I read an article today, written by a woman with a 20 year old son, how fast the time goes. I certainly hear from everyone I know and plenty of people that I don't, that I'm just passing on the street, to enjoy my kids because the time flies by.
And believe me, I've tried to immerse myself in motherhood, to drink in my children to make sure I enjoy those big moments. But even in doing that, I'm still shocked by how old they are now. Yesterday I came across some baby video of Elena, who's now in Kindergarten, and I started to cry. How much I would give to go back to that magical time in our lives. But I can't.
The article surprised me. Instead of whining about how fast the time goes, she did have some good suggestions of how to preserve those special, every day things. One of the things she suggested we do is make a list of ten things we loved at the end of the year. It's already the end of January so we're a little late but here is our list of things we loved from 2014.
1) Our new couch and chair (which arrived for our new apartment) in Sept of 2014.
2) Eliza loved Christmas and getting her sewing machine.
3) Eliza loved her birthday, going to the movies with her friends.
4) Elena loved her birthday party at the little gym with her classmates and then the surprise party that followed at our house which may have been the best party at our house ever.
5) Our trip to the Bahamas! We had the best time there. We loved everything about the Bahamas but particularly Marina Village.
6) Eliza loved a birthday pool party that she went to at Ava Gronberg's house.
7) We loved the fireworks at Windward Beach in July. We saw that girl summer and her little sister for the third year in a row and they gave the girls glow in the dark necklaces.
8) Eliza loved her dance competition, even though we had to get up at 4:30 in the morning and we didn't get home until after 5pm.
9) We loved seeing the Christmas store windows at Macy's and then having dinner at Lombardy's pizza.
10) We loved the opening of the new North Pavillion pool.
2014 was a tough year for us. We moved, I started a terrible job that I got fired from right before Christmas. But we did have some good times, some times I hope we'll never forget.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Lost
Shortly before we made the big move from NJ to Queens, NY, Eliza and I started to watch the first season of "Lost" together. Dear Reader, if you're still out there, perhaps you remember "Lost," perhaps you don't. I don't watch much TV but for however many seasons that show ran, I think I saw every one of them. I own the first and third seasons on DVD and whenever Eliza would come across them, she'd ask about the show and I'd tell her it was a show for grownups.
Maybe eight is not quite grown up but back in early July, I thought we'd try and watch the first season together. And like any good serialized show with interesting characters, Eliza got hooked. We sometimes watched three or four episodes in one sitting. If you're familiar with the show, then you know it's about a group of people stranded on an Island in the Pacific following a plane crash. What made the show great, especially in the early seasons, was the flashbacks that showed who the characters were before they landed on that island. We met all these people in the pilot in the aftermath of the plane crash, but their backstory and who they were before was fed to us in small bits. Each week would flashback and reveal a little about one particular character in the show. We found out some very surprising things. This woman had been in prison, that man had been in a wheelchair. But a lot of it was about the island itself, what a strange and often frightening place it was, how hard it was to be a survivor cut off from everyone and everything you once knew.
Sometime in June, I accepted a job that started in mid-July. I'd already put the wheels in motion to move back to New York so I needed a job in order to get an apartment. I looked and looked and applied for places I didn't get. On July 1st, with only two weeks to go before the job started, I brought the girls up to New York and spent five hours interviewing potential babysitters. I found several that I liked and quickly hired one. That night we looked at an apartment that was quite large, full of closets and felt like a pipe dream. One week later, we found out we were approved for the apartment and on July 15, the day before my new job started, I got the keys to our new home.
The girls stayed with C for our first few days of filming, then back at our NJ home for the last full week in July with C again in charge. On July 29th, I brought the girls back to C and our new babysitter started. The week after that, he took the girls to visit their brother for a week while the physical move of our belongings happened. The movers took close to 12 hours. I had packed over 60 boxes. My grandmother's dresser was ruined, the bunk beds weren't put together properly and I sat in my new apartment crying, thinking I'd made the worst mistake of my life. The girls had fun at their brothers and though they missed me, there didn't seem to be any urgency to return home. But then they finally did and for one week, they stayed here with me.
Suddenly I didn't feel lost anymore. My family was back. We had been working terrible hours but that week we didn't. I saw my girls every night before bed but Friday. They were happy--I was happy--the babysitter was happy. I felt truly convinced I hadn't made the worst mistake of my life.
Then Saturday rolled around and C came that evening to take them to his parents. I always hate when they gather with his family. I'm always worried that they'll have so much fun there they'll never want to come home. But at least when we had a real home, a home that they loved, they were anxious to return home. Now that I've brought them into this new world, a place where everything is so unfamiliar, they don't feel as at home with me as they did before the move.
I find myself wondering why I even did this. I felt like I had to. I need to work in order to support us and I couldn't keep working and expecting a live in babysitter to replace me. But now, in the middle of a terrible work week, I find myself wondering again what I've done.
Maybe eight is not quite grown up but back in early July, I thought we'd try and watch the first season together. And like any good serialized show with interesting characters, Eliza got hooked. We sometimes watched three or four episodes in one sitting. If you're familiar with the show, then you know it's about a group of people stranded on an Island in the Pacific following a plane crash. What made the show great, especially in the early seasons, was the flashbacks that showed who the characters were before they landed on that island. We met all these people in the pilot in the aftermath of the plane crash, but their backstory and who they were before was fed to us in small bits. Each week would flashback and reveal a little about one particular character in the show. We found out some very surprising things. This woman had been in prison, that man had been in a wheelchair. But a lot of it was about the island itself, what a strange and often frightening place it was, how hard it was to be a survivor cut off from everyone and everything you once knew.
Sometime in June, I accepted a job that started in mid-July. I'd already put the wheels in motion to move back to New York so I needed a job in order to get an apartment. I looked and looked and applied for places I didn't get. On July 1st, with only two weeks to go before the job started, I brought the girls up to New York and spent five hours interviewing potential babysitters. I found several that I liked and quickly hired one. That night we looked at an apartment that was quite large, full of closets and felt like a pipe dream. One week later, we found out we were approved for the apartment and on July 15, the day before my new job started, I got the keys to our new home.
The girls stayed with C for our first few days of filming, then back at our NJ home for the last full week in July with C again in charge. On July 29th, I brought the girls back to C and our new babysitter started. The week after that, he took the girls to visit their brother for a week while the physical move of our belongings happened. The movers took close to 12 hours. I had packed over 60 boxes. My grandmother's dresser was ruined, the bunk beds weren't put together properly and I sat in my new apartment crying, thinking I'd made the worst mistake of my life. The girls had fun at their brothers and though they missed me, there didn't seem to be any urgency to return home. But then they finally did and for one week, they stayed here with me.
Suddenly I didn't feel lost anymore. My family was back. We had been working terrible hours but that week we didn't. I saw my girls every night before bed but Friday. They were happy--I was happy--the babysitter was happy. I felt truly convinced I hadn't made the worst mistake of my life.
