The Sweet Bitterness

On Sunday, my previous coworker Rose texted me to say that Sunday's just weren't the same without me.

I might have shed a tear or two.  She told me that I would never be forgotten because I had a beautiful soul.  I definitely shed a tear or two.  

On Monday, another previous coworker, Jill, texted me to ask how I was doing.  I definitely ugly cried after I told her how lonely I was and how there was no one to hug or touch or be vulnerable with.

Over the past few days, an entirely different coworker was  talking about her own mental health struggles and I monopolized the conversation to focus on my needs. She asked me if I was "happy"... 

... and that is where the sweet bitterness floods my mouth, my words, my heart, my mind... and my soul.

I am many things - and right now one of the things I am is an ADULT.

I work a job that pays the bills... 

I work a NEW job that pays the bills that have inflated due to Covid and Life and These Times.

Am I happy?  Do I even have the right to be?  The luxury of being?

no.  no I don't.

So am I happy?  

I am grateful, dammit.  Grateful. 

I am a grateful ADULT.

That has to be enough right now, because I'm grateful for so many things...

Grateful to work a job that has me indoors, sitting, and face-to-face with consumers, and challenges my brain and creates new synapses; I'm grateful to have a job that is more than the one before, that offers me potential.  I'm grateful to be employed, with security, and to be able to provide consistent income for my family, as humbly as we live.

But am I happy?

I WAS the cheerful one, the one who spoke encouragement and support, the one who rubbed their tense shoulders and told them they were amazing... I WAS the one who told bad jokes and announced silly happy announcements over the PA.  I WAS the one who listened to Worship Music on Sundays with my Rosie... I WAS.... and now I ....  I am.

I am not yet a part of the puzzle, the group, the foundation.  I am not yet the cheerful one who holds your secrets and your vulnerabilities.  I am not yet the one who goes to the manager to protect you, to protect our unit, to protect our family... I am ... "now"... and I am unsettled... but still searching for my place.

It is this sweet spot, of "was" and "could be"... and the bitterness within it, where I currently balance my soul and my heart and my emotion.  I don't like it... this bitter-sweet spot... but I will swallow it every moment of every day until it finally becomes just... sweet.

If you pray, please pray that the "sweet" comes soon because the bitterness is hurting me, its hard to swallow, its making me cry and wallow and argue against the joy that is hovering, potentially, for me to embrace.

If you don't "pray" - then send me your vibes, your energy, you thoughts and wishes and hopes... I need them all.

The Beginding, with Jenni

 Hey Jenni...

Today is the "day before my last day" on W1.  

I'm having a hard time leaving W1 because it is my only true connection to you.  I have your plants, your advice, the memories of you... but being around the other people who also feel the loss of you, who remember what it was like to work with you, hang out with you, and who remember the day your dad called to tell us you were gone, the people who mourned and grieved side by side over losing you - I feel like I need them to keep me tied to you; so... leaving them is really hard, but I'm doing it anyway.  

We all battled Covid together, Jenni, on W1. 

In the beginning, we were all of us, on W1, terrified and stressed and battling this fucking virus together in masks and gowns and gloves, slathered in sanitizer and fear.  On W1, we parented together, cried and cursed together, we told inappropriate jokes together.  We survived together.  We were all connected and bonded in ways no other coworkers outside of a hospital ever could be because of that fucking virus.  Until you died.  

Then we did it all without you; because we didn't have a choice.  We battled on without your wit and wisdom and care and sass and sarcasm.  We missed you, your stories about Lyvie, we still miss her now even... and tomorrow is my last day to be surrounded by all of the people who loved you and grieved the loss of you.  After tomorrow, I will grieve you on my own.  I'm not sure I'm cut out to handle it alone, but I will do it anyway because that kind of strength is an honor to your own srength.

Today I played with my/our plants.  I repotted, I refreshed soil, I watered and sprayed and wiped Neem oil on leaves.  I brought the indoor plants that I put outside, back inside.  I talked to and sang to and made promises to ever single one.  I planted newly rooted cuttings I had growing in water in my windows.  I embraced the growth and life and propagation.  I felt you, Jenni, in the funny way I referred to bottom watering as "butt chugging", and in the way I named the few little gnats I saw flying around, and how I named my most dramatic plant "Karen".  That plant is the one I bought from you as a gift for my son and his wife (um, now she's his ex but thats a whole different story friend!) but that I loved so much I kept.  She's pretty dramatic tho Jen, she likes to pretend to die randomly, and then return to full glory only after I've done EVERY SINGLE THING so I'm never sure exactly what it is that she wants.  Heh... maybe I should name her after myself?? 

