Humanity

Because of Cynthia Lee

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’m here, I’m writing.

I’ve got a new job.

I’m an inclusion special education teacher in an elementary school. its not something I’ve ever done before and the learning curve is steep and constant. I’m weaning myself off of panic and into resignation, slowly. I will figure it out, I will, even if it gets bumpy along the way. And I’m getting paid in a way that still makes me cry when I get a paycheck, because maybe, just maybe, I’ll make it.

I work with a lot of people for the second year in a row. If you read this, and then see me? … goddammit, don’t tell me about it. I get all wigged out in a very weird, flattered but scared sort of way. like, its a lot of pressure to have people that you walk by in a hallway talk about something you wrote, or last year, even heard a tale about a deep dive into the blog. which is terrifying, because ‘what the hell did i write?!’ and gaaaah.

and on the other hand, I love it. I do. Because I am now, still, in a job where it is easy to be unknown. Before schools, I was working in a high tunnel with a thousand chickens, or a hundred spinach plants. They never really made me nervous about how I was seen, or how my thoughts were received. And now there are so many people and my clothes are weird, my inner dialogue is definitely off-center, and I don’t know at all how to be authentic and still keep my job and that self-off-centeredness. (not selfish, or self-absorbed, but self-centered in the midst of a crazy whirlpool of things. It is a wonderful and normal thing to want to be seen for who you actually are. Right?

RIGHT?

my two eldest kids are not here. they are off in their lives, and the shift in identity is fierce and with me all the time. what am I, if mom is not the title I hear most? the remaining child, my lovely thirteen year old, is adjusting to life as an almost-only child. the grocery list and I are sudden enemies, as the size and portion of things makes for too many leftovers and I don’t know how to handle it. And while I appreciate the wild cut to my grocery bill quite a bit, it makes me want to cry on the regular.

these are the things. and i read my friend cynthia lee over at substack and she just forced herself to sit down, and so here i am, forcing myself to sit down and write it.

its Sunday, my takeclasses and teachmyselfeverything school day, so the laptop is in my lap anyhow. and its been too long. I’m still writing in my head all the time, so why not clear some space in there, and make it a tangible thing?

although, is it tangible if there is no physical thing? meh. no, i don’t know.

I do love you, in general, and specifically. Take care. Put on another sweater maybe, and I’ll be forcing myself to sit down here again soon.

Green sneaker on a blue and white rug
In my room. My work room.

Humanity

July’s end

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’ve been reading a lot. I’m waiting for the patches to dry and then I’m repainting the walls in the kitchen. I’m beginning week two of my daughter being at summer camp and I’m officially over it. My 18-year-old has been working every day and then evenings with his dad as they over there are preparing to move into a new house. lovely man bob is down with another heart thing (not open-heart surgery again so that is excellent) and i’m just done with all of it.

ALL OF IT.

i’m dreaming about escape to a waterfront cabin in far north maine, where I will spend my winters with nothing but books and a fireplace. fuck it all. let me nurse the wounds of leaving motherhood all by myself. maybe some bread, cheese, a weekly beer and a television that only works once a week. No need for a plow because I have nowhere to go.

the last time I was this fixated on escape, I was married with young children and had no company. that, I still understand. this time around? I don’t really understand it as much. I mean, I have a life, friends, man, job, and a great ability to find all the shimmer and joy that there is.

Now? it is loss, so much change of an internal, self-identity sort that I cannot process it all. My middle E, 18, was singing and playing the guitar on my sofa and singing, still in his lifeguard uniform, and I shoved him out when he was done because I was about to sob in his face. I’ve spent a lot of time pretending I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.

I’ve started writing for myself again, journaling if you will, but what I keep circling back to is the need for me to reforge myself. I’ve been burnt already and now, since I am currently in a melted pool on the porch, it should be a straightforward process?

How do I make myself into the main character?

I was a good daughter, good grandchild, decent-enough wife (though clearly, not ACTUALLY enough), and then a mom, and in all those relationships, I was in service, or that is how it feels. and so now, when I am no longer approaching things like that, no longer serving others… I become an entirely different being.

I mean, don’t I? Do I?

more to come, more to come.

-lovelove

Humanity

its getting hot in here.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

once i gave my kid a card with that song playing. i didn’t really think it through. if you don’t know what i mean, that’s ok.

there’s a heat wave going on. I’m sitting on a velvet couch sprawled in a very unladylike fashion. we have no whole-house AC. and the upstairs, where it is, has started to blow a fuse every hour or so, which canna be good. I’m unplugging everything up there to see if i can make it work, but it’s one window ac for three bedrooms, so it’s the curse of an old house. I’m guessing.

boardwalk between tall grass
Photo by Ghost Acolyte on Pexels.com

I’m going to go to the beach in the next couple of hours. water. must have immersion. I know how lucky I am, yes. And two of my three kids are already there, and that feels like coming home a little.