Then Saturday rolled around and C came that evening to take them to his parents. I always hate when they gather with his family. I'm always worried that they'll have so much fun there they'll never want to come home. But at least when we had a real home, a home that they loved, they were anxious to return home. Now that I've brought them into this new world, a place where everything is so unfamiliar, they don't feel as at home with me as they did before the move.
I find myself wondering why I even did this. I felt like I had to. I need to work in order to support us and I couldn't keep working and expecting a live in babysitter to replace me. But now, in the middle of a terrible work week, I find myself wondering again what I've done.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Lena Loo and Lili Too
First of all, Lena, our nickname for Elena is pronounced "Layna." Lili, short for Eliza is pronounced "Lie lie." I dubbed Elena Lena Loo pretty early on but can't take the credit for my Eliza. That nickname was given to her by her very first babysitter.
The girls spent the day with their father while I continued my search for our new home. I made it home early enough to have dinner with them and then after their father left, I took them to the local fair. As soon as they saw the lights, their eyes lit up but unfortunately it didn't start out as our best night. Due to their age/heigh difference there wasn't many ride choices for both girls. I've crossed over to the no spinning rides ever side so my poor little Lena Loo simply wasn't tall enough to ride the first ride with her sister. Instead, she was stuck on the side of the fence with me, watching her sister ride with some random kid.
She's been sick off and on all week with various bouts of fatigue and stomach issues. Today, all I could think about when I was away from them is how much I couldn't wait to get back. It was especially hard to leave her because she hasn't been well. I picked her up as she cried and discouraged her from putting her thumb in her mouth by asking her to hug Mama. She looked at the ride, her face so sad and there was nothing I could do to make her feel better. I love Elena so much but she gets far more comfort from sucking her thumb than she does from me. This does make me sad; at eight I can still make Eliza feel better. But it also makes me love the mystery that's her and appreciate when she does want me all the more. I don't really know how Elena feels about me.
Eliza came off the ride complaining the guy put her in a car that didn't spin and agreed to go on the dizzy dinosaurs with Elena. Elena happily waved from her big spinning purple reptile (or is it a bird), the fair finally more than a haze of bright lights for her. Afterwards, I directed the girls to the swing ride and Elena happily followed her sister in line only to get shot down for again not making the height requirement. Since the seats weren't big enough for me, again Elena was stuck on the sidelines, crying as her sister flew up into the air. Again, my arms around her offered little comfort. We found a fun house that the three of us could walk through but the upstairs was closed off so we made the most of the mirror maze. We tried for the kiddie roller coaster but the guy shook his head when we got to the line saying it was closed. The fireworks started and we watched them for a while but they seemed pretty lackluster. We ended the night at the carousel where the ride operator, a tooth gapped man drunker than most frat boys, told us we would be the last ride. As we swirled around and the calliope played, I saw the look of pure happiness cross Elena's face.
Sometimes I wait my whole life for that look.
We headed to the car while the fireworks still blasted, the big finale happening right as I started the car.
"Don't go, yet," Eliza said from the backseat. "I want to watch."
I opened the moonroof and we watched the big finish, firework after firework blaze across the night sky, ending with series of star-shaped white bursts. The traffic wasn't even that bad getting out and the girls were happy in the backseat. I didn't hear about the rides Elena missed, only about the crescent moon in the sky and milk Elena wanted when she got home.
Life is a series of moments and that was a good one. I put in an application for an apartment that I don't want but if we get approved, I'll take. I simply want the search to be over and to get the girls registered in school. They're going to get stuck on a wait list as it is because this is how things work in New York. I wish I could feel happy about the move to New York but I'm not and I don't know that I'm going to be. Tonight I researched paralegal, montessori instructor, any kind of job that would keep me from making this move.
And tonight C, now unhappy that his princesses would have to live in Queens, offered to take the girls so I could "pursue my career." I don't know what's going on with him and if he really wants them or he really wants to scare me from making the move to New York but I told him that I thought the girls belonged with me. He presented his arguments. My hours are terrible and with him they could live in a nicer apartment near a nicer school. While I'll have to hire babysitters to take them to school and put them to bed, he can take them to school and get home before they go to bed. I've known C for a long time and I've never known him to be home from work early each night but he claims he's ready to scale back. I want what's best for my kids and it's tearing me up because I wonder if he is best.
But then I realize this is C world and while my job is far from ideal, even if I'm at work I'm the primary caregiver. I'm in constant contact with the sitters, I speak to the girls each night and I offer school and homework input. In C's world, he gets up in the morning, plops a couple of frozen waffles in the toaster and makes eggs, even though the girls don't eat eggs, tells the girls to get dressed, brush their teeth and then walks them happily to school. He comes home to a running dishwasher, the girls bathed and fed, their homework done and sends the babysitter/housekeeper home for the night so he can watch TV or read stories to the girls.
In my world, I'll come home after a long day at work and sift through the girl's backpacks. Before the sitter leaves, I'll ask her about the day, what the girls talked about and if they seemed happy. I'll arrange snacks and lunches for the following school day. I'll leave notes for the sitter if necessary and kiss their sleeping faces. Some days, I should be able to take them to school. And some nights, I might be home just before they go to bed. If this job doesn't get cancelled and doesn't end when it's supposed to, five and a half months after it starts, I'll ask to alternate (job share) so I can be home more. I will take off the first day of school and possibly Halloween and if anyone complains about that, I'll remind them I'm a department of one and I must do this sometimes. This isn't a career I even care about anymore, I'm doing it because I have to and I'm hoping that by moving to New York, I will cut down the time the girls and I spend apart.
Because being the primary caregiver's about more than just how often I'm home. It's about the the day to day stuff, it's about the look of pure happiness, about the fact that the three of us have something together. That's not to say they don't have it with their father too but he is not the person I am. And just because he works shorter hours doesn't mean he ever will be.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Fear
I'm suffering through another night of limited sleep and I decided to look at my blog. I was surprised to see a post from 2008 about how I read "I Love You Forever" to Eliza when she was only two. It's so important to write here, to preserve my life with my little girls because it really is flying by. It's also important to proofread what I write but I hardly ever do. I'll try to start doing that tonight/this morning.
Summer is here and we've already spent a great deal of time at the pool and beach. The combined pool beach badge is expensive so each summer I tell myself I must get to the pool at least 11 times to justify the cost of the badge. Fortunately for us, the weather has really been wonderful and I think we've been to the pool/beach 7-8 times. You never know when the weather can turn so if the sun's out, we go. Fortunately, my kids are enthusiastic this year because we've got a new pool. It's me who has to psych myself into going. As much as I enjoy the beach and pool, with the sunscreen, the snacks, the water containers, change of clothes and towels, getting ready to go can be a tedious process. But as of now, our summer has been divine.
Elena is now five, and is pretty demanding. Our lives are so in flux now that I really wish I had more patience with her and the tantrums. Yesterday was pretty hot (and it's always at least 10 degrees hotter in my apartment for some reason) and I got some bad news regarding an apartment. At school, several kids told Elena of their plans to go to the pool so she was determined to go right after school. I explained to her that first we had to take Eliza to a birthday party, then we had to have lunch at home. While Elena ate her lunch, I got the news that we didn't qualify for an apartment because I didn't meet the salary requirements. This was a bitter pill to swallow because I don't know that I'll meet the income requirements for any apartment in New York, even in the outer boroughs. My goal of working as little as possible so I could be home for my kids is not what New York building owners want to see on my past tax returns.
