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.

Cogs
Humanity

sitting in the kitchen, blizzard edition

Lovelovemotherexpletive

There are over three feet of snow in my yard. specifically, in the driveway. the kids have shoveled but we have not left the driveway, for any reason. I shoveled out the dryer vent and tried to relieve the ice dam that is sending water into the living room. (unsuccessful).

Water is in my living room. There are buckets and towels and there really is nothing to be done except make plans for later.

Almost out of wood. Was planning to go out today to the wood guy, but then it started snowing. I have heat, but the woodstove makes a very big difference.

That is my car out there. for real, for real.

Those are the fingers on one hand. The other hand? I have not lost power once, even a little, so there has been heat and ovens to cook the nuggets. There is plenty of food, and enough even if the power does go, to cook on the stovetop.

I have a job now which pays me all year, even if there is a snow day making it impossible to get to work. Not having that would make me insane and fearful right now. It is critically different to not have that.

I’ve read some. finished a re-read of a Louise Penney book, The Cruelest Month. I do love how much I grow to love a town, a detective and feel the press of a dark winter in her books. Hidden, hissing emotions and a detective who can speak of them. (this was the third in the series, but I have read the previous ones already, plus some later, I think you could read it without knowing the series.) I saw Louise Penny once down at a book talk on the cape, and man, she was relateable and charming, and just an ordinary smart woman. It was lovely.

I am eating snacks that I got while I was in Mexico. Did I tell you I went to Mexico? Of course not, I know. I was in Mexico, at the end of the baja peninsula in Cabo san Lucas. I was not at a resort, but had the most wonderful time feeling the sun on my skin and being warm. We (anita and my sister and I) watched the sunset every night, and ate beautifully in our own kitchen. Anita lives there and is miraculously fluent, working her way to being a local, she is.

They call them Japanese peanuts, but if you go to Japan, they call them Mexican peanuts. So, a cultural exchange.

The book in my lap is Wally Lamb, The River is Waiting and I am sure I have not read anything by Wally before. and it is so good ad well-written, but I am afraid of the heaviness. Oprah, why? Why? Am I just being emotionally tossed around like a ragdoll? Will I recover? Can I bear it in this time of sequester?

Its all giving me vibes of Covid, and its a little disconcerting. I still can’t even believe that happened. Can you?

There is nothing super funny in today’s episode of Kate Writes. I’m sorry if I’ve let you down. IF you are local, I wish you lots of ice melt, and someone else to do the shoveling/plowing/blowing. (also i have heat and you are welcome here if you can get here. plenty of room) If you are not, please send your love to the sun, because she needs to remember her power.

wink.

love,

kate

Toes in the Pacific. First time ever. Also, for real.
Humanity

Sleep, and not having it.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

What happens to me if I can’t get good sleep? For a week or so? Never twice in a row even!? (i have since gotten a couple good nights in..hence, ability to write somewhat coherently.

  • I cry before work and don’t know why
  • I change my clothes more than once in the mornings and look like a homeless person who wandered into a school- no one has said anything yet. I’m just not coherent, and my ‘I don’t care’ is high. Just put on another sweater, it’ll all work out.
  • I dread bed, no matter how tired I am or if the honey man is up there.
  • My patience… oh wherefor art thou?
  • My eyes get smaller and smaller and I squint at the world.
  • I fake it and fake it and fake it and start looking for a therapist with more determination because those who love me are commenting on my rawness. they are not buying into the fakery.
  • Thin skin means issues rise to the surface. No longer contained.
  • Good goddamned. I’m calling it boredom, but I think it’s the distractability of the sleep deprived. I’m getting bored with things that are different every single day, and it doesn’t make any sense. Boredom is a little dangerous for me. things will start to happen.
  • I lie in bed, exhausted, and just lie there. eyes closed, brain clicking along like a train on a track, nothing to resolve, nothing resolved, just click after click after click.

I definitely know that there are people with SERIOUS sleep issues, and I think mine is temporary, and so there, it is said. But good goddamn. I am so tired. Is this just the fifties for women? Really? Maybe. the ‘fucks to be given’ are leaving, if not gone entirely, and I’m relying on the world around me to adjust. Good idea? mm.

with slight concern, but only slight because i mean, who cares about my goddamned sleep, really? I mean, not even me.

I’ll get it done anyways. this is a clear ‘whatever’ situation and mood.

love love,

kate

ps. Maybe sleep is affecting my positivity? How you like me now?! Huh? Huh?

Yeah. It’s good.
Humanity

New Year, now 2026

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I did finish Cannery Row. I loved it, the detached but clear, the emotions laid out, no therapy needed.. the gathering of characters, the drinking without emotional recoil, the raucous life. and honestly, the history, the ways in which a cannery town feels like a mining town, a logging camp, and oilman’s camp. All the characters in a mix with the greatest emotional turmoil being loneliness. Ah. Somehow all so lovely, ending up lovely with a sweet bit of poetry included:

Even now,
I know that I have savored the hot taste of life
Lifting green cups and gold at the great feast.
Just for a small and a forgotten time
I have had full in my eyes from off my girl
The whitest pouring of eternal light-

-on the last page of Cannery Row, lest you think I wrote it myself, because no.

I went to the first hockey game of my life and loved it. It was a regional high school team which includes friends of my kids, and siblings etc. AND they won dramatically and fantastically in an amazing match up. And because I am a goalie mom I watched and whispered strength to the goalie who had an astonishing number of saves. What more is there than that? That the percentage of saves is what really matters in life, and we all tend to forget that in our rush for ambitions and progress and ‘wins’.

My percentage of saves is high, my friends. and I’m really damn lucky. and hallelujah, January is here, and my body feels better and its over, for another year, this holiday fuckery. Made it through. I guess we all did, who are reading here. So there is that. And I love you, and I’ll see you.

_kate

My final slip of paper, my duty for the year is to make this true:

I can do it. I’m halfway there already.