital, and whenever I was there, we’d do his workout for the day. It was like watching someone do an Olympic event – he worked so damn hard, focusing on the task…
-
Press Fast-Forward
“You know what I wish right now?” I asked my friend Christine. I was drinking a beer with her on a beautiful day, watching our children play in an idyllic setting. “What?” she asked. “I wish I could press fast forward on my life,” I told her. I meant it. I’ve never felt this way. Even when things were hard throughout my life, like when I was teaching in a really difficult school or homesick in a foreign country, I still loved my life as a whole. It’s one of the things I think people like about me. I’m over-the-top positive, so much so that people will say things like,…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