As soon as Elena was finished with her lunch, she wanted to get ready to go to the pool. I begged her to give me a few minutes alone, to process this, to get myself together. Elena hasn't mastered not getting her way and she's also not the most independent or physically capable kid. When it was time to pick up Eliza at the party and then head to the pool, I still needed space from Elena. Unfortunately she is not able to get into most of her swimsuits without assistance. This particular one piece has criss cross straps that even I struggle to get on her. Elena screams pretty loud with anything that's mildly frustrating for her and I can't stress enough how scared I am about our future and how often I beg her to stop shouting. But after a big crying fit, we made it out the door with her in good spirits.
Eliza had a great time at the party and fortunately wanted to go to the pool. Although the pool was packed, the girls were excited to immediately see friends and jumped in. But after five minutes, with friends now leaving for the beach, both girls cried boredom and begged to head down to the beach. While I love the beach, I wasn't ready to rush down there just yet. The girls pleaded and I think Elena called me a few names but then a friend of Eliza's arrived, she ran after the friend like a stalker and the the girls headed over to the line for the diving board. While in line, Eliza met up with more friends and soon declared the day "the best day of her entire life."
I also have to add that Elena is terrified of the water that is more than a foot deep. Seeing that terror in her, I realize fear is genetic. I'm not afraid of the water but I'm a very fearful person, my mother a fearful person as well. She never learned to ride a bike and hated driving for most of her life. I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was well into my 30s and it was all due to the fear factor. It's hard for people on the outside of things, to understand how debilitating fear is and how much us fraidy cats don't want to be the way we are. I've certainly done nothing to elicit fear in my children but watching Eliza learn to ride a bike and seeing Elena in the water, I know it really is genetic.
Elena wants to swim so badly. Each time we go to the pool, she crawls around the shallow end, dragging her face through the water and kicking her legs. She probably could swim if she would only allow me to help her into the deeper pool but the second we go down the steps from the one foot pool into the connecting pool that gradually slopes down three feet, she claws into my suit and screams like she's being beaten. No level of bribing will work because this is a true, uncontrollable fear. I remember what it was like for the me the last time I was on skis, how I so desperately wanted to ski but I was terrified. The ski instructor, not my first but the first one who really understood that it was a fear I so wanted to conquer, talked me down the bunny slope and for the first time, I thought I might really learn to ski if I just had one more day there with that instructor. But I didn't and I've accepted that skiing is something I won't learn in my lifetime.
But being safe in the water by learning how to swim is a skill I think Elena needs for survival. Now that she's five, it's really time she learn to swim. People have lots of advice but I don't think throwing her into the water will do much more than terrify her. A lifeguard suggested getting her to float on her back with my arm underneath her but I couldn't accomplish this yesterday because she wouldn't let go of me, nearly tearing off my swimsuit when I tried to lower her. It's hard because I don't understand why she doesn't trust me. I want so much for her to do this, to be safe but also because I know it's what she wants. She sees her friends swimming and jumping off the diving board. She doesn't want to get left behind.
I was recently hired on a new show that doesn't start until mid-July so I've got a little less than a month before I return to work. I'm still looking for an apartment so I'm unfortunately not completely free to relax. We started phase one of our move this week by getting rid of our couch and another piece of furniture. My landlord is being understanding and has agreed to us staying until the end of July. If I can't get approved for a NY apartment before the end of July, I guess I'll put our furniture in storage and continue to look and hope. Things might improve once I have a series of paystubs to prove my income. It's just a lot to deal with because I also have to find a babysitter and it's hard to even sift through the applications when I don't know where we'll be living. But the kids can stay with Christophe for the summer and hopefully in the fall we'll be good. It'll be tough finding a place in the city to stay for myself for the month of August but I'm hoping my friends will be understanding towards my situation.
The years fly by and there's nothing I can do to slow that down. But I do hope that some time from now, I can look back on this posting and remember this day that Eliza said was "the best day of her entire life." How after the pool we went out for pizza (too hot to cook) and Elena kept kissing my cheek. How the girls really enjoyed their dinner and although I was a bit blue, we had a nice night. I wish I had more patience, that I could handle Elena's temper tantrums better, that the way the girls fight didn't drive me nuts. I'm so overwhelmed by everything, I think because I'm so overwhelmed by what's to come. But it is summer, and we're so lucky to have a pool and beach a few blocks away. So often I realize I really am lucky. I know when I look back on this, I'll realize how lucky I am. I just want to feel that way today.
Summer is here and we've already spent a great deal of time at the pool and beach. The combined pool beach badge is expensive so each summer I tell myself I must get to the pool at least 11 times to justify the cost of the badge. Fortunately for us, the weather has really been wonderful and I think we've been to the pool/beach 7-8 times. You never know when the weather can turn so if the sun's out, we go. Fortunately, my kids are enthusiastic this year because we've got a new pool. It's me who has to psych myself into going. As much as I enjoy the beach and pool, with the sunscreen, the snacks, the water containers, change of clothes and towels, getting ready to go can be a tedious process. But as of now, our summer has been divine.
Elena is now five, and is pretty demanding. Our lives are so in flux now that I really wish I had more patience with her and the tantrums. Yesterday was pretty hot (and it's always at least 10 degrees hotter in my apartment for some reason) and I got some bad news regarding an apartment. At school, several kids told Elena of their plans to go to the pool so she was determined to go right after school. I explained to her that first we had to take Eliza to a birthday party, then we had to have lunch at home. While Elena ate her lunch, I got the news that we didn't qualify for an apartment because I didn't meet the salary requirements. This was a bitter pill to swallow because I don't know that I'll meet the income requirements for any apartment in New York, even in the outer boroughs. My goal of working as little as possible so I could be home for my kids is not what New York building owners want to see on my past tax returns.
As soon as Elena was finished with her lunch, she wanted to get ready to go to the pool. I begged her to give me a few minutes alone, to process this, to get myself together. Elena hasn't mastered not getting her way and she's also not the most independent or physically capable kid. When it was time to pick up Eliza at the party and then head to the pool, I still needed space from Elena. Unfortunately she is not able to get into most of her swimsuits without assistance. This particular one piece has criss cross straps that even I struggle to get on her. Elena screams pretty loud with anything that's mildly frustrating for her and I can't stress enough how scared I am about our future and how often I beg her to stop shouting. But after a big crying fit, we made it out the door with her in good spirits.
Eliza had a great time at the party and fortunately wanted to go to the pool. Although the pool was packed, the girls were excited to immediately see friends and jumped in. But after five minutes, with friends now leaving for the beach, both girls cried boredom and begged to head down to the beach. While I love the beach, I wasn't ready to rush down there just yet. The girls pleaded and I think Elena called me a few names but then a friend of Eliza's arrived, she ran after the friend like a stalker and the the girls headed over to the line for the diving board. While in line, Eliza met up with more friends and soon declared the day "the best day of her entire life."