If you were here, you'd tell me to suck it up, to move on, to do what is best for myself and my family.  Except, you'd say it over a glass of wine while Lyv bossed Griff around in my yard, or while we were talking late late at night while everyone else was asleep.  Then we'd laugh and laugh and tell stories about work and vent about life and exchange info about plants, about budgeting, about ex's and moving forward... until we had to hang up.  I guess I'm hanging up Jenni... for now.

I'm leaving W1 but only in body.  My heart and soul will always be there, with yours, and I hope they keep remembering you and your life and your joy and ethic and sass.  

Tomorrow is my "beginding"  the beginning and the end of something soul shattering and life changing and forever impactful.  Thank you for being part of it all my friend...

I Love You, and your toes...

 My firstborn son is 25 years old.  He is almost half of my age.  

When he was born, he was big.  I mean... BIG.  It was a surprise, just how big he was, but throughout his life, his personality has been just as big as the day he arrived, surprising all of us with his size, and he continues to surprise me still today with the way he continues to grow BIG into his own soul.

This isn't about his birth though.  Or his growth.  It isn't about his long curly hair or his almond shaped deep brown eyes, or his physique, or even his tattoo's.  This is about his life... and mine... and life and death and all the stuff in between.  It's about all my children.

Tonight I came home after work and ran an errand with my little son.  We then came home and did our own separate activities: him on a google meet with friends, and me cleaning my ever-messy bedroom and prepping dinner and getting ready for tomorrow and another day of work/home/parenting/life.  What did my firstborn son do?  I dunno... he was probably also working. He works a lot - he works hard and works a lot of hours and works a lot of days:  last count was 80 hours in one week.  My boy, my son, Mijo, I'm proud AND worried....

While I cleaned my bedroom tonight: the room that is the depository for all the detritus of life in our small house; I turned on a movie to occupy my mind.  It was one of those indie films full of all the feels, deep and dark and inspiring all at the same time.  Maybe a little less inspiring and a lot more "feels"... with a whole lot of "dark/deep".  It kept me occupied alright; it kept me sooooo occupied that my bedroom full of detritus did NOT get cleaned.  At all...  

Well, honestly, I did manage to move things from one spot to another, and then sort the spots into categories... but then somehow time was warped and I ended up piling it all back up into one big pile while the end of the movie played out musically in sharps and minors and half beats of time.  I might have cried.

In the movie, the main character was a single mom who was mentally revisiting the suicide death of her adult son.  In one soul wrenching moment of the movie she recalled seeing her dead son's toes curled tight in a spasm, and how she tried to straighten those toes, the toes that she'd grown inside her own body, the toes she'd kissed when he was a baby, the toes she'd tickled and covered up and protected and loved... and how those spasmed curled toes she could no longer kiss, tickle, cover, and protect. 

I DEFINITELY cried.

A lot.

I have an adult son... and I also have 2 adult daughters... and another young son.

I fear for all of them, every day, and I fear for my own heart also, the fear of "the fear of losing them".

This movie had me praying, and cursing, and biting my tongue, and hoping, and praying even more.  This movie had my stomach clenched, my jaw set hard, tears streaming down my face; and also had my soul set free and lifted up to the God I believe in and hold onto and take comfort in... and I prayed that my own children would hold the same belief I have - and be able to rest in the same comfort that I hold onto... or that they would find their own comfort and belief, even if it isn't' my own.  We all need something outside ourselves to believe in and hold on to.

I have family members that have lost their own adult children, friends that have lost their own small children. I've lost my parents, and in-laws, and other family... I've lost friends that ARE family... I've lost friends that feel like my own children but yet... aren't.  I know what it is to lose a parent, to lose a loved one, a life mate, to grieve for someone else's grief... in real time... but I have not lost my OWN child to their OWN demons, and God, oh God, I stay on my knees and pray that of all the losses I've had, and have yet to have, losing a child to their own demons is not a loss I have to face this time around. 

Perhaps my turn will come, in this huge life, this karmaic adventure of love and experience; of surrender and battle all at once.  Maybe in another life it has already happened and now I am making amends?  I won't discount anything I don't know about.

Perhaps in THIS life tho,  I will lose a child to demons I have no control over.  

Perhaps its is a ridiculous farce to think my love will protect the children I have now in THIS life.  