It’s almost the fourth here in the U.S. We celebrate with cookouts and explosions. and a lot of alcohol for a lot of people who drive. a lovely friend of mine has explosions in her backyard, and so it feels like the most personal delightful exhibition. like, i’m MVP at a World’s Fair somewhere, back when that was just the bee’s knees.

I start a new job this coming Tuesday, and I’m sweating it, and also, know it’ll be fine. its a little bit of a first, but also not at all, so it’s complicated. sort of. I just want it to start, so i can stop planning. I’m spiraling a little bit with all the time on my hands. I’ve laminated, I’ve cut, I’ve packaged. It’s all good, we’re good. Its only a fifteen day program, though spread out over five weeks. And the buckos are preschoolers and kindergarteners. I mean, come on. This is my field that I’m working in, after all. (and funnily enough, i was making a farm metaphor, but it fell flat because of words. ) My soil I am turning?

words man.

i’m trying to write more. I’m hoping the summer will spark me up again. although this heat? not sparky.

(and I’m not typing “fireworks” shhhh, because my dog will be hysterical for several nights in a row, and I don’t want him to start early. He’s a hundred pounds and tries to be a lapdog this whole week. did i say anything about the heat? doghair clings…)

Plus, explosions are way more fun to think about.

right? get sparky with it.

have a fun and safely explosive time.

love, love,

me.

Humanity

changes

Lovelovemotherexpletive

If I hear fleetwood mac’s landslide i am going to crack into pieces and make an ungodly mess. because my icy heart will melt and be a mysterious wet spot on your floor. and that is the worst. the worst. except for maybe legos under bare feet, but thats not really a thing here anymore.

the feet are much bigger, and there aren’t so many roaming the halls.

it is time, it is the second child moving on and out that will be the breaking of me. and i’m here for it, watching what is happening and being full aware and immersed in it. there will be no surprises, my eyes are open and dusty, tears come to flush the system on a regular basis.

the summer after graduation has begun and he is living his best life and so, i have not seen him for four days. neither boy is especially good at communication and they get that from me, and so i roll in misery that is of my own self.

i remember when i split from their dad, he wanted to call the kids every night at eight and i told him it wasn’t sustainable (mostly i thought he’d be too sauced) and sometimes he fell down, but he kept it up, and he’s still on the phone with them all the time. and while i rested on my very dirty laurels and did all the work of the homework and the daily meals and the scheduling, i am now without. just, without. and yes, working on it, but i find myself balancing between wanting to leave them to their own lives, and wanting to hear all the things, and knowing i can barely stop myself from worry and interventions of words, and i don’t want to be kneejerk mom, when it is rarely needed. how do you communicate in that way, of distance, when you have created people out of your own flesh?

there is some mom stuff here, that is not male. sigh. the connection is blue lines that cut through mountains, like map lines, driving routes plotted . always there.

but what am i going to do now? How am I going to fill in the spaces with enough goodness and joy to float me to my end? or even get me through the lasts, whenever they happen….

i still have one at home, a whizzbanger, but the house is already yawning so big.

i need to know how you’ve done this, out there. how have you let them go?

-lovelove

Humanity

i’m sick today.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

i can write still, though. just take naps and sit quietly at the table in between ehem..

i have a teapot sticker on my computer. don’t remember where it came from but i love it. maybe i think it represents a person i am not, but i don’t care. its black with mustard yellow flowers and i think of a girl typing in a small cafe in a romantic movie. messy bun and glasses. so maybe i’m in there a little bit. i certainly have the glasses.

my college kid and i don’t talk on the phone and i’m not writing letters right now so i am feeling disassociated and i am panicking on the inside.

who am i? what do i have if i’m not the mother anymore? Moving into my sea hag era? woman whose kids are out in the world. yes, there is still a 13-year-old at home but last one, big house with just the two of us knocking around in it. things are different now. decidedly so.

so much of what i worry about will only have relevance if i die, (how will they remember me? it haunts me. the relevance, the invisible, the wealth disparity, where will they bring their kids) and so i want to weep a little for my inner turmoil because none of it is happening now, and when it does, i can always move further inward.

i have no retirement plan. i am 51. so there is that. see previous sentences about weeping and living in the present only.

there is a lot more on my list of things to do while i am homebound today, but i think i might take a nap. because sleep fixes a lot of things. sometimes.

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