I also have to add that Elena is terrified of the water that is more than a foot deep. Seeing that terror in her, I realize fear is genetic. I'm not afraid of the water but I'm a very fearful person, my mother a fearful person as well. She never learned to ride a bike and hated driving for most of her life. I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was well into my 30s and it was all due to the fear factor. It's hard for people on the outside of things, to understand how debilitating fear is and how much us fraidy cats don't want to be the way we are. I've certainly done nothing to elicit fear in my children but watching Eliza learn to ride a bike and seeing Elena in the water, I know it really is genetic.
Elena wants to swim so badly. Each time we go to the pool, she crawls around the shallow end, dragging her face through the water and kicking her legs. She probably could swim if she would only allow me to help her into the deeper pool but the second we go down the steps from the one foot pool into the connecting pool that gradually slopes down three feet, she claws into my suit and screams like she's being beaten. No level of bribing will work because this is a true, uncontrollable fear. I remember what it was like for the me the last time I was on skis, how I so desperately wanted to ski but I was terrified. The ski instructor, not my first but the first one who really understood that it was a fear I so wanted to conquer, talked me down the bunny slope and for the first time, I thought I might really learn to ski if I just had one more day there with that instructor. But I didn't and I've accepted that skiing is something I won't learn in my lifetime.
But being safe in the water by learning how to swim is a skill I think Elena needs for survival. Now that she's five, it's really time she learn to swim. People have lots of advice but I don't think throwing her into the water will do much more than terrify her. A lifeguard suggested getting her to float on her back with my arm underneath her but I couldn't accomplish this yesterday because she wouldn't let go of me, nearly tearing off my swimsuit when I tried to lower her. It's hard because I don't understand why she doesn't trust me. I want so much for her to do this, to be safe but also because I know it's what she wants. She sees her friends swimming and jumping off the diving board. She doesn't want to get left behind.
I was recently hired on a new show that doesn't start until mid-July so I've got a little less than a month before I return to work. I'm still looking for an apartment so I'm unfortunately not completely free to relax. We started phase one of our move this week by getting rid of our couch and another piece of furniture. My landlord is being understanding and has agreed to us staying until the end of July. If I can't get approved for a NY apartment before the end of July, I guess I'll put our furniture in storage and continue to look and hope. Things might improve once I have a series of paystubs to prove my income. It's just a lot to deal with because I also have to find a babysitter and it's hard to even sift through the applications when I don't know where we'll be living. But the kids can stay with Christophe for the summer and hopefully in the fall we'll be good. It'll be tough finding a place in the city to stay for myself for the month of August but I'm hoping my friends will be understanding towards my situation.
The years fly by and there's nothing I can do to slow that down. But I do hope that some time from now, I can look back on this posting and remember this day that Eliza said was "the best day of her entire life." How after the pool we went out for pizza (too hot to cook) and Elena kept kissing my cheek. How the girls really enjoyed their dinner and although I was a bit blue, we had a nice night. I wish I had more patience, that I could handle Elena's temper tantrums better, that the way the girls fight didn't drive me nuts. I'm so overwhelmed by everything, I think because I'm so overwhelmed by what's to come. But it is summer, and we're so lucky to have a pool and beach a few blocks away. So often I realize I really am lucky. I know when I look back on this, I'll realize how lucky I am. I just want to feel that way today.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
The Stress, the stress
It's been such a long time since I've written here. My little baby Elena turned five last months so now I officially don't have a baby. So much of her life has gone by in a blur and now here I am going months without writing much about either of them. Elena is really shining now. She loves to make up sweet songs and dance around the house. She can play for hours with dolls, having them act out little dramas. Despite the age difference, Eliza and Elena play quite a bit together. They'll fly the dolls around the room, one doll the daughter and one the mother. They make up complete lives for these dolls. It's truly wonderful to see.
Eliza is close to finishing 3rd grade so there's some growing pains. School and dance class have become more serious so as much as Eliza would like to spend her time playing fairies with Elena and the dolls, study time and work time beckons. Eliza's also been taking piano lessons for a year and I often force her to practice where as I didn't a few months ago. She's now started to work on opposing hands. There is a lot of crying, a lot of temper tantrums that happen at the keyboard each night and it gets hard. She likes taking lessons and truly wants to learn to play but she'd be just as happy quitting. However the piano is the one thing I'd like them to do and I'd like to keep it up until she gets past the opposing hand hurdle and starts to find herself able to read through the music and move her hands at the same time. I want her to know that a little bit of work can actually get you somewhere. Lord knows, I gave up just about everything I couldn't do within five minutes and look at me now.
I'm a total and complete mess. Years ago, I worked on a show called Fringe and I recall meeting the mother of one of the stars of the show. She was a single mother, I can't recall if there was a father in the picture at all or not. This actor always spoke of his mother and gave her a tremendous amount of credit. In addition to being a pretty good actor, he was also a great guy. We were said so as we met his mother.
I was pregnant with Elena and the time with Eliza about to turn three. Most people on set didn't know I was pregnant and no one knew what a terrible home life I had with C. I had a new baby growing inside me and I wasn't happy about it because all I could see was myself moving forward in a very unhappy life, adding another baby to the mix. I knew our actor had a sister so I asked her, what was it like being a single mother to two children. I don't remember most of what she said but what I do hear so clearly are the words to the effect of "I'm still recovering from it, that's how hard it was." Our actor was well into his 20s and still his mother was recovering from her solo parenting act.
I could have it a lot worse. C is in the picture and financially helps support his kids. However, even with his support, I still have to work. The only way I can continue to make enough money to pay a babysitter and keep up my health insurance is continue working in the television and film industry. I could have it a lot worse. I work with great people on often interesting projects. And I can kind of work for a few months at a stretch and then not work for a while which gives me time at being a full-time mom some months.
The flip side of that is a lot of uncertainty. The work is all freelance and sometimes it comes in and sometimes, when you really need a job, the work doesn't happen. I've been booked on a movie that starts shooting in June since the end of March. This particular movie has a bad track record which I knew going into it. This film was supposed to start shooting last Fall but then at the last minute fell through leaving everyone hired for it without a job. When the office opened up again in February and they started to call people they'd initially hired, those people said no thinking it was not a valid project. However, when they got to me, I figured I'd go in for the interview and see what happened. It all went well, no other work came through and we even did some pre shooting in April. Shooting the first few bits in April and seeing the elaborate sets and costumes, it felt like it would happen this time.
Yesterday we found out that it's not. I feel like some one should be liable when they tell people after they hire them that they don't have enough funding to continue. Especially when the person at the helm has a lot of money and could practically fund the project himself. However, it doesn't work that way in my business. They have the right to stop shooting at any time, as I found out back in October when halfway through a 12 week job they pulled the plug because the network didn't like the show. We shot seven episodes that will never air All that money and time wasted on something people won't ever see. Kind of like what's happened with this movie. And no one ever does anything because, that's show biz.