Are you laughing at me God? 

I love you, all of you, my babies...but I know my love is not enough.  I pray that you don't leave me yet. I still need your tiny (and not so tiny) kissable toes that I can uncurl and hold flat against this bumpy life...even if it's only in my heart.  I still want time to uncurl you.  

Dear Jenni

 Dear Jenni; 

I wish you'd told me how expensive and time intensive these house plants are.  I might have turned away the first few that you gave me if I'd known all there was to know about keeping them alive and thriving.  I certainly wouldn't have taken in more! Too late now.  

Are you there somewhere laughing at me? You are, aren't you? Telling me to 'suck it up buttercup', giving me that sassy grin, and walking away saying, "sucker!" over your shoulder.  God how  I miss your laugh.

Today I think I might have finally conquered the battle with the fungus gnats.  Ever since you talked me thru repotting some of my own plants well over a year ago, and I was stupid enough to buy the cheap soil that was pre-infested with those damn gnats, I've been fighting them off.   I did all the things you told me to do.  I bought the Neem.  I used the soapy water.  I watered from the bottom instead of the top.  I let them dry out well.  I used your mom's fertilizer recipe.  I took pictures of my wilting listless plantlings and sent them to you.  I sent you video even.  You loved it when I did that while you were working a double, it helped pass the time for you.  Nothing was working though.  You told me to hang in, that we'd figure it out.  Then you died.  You bitch.  I'm still pretty pissed off at you for doing that you know.

After you died, which still feels like yesterday, I inherited a few more of your plants, courtesy of your lovely dad and some of your plant friends when we were all together, packing up your apartment.  *sidenote* damn, you loved that apartment... it was so pretty and so full of  your beautiful soul:  your soul displayed like art with your own handmade macramé and the bajillion plants in their tiny perfect planters and the cozy furniture and the peaceful colors.  You did good kiddo.  You did good.

Anyway.  I inherited a few more of your plants Jenni, and they came with gnats.  Of course!  My gnats loved meeting yours, and they all had a kick ass party going on in my place throughout Christmas.  I even bought sticky traps and had to change them every couple of days because they were so covered by those tiny evil assholes.

Finally I dug into the interwebs and the tik toks and the instagrams and I decided to forge ahead with my own plan.  Today was the finale.  If I see a garsh-darn gnat in the next few days, or the next few weeks even, I swear to God Jenni, I will die and come find you and... well... I really don't like confrontation so I probably will just flip you off, from a safe distance of course, but so help me baby cheezits, if I see a gnat, I WILL make good on this threat!

Today I took all forty-eleven plants, which includes all the little propagations I've done (toot toot! look, I'm tooting my own horn!), and the few that I snipped from your aloe at work, and I got rid of the top two inches of gnatty soil on every single one of them, replaced it with new, fresh, UN-gnatty soil, and then covered it with a solid inch of decorator sand.  Every single one, Jenni.  Every single one. Now, its not just as easy as all that though - I had already potted a bunch of the propagations in teeny little cups so it meant totally repotting those ones all together, and I had to change out a few pots that didn't have drainage holes (duh, you didn't mention the importance of THAT!) for pots that DID have drainage holes, and I also made some little climbing poles for one plant and a few support stakes for a couple of others, and I had to replace the grow lights and reposition everything - sheesh!  Afterward, my kitchen looked like the swedish chef muppet guy had just finished making a mud pie.  Then I had to clean up.  

Damn I'm exhausted.  I'm also victorious tho kiddo, and it's the first time I've felt that way in a very long time, and I also feel a deep sense of peace which I haven't felt since you died almost 3 months ago. So thank you for that Jenni. I wish you were here to talk to about this, to ask if you felt that way too when you cared for all your plants.  Instead I'm carrying a part of you in my heart, and in my hands.  I just hope you weren't being carried in any of the gnats...

I miss you Jenni.  There is a you-sized hole at work my friend, and a you-sized hole in my heart too.

Trauma

 It was March.

It was Covid.  All covid, all day, every day.  Endlessly.

No one knew what was happening, what was going to happen, what had already happened which would then influence what was yet to come.  In the span of just one or two days our city went from normal life to completely shut down.  The streets were eerily empty.  The highway had no traffic.  Stores were dark and empty.  In just one week us hospital workers were in full PPE gear and learning how to live a life we didn't have instructions for.  