On top of that yesterday, an apartment sublet that I'd been pursuing in New York fell through. I finally decided to take the plunge and move from our cozy suburb back to the city. Moving to New York is such a costly, horrific undertaking when I managed to find an apartment through a friend, it seemed preordained that I needed a break and would get one. However the tenants of the apartment don't want to put me on the lease and without a lease, I can't register my kids in school. I told them I'd need a lease when I met with them over a month ago but they waited three weeks to tell me this was how they preferred to do it. So now after a night of little sleep and a lot of stress, I have to tell them I can't take this wonderful apartment that really was perfect because what's the point of an apartment in a good school zone if I can't register my kids there. Plus if we do it illegally and the building owner finds out, I'll get evicted. They lose the apartment too but since they've already gone through the trouble of moving into another home, the loss is much bigger for me and my kids. They seem like extremely nice people and I think they don't understand the variables here well enough but now I have to let that dream apartment go because it won't work for us.
Basically I have one month to pack us up, pay some one with a truck to take any furniture that we can't take with us, find a new home in a decent school zone and oh, find a job. I told C last night I wanted him to take the kids because I don't see how I can do this anymore. He has a steady job, he has family that helps him out with the kids. At this point I really only have my father and he's not as helpful as he could be. But the reality is I don't want to not be with the kids and the kids don't want to not be with me. Eliza said last night, "I don't want you to go and have your life without me."
It was a succinct thing to say, a beautiful thing to say. It really sums up how I feel too though I know all too well eventually she is going to go off and have a life without me. But not right now, not when she's eight.
Moving to New York is such a hassle but I have to be there if I want to work. But there's so many other places I'd rather be. I'm closer to 50 then 40 now so it's not exactly time for me to start a new career. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't make a living as a writer but now I realize that might not be in the cards for me. I don't even know what other kind of job I could do. New York has it's pluses. But all the stress associated with finding a home, a school, everything there is so huge. I needed a break here and I got one and now it's gone.
So what to do? I have 24 hours before I let my landlord know.
Eliza is close to finishing 3rd grade so there's some growing pains. School and dance class have become more serious so as much as Eliza would like to spend her time playing fairies with Elena and the dolls, study time and work time beckons. Eliza's also been taking piano lessons for a year and I often force her to practice where as I didn't a few months ago. She's now started to work on opposing hands. There is a lot of crying, a lot of temper tantrums that happen at the keyboard each night and it gets hard. She likes taking lessons and truly wants to learn to play but she'd be just as happy quitting. However the piano is the one thing I'd like them to do and I'd like to keep it up until she gets past the opposing hand hurdle and starts to find herself able to read through the music and move her hands at the same time. I want her to know that a little bit of work can actually get you somewhere. Lord knows, I gave up just about everything I couldn't do within five minutes and look at me now.
I'm a total and complete mess. Years ago, I worked on a show called Fringe and I recall meeting the mother of one of the stars of the show. She was a single mother, I can't recall if there was a father in the picture at all or not. This actor always spoke of his mother and gave her a tremendous amount of credit. In addition to being a pretty good actor, he was also a great guy. We were said so as we met his mother.
I was pregnant with Elena and the time with Eliza about to turn three. Most people on set didn't know I was pregnant and no one knew what a terrible home life I had with C. I had a new baby growing inside me and I wasn't happy about it because all I could see was myself moving forward in a very unhappy life, adding another baby to the mix. I knew our actor had a sister so I asked her, what was it like being a single mother to two children. I don't remember most of what she said but what I do hear so clearly are the words to the effect of "I'm still recovering from it, that's how hard it was." Our actor was well into his 20s and still his mother was recovering from her solo parenting act.
I could have it a lot worse. C is in the picture and financially helps support his kids. However, even with his support, I still have to work. The only way I can continue to make enough money to pay a babysitter and keep up my health insurance is continue working in the television and film industry. I could have it a lot worse. I work with great people on often interesting projects. And I can kind of work for a few months at a stretch and then not work for a while which gives me time at being a full-time mom some months.
The flip side of that is a lot of uncertainty. The work is all freelance and sometimes it comes in and sometimes, when you really need a job, the work doesn't happen. I've been booked on a movie that starts shooting in June since the end of March. This particular movie has a bad track record which I knew going into it. This film was supposed to start shooting last Fall but then at the last minute fell through leaving everyone hired for it without a job. When the office opened up again in February and they started to call people they'd initially hired, those people said no thinking it was not a valid project. However, when they got to me, I figured I'd go in for the interview and see what happened. It all went well, no other work came through and we even did some pre shooting in April. Shooting the first few bits in April and seeing the elaborate sets and costumes, it felt like it would happen this time.
Yesterday we found out that it's not. I feel like some one should be liable when they tell people after they hire them that they don't have enough funding to continue. Especially when the person at the helm has a lot of money and could practically fund the project himself. However, it doesn't work that way in my business. They have the right to stop shooting at any time, as I found out back in October when halfway through a 12 week job they pulled the plug because the network didn't like the show. We shot seven episodes that will never air All that money and time wasted on something people won't ever see. Kind of like what's happened with this movie. And no one ever does anything because, that's show biz.
On top of that yesterday, an apartment sublet that I'd been pursuing in New York fell through. I finally decided to take the plunge and move from our cozy suburb back to the city. Moving to New York is such a costly, horrific undertaking when I managed to find an apartment through a friend, it seemed preordained that I needed a break and would get one. However the tenants of the apartment don't want to put me on the lease and without a lease, I can't register my kids in school. I told them I'd need a lease when I met with them over a month ago but they waited three weeks to tell me this was how they preferred to do it. So now after a night of little sleep and a lot of stress, I have to tell them I can't take this wonderful apartment that really was perfect because what's the point of an apartment in a good school zone if I can't register my kids there. Plus if we do it illegally and the building owner finds out, I'll get evicted. They lose the apartment too but since they've already gone through the trouble of moving into another home, the loss is much bigger for me and my kids. They seem like extremely nice people and I think they don't understand the variables here well enough but now I have to let that dream apartment go because it won't work for us.
Basically I have one month to pack us up, pay some one with a truck to take any furniture that we can't take with us, find a new home in a decent school zone and oh, find a job. I told C last night I wanted him to take the kids because I don't see how I can do this anymore. He has a steady job, he has family that helps him out with the kids. At this point I really only have my father and he's not as helpful as he could be. But the reality is I don't want to not be with the kids and the kids don't want to not be with me. Eliza said last night, "I don't want you to go and have your life without me."
It was a succinct thing to say, a beautiful thing to say. It really sums up how I feel too though I know all too well eventually she is going to go off and have a life without me. But not right now, not when she's eight.
Moving to New York is such a hassle but I have to be there if I want to work. But there's so many other places I'd rather be. I'm closer to 50 then 40 now so it's not exactly time for me to start a new career. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't make a living as a writer but now I realize that might not be in the cards for me. I don't even know what other kind of job I could do. New York has it's pluses. But all the stress associated with finding a home, a school, everything there is so huge. I needed a break here and I got one and now it's gone.
So what to do? I have 24 hours before I let my landlord know.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
One year later
Wow, it's been so long since I've written anything here. I don't know that I've gone this long without writing something about the kids. I'm often inclined to summarize my life from the last post until now in the situations but I'm not going to today.
It's be a tough few weeks at home. On Friday, October, 4th, shortly before lunch at work, our producer gathered us and told us we wouldn't be starting the next episode the following Monday. He referred to it as a short "hiatus", a break so the network could decide the new direction the show would take. For a week we dangled in limbo, thinking we'd return to work the Tuesday after Columbus day but at 3pm that Friday, we were all called to say no, we were done.
It wasn't the best job but it's never easy to be out of work. I was offered another job but it doesn't start for over a month and a lot can happen between now and then so officially I'm unemployed.
There are perks to unplanned unemployment when you have kids. I've been able to share a lot more and do a lot more with them since my show got canned. But I've also been walking around in a fog, reliving my life last year, with the anxiety of not working mixing in with the grief. Because I lost my mother and that grief is never going away, instead it only gets deeper. I think on many levels my mother kept me grounded and now without her, I feel like I'm unraveling.
My mother was really all I had. She was the only person who cared about me whom I spoke to on a regular basis. I haven't, not once, picked up the phone to call her because I know she's gone. But I have held the phone on many occasions, wishing I could call some one, anyone.
As a freelancer, I've always seen myself as one step up from homeless. All that it will take to trigger a state of homelessness is a long stretch without work. When my mother was alive, I had her home as a fallback. I knew I always had a place to go to, a family to turn to if times got really bad. But now, my grandparents have been dead for more than two years, my father lives in a retirement community that doesn't allow kids. And if I dumped the kids on C's porch, my father and his wife still couldn't tolerate an interloper for too long. The extended family I had when my grandparents were alive don't think about me or my brother so I certainly don't imagine them providing a place of refuge. The one really close friend I had decided to pack up and move her family to Israel into a small settlement that wouldn't exactly make me feel welcome.
So it's just me out there with no backup. If I become sick, injured, weak, broken, I will quickly have no home.
For the most part, I feel pretty good and have the energy of some one much younger so I'm not too worried. But it's always there, whenever I see a homeless person, and I see plenty more of them now with this economy, that a few years from now, yeah, that's me.
My mother not only provided that safe feeling from homelessness, she also was the only adult who truly loved me. Without her, no one calls to see how I'm doing if they haven't heard from me. No one thinks about me unless I contact them first. I have gone from some one who really mattered to some one who's importance can only be measured on how much my kids need me. That's not nothing, of course, the kids, but I find myself wondering how long I can keep operating without an outlet for myself. I think of joining a local health club with a gym because swimming always makes me feel better but it's tough to spend more money when you're jobless. I try to drum up some interest from my friends and I do have plans tonight and another night next week but it's still disheartening when the plans are always originating with me. Being one's own cheerleader gets so tough after a while.
A lot is happening around me too. I have two friends going through marital splits. One happened very suddenly and only now is my friend really feeling the impact. My heart breaks for her as she has been with her husband longer than I've known her, and I've known her a long time. Another friend, who's marriage I believed to be rock solid, is also breaking down. I'm so far away from them physically and they keep themselves so busy, I've hardly spoken to her much but I feel terrible for them both and wish I could stop them from doing this to each other. At midlife, it seems a lot of friends are going through some major stuff so I can't fault anyone for not being there for me. And I do have some friends going through some great stuff right now which is wonderful, it's not all bad out there. Life is not easy, we know this. I think about my grandmother and how she lived through the depression. Then I realize she was young, as she got older her life got easier, at least workwise and finance wise.
I miss my grandmother, almost as much as my mother. Both women still serve as an inspiration to me. As long as they were alive, I always felt taken care of, loved, not in danger of being homeless.
Now, I just don't know.
It's be a tough few weeks at home. On Friday, October, 4th, shortly before lunch at work, our producer gathered us and told us we wouldn't be starting the next episode the following Monday. He referred to it as a short "hiatus", a break so the network could decide the new direction the show would take. For a week we dangled in limbo, thinking we'd return to work the Tuesday after Columbus day but at 3pm that Friday, we were all called to say no, we were done.
It wasn't the best job but it's never easy to be out of work. I was offered another job but it doesn't start for over a month and a lot can happen between now and then so officially I'm unemployed.
There are perks to unplanned unemployment when you have kids. I've been able to share a lot more and do a lot more with them since my show got canned. But I've also been walking around in a fog, reliving my life last year, with the anxiety of not working mixing in with the grief. Because I lost my mother and that grief is never going away, instead it only gets deeper. I think on many levels my mother kept me grounded and now without her, I feel like I'm unraveling.
My mother was really all I had. She was the only person who cared about me whom I spoke to on a regular basis. I haven't, not once, picked up the phone to call her because I know she's gone. But I have held the phone on many occasions, wishing I could call some one, anyone.
As a freelancer, I've always seen myself as one step up from homeless. All that it will take to trigger a state of homelessness is a long stretch without work. When my mother was alive, I had her home as a fallback. I knew I always had a place to go to, a family to turn to if times got really bad. But now, my grandparents have been dead for more than two years, my father lives in a retirement community that doesn't allow kids. And if I dumped the kids on C's porch, my father and his wife still couldn't tolerate an interloper for too long. The extended family I had when my grandparents were alive don't think about me or my brother so I certainly don't imagine them providing a place of refuge. The one really close friend I had decided to pack up and move her family to Israel into a small settlement that wouldn't exactly make me feel welcome.
So it's just me out there with no backup. If I become sick, injured, weak, broken, I will quickly have no home.
For the most part, I feel pretty good and have the energy of some one much younger so I'm not too worried. But it's always there, whenever I see a homeless person, and I see plenty more of them now with this economy, that a few years from now, yeah, that's me.
My mother not only provided that safe feeling from homelessness, she also was the only adult who truly loved me. Without her, no one calls to see how I'm doing if they haven't heard from me. No one thinks about me unless I contact them first. I have gone from some one who really mattered to some one who's importance can only be measured on how much my kids need me. That's not nothing, of course, the kids, but I find myself wondering how long I can keep operating without an outlet for myself. I think of joining a local health club with a gym because swimming always makes me feel better but it's tough to spend more money when you're jobless. I try to drum up some interest from my friends and I do have plans tonight and another night next week but it's still disheartening when the plans are always originating with me. Being one's own cheerleader gets so tough after a while.
A lot is happening around me too. I have two friends going through marital splits. One happened very suddenly and only now is my friend really feeling the impact. My heart breaks for her as she has been with her husband longer than I've known her, and I've known her a long time. Another friend, who's marriage I believed to be rock solid, is also breaking down. I'm so far away from them physically and they keep themselves so busy, I've hardly spoken to her much but I feel terrible for them both and wish I could stop them from doing this to each other. At midlife, it seems a lot of friends are going through some major stuff so I can't fault anyone for not being there for me. And I do have some friends going through some great stuff right now which is wonderful, it's not all bad out there. Life is not easy, we know this. I think about my grandmother and how she lived through the depression. Then I realize she was young, as she got older her life got easier, at least workwise and finance wise.