One day we didn't have enough PPE, then the next day we did, then we didn't again.  One day we had to wear masks, and then the next day we had to wear face shields, and then the next day back to masks.  Later on we had to wear both.  Nurses and doctors got sick.  People died.  A lot of people died.  Everyday.  Alone.  We lived in a place of grief and fear and learned to live that way while grasping hope and exhaustion in each hand, sharing the best we had inside ourselves with the people working side by side with us and trying to hold onto enough 'self' to carry home to our families. 

We learned to live in isolation.  We gave up hugging our children and each other.  We learned to wear clothes with bleach stains and shoes that sat in our trunks whenever we weren't at work.  We bathed in sanitizer.  And we did it day after day.

Then it was July.  

It was summer, and blue sky, and warm air, and it was... different.

It wasn't ALL covid, ALL day, Everyday.  It was... different.  

Our cities and towns were only partially locked down.  We could shop, eat out, go to the gym.  At the hospital, we only needed PPE for some patients.  We kept the covid positive patients just on one floor, not every floor. We rode on the shuttle bus again.  We were used to wearing masks all the time and had learned to be safe as a matter of routine.   We hugged our children and walked our pets, and hugged each other too.  The memory of sitting in a parking lot praying and crying before every shift seemed surreal, like it had been just a nightmare, or that it had happened years ago and not just months.  

We learned to teach our kids via zoom and google meet with their teachers.  We learned to embrace family and friends via marco polo and facetime and other platforms that kept us safe, but in touch.  We worked more normal hours.  We felt... different.  We laughed.  We lived.

Now it's the end of November.  

Time flew by so quickly.  Quicker than we ever thought it could.  In the span of one week we have been thrust heart and soul back into the grasp of Covid.

All Covid, All day, Everyday.  Endlessly.

We ran out of blue plastic isolation gowns this morning.  We ran out of alcohol swabs too.  We had a school teacher with covid on our floor and her school has been shut down.  My own child is due to start back at school in a couple of days and I got an email last night that one of the staff had just tested positive. The sense of dread is so heavy.  

The weight of worry and fear is something we hospital workers carry in our pockets, in our backpacks and purses, slipped into the folds of our clothing, we carry it everywhere we go, once again.  We didn't hug each other at work today.  I won't hug my child tonight until after I've showered, and then disinfected the pathway from the front door to the bathroom. Even then, I may wear a mask. They say this is "the new normal" but let me tell you, THIS? This is NOT normal.  This is trauma.

May God bless you and make His face shine upon you, and onto all of us.

Girl

 He calls me "Girl".  

At the end of a conversation, he says, "Ok Girl, I love you!" 

Sometimes maybe in the middle of an important discussion he will say, "Hey Girl, you are OK,  really, you know?"

And I know.  I know he loves me.  I know I am, at the end of it all, OK.  Because he said so.

I'm not the only one he calls "girl", but in my mind I am the most important one.  In my mind I am the FIRST one.  In my mind, I am the BEST girl, ever.

He is my big brother and I am his one and only little sister.  I always make him tell me that I'm his favorite little sister.  He always agrees.  Every single time.  I am the only little sister he has so it's not a big stretch but still... it matters to me.

I will be 51 this year.  He will be... uh... I dunno... 58? 59?  

He will be old.  

Older than me.  

I am still a baby... his baby sister... his baby "girl".

He will be recovering from hernia surgery, from a COPD diagnosis, using a full time O2 tank, recovering from a foot surgery, and recovering from the loss of his beloved puppy dog, and adjusting to a move from Hawaii to Arizona, mid pandemic... He is undergoing a LOT.  And I am 2000 miles away, unable to see him, touch him, hug him, tease him, mock him, irritate him, annoy him, and be the little sister, the "girl" that I am supposed to be.  It hurts me to my very core.

I remember him holding me when I was 6, scared and alone and missing alllllllll the life I had known before that moment: I was 6 and my parents were divorced and my mom worked 40 hours A DAY (no exaggeration) and my brothers were all I knew of safety and love.  

I remember his girlfriend being MY friend, playing Barbies with me and giving me lunch and being my companion during long lonely afternoons.

I remember him coming back home after having gone away to stay with our dad for what felt like years but was probably weeks, and bringing me a Snoopy Dog stuffed animal from the airport - I remember discovering his ear piercing and him begging me not to tell our mom... I remember him letting me cut his hair and the awful mullet I gave him and how he didn't even care...  

I remember him as a new dad, just a handful of years older than me, holding his new baby boy and trying to figure it all out and still making me feel like I was special to him.  I remember him standing by me while our mother died.  I remember holding HIS son, and feeling close to him at the same time. 