I miss my grandmother, almost as much as my mother. Both women still serve as an inspiration to me. As long as they were alive, I always felt taken care of, loved, not in danger of being homeless.
Now, I just don't know.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Thank you, My Eliza
My grandmother said the happiest day of her life was "giving birth to Frances. It was the only thing that was ever all mine."
I know exactly what she means. Of course I know that Eliza isn't all mine any more than my mother was all my grandmothers. My grandmother called my mom "the rebel" because she didn't like to clean, she didn't want to join the convent and she had to go and her father's skin instead of her mother's. The feelings of that child as being your complete possession eventually give way to the realization that this is a whole other person, working pretty damn hard to distance herself from you.
But ah those early years with the right kid, for a little while you have that great gift, that perfect love. Eliza is my perfect love.
My mother often described as the kid that was always walking up and down the street knocking on doors looking for some one to play with. I'm still kind of like that, a very lonely person who longs for a large family and chaos and people around me all the time. I gave birth to Eliza and suddenly I had that some one to play with.
Eliza and I were alone for marathon stretches of time, often 12-14 hours without relief. There were days when I truly feared I might go insane but then I didn't and then I realized I wouldn't knowing that was so freeing. She started smiling and adoring me, screaming and reaching for me starting at only six weeks. I am not exaggerating here. I remember the moment so clearly. I had a babysitter interviewing to come and help out for just a couple of hours a week. I told her a little about Eliza and handed Eliza to her. Eliza's head snapped towards me, her eyes widening, not in fear but almost in anger. She opened her mouth and let it be known that she was severely pissed off that I handed her off.
The babysitter calmed her down, I was impressed and I hired her. And Eliza was okay with her but that was it. For months, whenever anyone tried to hold her--my mother, C, my father--she screamed. Her scream often sounded like a fake cry. She wanted me and that was that. No one had ever loved me like that before.
I took her everywhere. The world was suddenly new and hopeful and as bright as the sun if you looked at it directly. Stumbling across a band at the South Street Seaport turned her into a whirling fireball of dance. A first taste of chocolate gelato brought back that forceful, pissed off wail for more. I walked for miles with her in the sling, her face turned up to smile at me and then peer over my shoulder to make goo goo eyes at some person behind me.
We took Mommy and me tumbling classes, music classes and playgroups. Every day was a celebration of our perfect love. When she got her first real cold, I must have sat with her for two to three days straight, only putting her down to go to the bathroom. She and I slept in the living room on the fold out couch together while her father snored away alone in the bedroom.
As the years passed, I tried to prepare myself for the inevitable turn, that moment when she wasn't so into me anymore. But the thing is, even now, with her entering third grade, it still hasn't happened. She still adores me and often when we're together it's still there, our hands entwined together, our perfect love.
Tonight we went to Summerfest, an annual music and fireworks festival along the water near my mother's house. She and I started going alone, my mom at home with baby Elena, and after the fireworks we'd go back to my mom's house and sleep. Tonight Elena came with us and we came home after the fireworks. It hurt knowing my mother's house was empty, remembering so many nights inside her house and hearing the fireworks and knowing that the house was dark and eerily quiet.
As I drove home, I thought of our first Summerfest. The band was a Bruce Springsteen tribute band and Eliza got a huge Spongebob ice cream treat. It was the messiest treat in the world. I'm a huge fan of the boss and being outside, listening to that music as the sun took it's sweet time setting; it didn't get better than that There have been many Summerfests after that one but it's the first one that sticks with me.
On the way home, we passed a park where the kids and I attended an Earth Day fair, maybe when Eliza was in Kindergarten. We passed the Point Boardwalk where we've gone almost every summer. So many afternoons watching Eliza run around at the park on the Bay near my mother's house. Watching her run alongside the hill at Twin Lights. Standing in the ocean one night, snapping photos of her and Elena running away from the waves, into the sunset.
I have loved her childhood so much, a childhood that's forever behind me. She's still a kid, she's still my loving kid, my Eliza but for how much longer? How many more Summerfests will she enjoy, being stuck with just me when she can go with friends? I finally knocked on the right door and got exactly the playmate I wanted and pretty soon she's going to move off and find some other people to play with, people who she thinks about more than me. My perfect love with be gone.
I honestly don't know how people cope with their children growing up. I guess other people have lives and have relationships outside their kids. I've always known it wasn't healthy to put all my eggs in one basket but no one, no one loves me like she does. With my mom gone, I often feel like Eliza is the only person in the world who loves me.
If you're wondering about Elena and feeling bad that I don't talk about her and me and a perfect love, it's not that I love Elena any less. Quite the contrary, sometimes I pick up Elena and feel a love surge through me so strongly, I feel like I just can't hold her tightly enough. But Elena pushes me away. She loves me and when she does give me one of her little hugs, I can't begin to describe how it feels to have those little arms around my neck. Elena loves me, but she is not so affectionate, she is not so adoring and has Eliza in between her and me. From day one, she was happy with whoever held her. She went through her period of wanting to be held all the time, sure, but she didn't care who was holding her. I like that about her, I like that independence.
And I like seeing it in Eliza, when she runs into friends and suddenly I'm invisible. I don't feel hurt, only happy that she seems to be relating to her peers in a healthy way.
But still, at night when I'm driving home from fireworks and the kids are sleeping in the back seat, I can mourn the small children years that are in my rearview mirror. And say thank you to my Eliza, for being such a wonderful, amazing, beautiful and most of all loving, girl.
I know exactly what she means. Of course I know that Eliza isn't all mine any more than my mother was all my grandmothers. My grandmother called my mom "the rebel" because she didn't like to clean, she didn't want to join the convent and she had to go and her father's skin instead of her mother's. The feelings of that child as being your complete possession eventually give way to the realization that this is a whole other person, working pretty damn hard to distance herself from you.
But ah those early years with the right kid, for a little while you have that great gift, that perfect love. Eliza is my perfect love.
My mother often described as the kid that was always walking up and down the street knocking on doors looking for some one to play with. I'm still kind of like that, a very lonely person who longs for a large family and chaos and people around me all the time. I gave birth to Eliza and suddenly I had that some one to play with.
Eliza and I were alone for marathon stretches of time, often 12-14 hours without relief. There were days when I truly feared I might go insane but then I didn't and then I realized I wouldn't knowing that was so freeing. She started smiling and adoring me, screaming and reaching for me starting at only six weeks. I am not exaggerating here. I remember the moment so clearly. I had a babysitter interviewing to come and help out for just a couple of hours a week. I told her a little about Eliza and handed Eliza to her. Eliza's head snapped towards me, her eyes widening, not in fear but almost in anger. She opened her mouth and let it be known that she was severely pissed off that I handed her off.