I remember visiting him when our older brother was sick and wouldn't let us see him.  When we were both of us filled with anger and grief and fear and frustration and so so so much sadness.  

I remember his voice, over the phone, talking to me about our momma, about alcoholism, about addiction and grief,  and about our dad and his life and our step-dad and his life, and every fucking thing ever about life as my brother, as my friend, as the one person I love more than fucking ANYONE.   

I remember him easily, think of him all the time, because he is still present in my life every day; but I always have the underlying dread thinking of that moment when he won't be there, when he won't be HERE, when I won't hear him call me his "girl"... and tonight I weep in advance.

I've seen my aunties say goodbye to their sisters, to their brothers, to grieve the loss of their siblings, their special "someone" that understood their past... and I've felt angst for them, knowing that someday it will be me, losing MY brother, losing the ONE person to call me his "girl", and feeling that loss so deeply and intimately and in my very foundation.  Oh how I dread that day -  the day when I am no longer Rick's "girl".  

I feel bereaved too, in advance, of my own children losing their siblings.  Will Steph lose her littles, the ones she helped raise?  Will Noah lose his right hand, his one and only little sister, or his anchor, his one and only big sister?  Will Hannah lose both her guiding lights? Her big sister, her big brother?  What would our family look like without our "boy"'s, or our "girl"'s?  What will Griff grow up to be without the maps that his older siblings forged?  

How will I ever get to the end of the road if my big brother doesn't map it out ahead for me?

I am his "girl"... I sure hope he leaves a roadmap for me.

Welcome to 3rd Grade; and Life 2020 style

Wednesday 9/16:

 I'm sitting next to my boy; my twitching, wiggling, standing-sitting-standing-crouching-sitting, snapping, clapping, dabbing-dancing boy; and trying to get him to focus (for the love of  God, man, just FOCUS!) for his very first day of all remote learning on a google meet platform he's never used before.  He hates it.  I hate it.  "It's just day one though," I keep reassuring him (and myself, truthfully).  "It's just day one, it'll get better! I promise!"  

I'm not one for making promises that I can't keep, but over the past 7 months I've drifted towards placating hopeful false promises that I'm not really sure of but are the only ones I can muster up.  "Its ok, it's gonna be ok, really!" That's one of my most used ones.  I hope the universe forgives me.

I'm grateful for the mute button on google meet.  Most of  my running commentary as I sit next to my bored, restless, remote learning hating son, is alternate versions of  'stop! don't do that! put your feet down! good job! nice effort! ewww!'

We finished school and I only cried once.  We all took a long, independent break for the afternoon and then made an excursion to the outside world, with masks and sanitizer, for some retail therapy.  Maybe that was just for me though!

 Thursday 9/17:

We start fresh.  We sorted out the computer issues and my wiggly boy started out on MY laptop while his school issued chromebook lay on the floor in the corner of my bedroom.  We read the emails last night and printed out the assignment in advance.  We had a good hot breakfast and were ready to go at the right time.  I unplugged my fully charged laptop so I could plug in the desk lamp.  

Cue the dark music and crickets.  

1.5 hours into the day, when the teacher was walking everyone thru logging into and accessing assignments and how to turn them in, the laptop died.  I quick plugged it in and tried to reboot.  nope. not gonna happen.  It took a solid 30 minutes to finally set up the chromebook and get back on to the classroom.  We did math outside while my wiggly boy slid and swung and climbed and wiggled.  It was kind of awesome honestly, and also horribly stressful!  Balance, right?

I'm hoping to re-engage with my sense of balance, the way I did all those years ago when I had to quit my job and stay home to care for my sweet boy.  In the last two years I've lost my sense of balance entirely.  I became so entrenched in a grown up personal relationship (and the drama/trauma of it) that I lost my connection to my own self, to my role in the big picture of my own life in general.  When that relationship fell apart, I had nothing left but the drudging work of living solely as a single parent who provides.  Also?  At the same exact time? Pandemic....  

I'm hoping to return to myself.  I'm hoping to return to my friendships and relationships, my connections to my adult kiddos and my internal drive to have - yes, i'll say it - FUN and joy and peace in my life.  It's a hard, slow, painful road due to Corona virus/pandemic lock down, but I am determined to live this one life I have as best I can.  However hard it might be in the dark valleys, alone, and unsure of what I'm striving for, I'll keep going.  

I hope you keep going too...