The babysitter calmed her down, I was impressed and I hired her. And Eliza was okay with her but that was it. For months, whenever anyone tried to hold her--my mother, C, my father--she screamed. Her scream often sounded like a fake cry. She wanted me and that was that. No one had ever loved me like that before.
I took her everywhere. The world was suddenly new and hopeful and as bright as the sun if you looked at it directly. Stumbling across a band at the South Street Seaport turned her into a whirling fireball of dance. A first taste of chocolate gelato brought back that forceful, pissed off wail for more. I walked for miles with her in the sling, her face turned up to smile at me and then peer over my shoulder to make goo goo eyes at some person behind me.
We took Mommy and me tumbling classes, music classes and playgroups. Every day was a celebration of our perfect love. When she got her first real cold, I must have sat with her for two to three days straight, only putting her down to go to the bathroom. She and I slept in the living room on the fold out couch together while her father snored away alone in the bedroom.
As the years passed, I tried to prepare myself for the inevitable turn, that moment when she wasn't so into me anymore. But the thing is, even now, with her entering third grade, it still hasn't happened. She still adores me and often when we're together it's still there, our hands entwined together, our perfect love.
Tonight we went to Summerfest, an annual music and fireworks festival along the water near my mother's house. She and I started going alone, my mom at home with baby Elena, and after the fireworks we'd go back to my mom's house and sleep. Tonight Elena came with us and we came home after the fireworks. It hurt knowing my mother's house was empty, remembering so many nights inside her house and hearing the fireworks and knowing that the house was dark and eerily quiet.
As I drove home, I thought of our first Summerfest. The band was a Bruce Springsteen tribute band and Eliza got a huge Spongebob ice cream treat. It was the messiest treat in the world. I'm a huge fan of the boss and being outside, listening to that music as the sun took it's sweet time setting; it didn't get better than that There have been many Summerfests after that one but it's the first one that sticks with me.
On the way home, we passed a park where the kids and I attended an Earth Day fair, maybe when Eliza was in Kindergarten. We passed the Point Boardwalk where we've gone almost every summer. So many afternoons watching Eliza run around at the park on the Bay near my mother's house. Watching her run alongside the hill at Twin Lights. Standing in the ocean one night, snapping photos of her and Elena running away from the waves, into the sunset.
I have loved her childhood so much, a childhood that's forever behind me. She's still a kid, she's still my loving kid, my Eliza but for how much longer? How many more Summerfests will she enjoy, being stuck with just me when she can go with friends? I finally knocked on the right door and got exactly the playmate I wanted and pretty soon she's going to move off and find some other people to play with, people who she thinks about more than me. My perfect love with be gone.
I honestly don't know how people cope with their children growing up. I guess other people have lives and have relationships outside their kids. I've always known it wasn't healthy to put all my eggs in one basket but no one, no one loves me like she does. With my mom gone, I often feel like Eliza is the only person in the world who loves me.
If you're wondering about Elena and feeling bad that I don't talk about her and me and a perfect love, it's not that I love Elena any less. Quite the contrary, sometimes I pick up Elena and feel a love surge through me so strongly, I feel like I just can't hold her tightly enough. But Elena pushes me away. She loves me and when she does give me one of her little hugs, I can't begin to describe how it feels to have those little arms around my neck. Elena loves me, but she is not so affectionate, she is not so adoring and has Eliza in between her and me. From day one, she was happy with whoever held her. She went through her period of wanting to be held all the time, sure, but she didn't care who was holding her. I like that about her, I like that independence.
And I like seeing it in Eliza, when she runs into friends and suddenly I'm invisible. I don't feel hurt, only happy that she seems to be relating to her peers in a healthy way.
But still, at night when I'm driving home from fireworks and the kids are sleeping in the back seat, I can mourn the small children years that are in my rearview mirror. And say thank you to my Eliza, for being such a wonderful, amazing, beautiful and most of all loving, girl.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
A Childhood of Magic
Some one once said how they'd love to relive the first year of her son's life all over again with exactly the same baby. As her son neared the age of one, she longed for a baby but not a new baby, just to go back and repeat every moment with her first baby. I loved when she said this so much because that was exactly how I felt as I watched Eliza's babyhood evaporate in front of my eyes. I would go back in a heartbeat and relive every moment of it, everything, even the bad stuff because truth be told, there wasn't much of that.
Another friend once said that a child is a chance for our happy ending. I certainly see so much of that in myself. My singing and dance dreams I'm trying to make happen for Eliza, whether she wants them or not. I have to step back sometimes and remind myself that it's her life, not mine and that it's up to her to choose her own course.
One thing I've really accomplished with my children is creating a world of magic. It's certainly not magical all the time. Today, the girls spent much of the day together in the playroom with Eliza's iPad or running around with lalaloopsies while I wasted a little too much time scrolling down my iPhone and fiendishly erasing emails. But still, we've had a wonderful summer. Wonderful days at amusement parks, water parks, dinner at our local hibachi grill where we watch the chef light a "volcano" (tower of onions) on fire. I put together a little play starring a group of Eliza's friends and turned it into one of the best parties Eliza's ever had. I took the girls to Storybook Land and surprised them with a hotel in Atlantic City and dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, a place they loved so much in San Francisco.
I've loved reading children's books so much with Eliza because we can open a book and enter into another world with a bake shop ghost, a sandcastle that turns into a real castle, a bed that flies over the hills of Tuscany. Reading those books with Eliza made me feel reborn into a world where anything was possible. That's childhood. The days are long but your imagination is the world. YOur body is quick and free and full of energy.
When C and I split up, I had no plan. I looked at the apartment we've happily lived in since 2009 and liked it so I took it. The landlady mentioned turning the den type room off the kitchen into a playroom and I took that idea and went with it. Painting a bright splashy pink that Eliza picked out that looks kind of like a bottle of Mr. Bubble, I'll never forget how happy Eliza was the first time afternoon she spent in there. We didn't have much furniture other then our beds and her plastic red table and chairs from Ikea but I'll never forget cooking our first dinner (pasta primavera) while Eliza sat on that red table and colored, humming happily. I stood over that stove listening to how happy she sounded and felt so relieved and powerful that I had been able to do this, get out of a bad relationship and give her another home that would make her happy. I don't remember where Elena was at this moment because she wasn't sleeping in a crib yet. Maybe she was asleep in the car seat on the floor somewhere or in the bassinet in my bedroom, but I'll never, ever forget standing over the stove as the fresh tomatoes cooked, listening to her hum in her happy little pink playroom, feeling like I was the best mom in the world.
Best mom, no, but I type this seated on the couch surrounded by Elena's little happy light up wands. That's all it takes to make her four year old body happy, light up wands. When they're happy, I feel so supremely content, like I've just scaled Mount Everest and found it to be easier then I thought. Elena is already four and Eliza is about to enter third grade--this world of magic is about to disappear and my ability to keep them as happy as they are will go away. But for now, the world is magic, just the spin of a music box at bedtime, a chocolate cake baked on a rainy day, these things are all they need to feel joy. Oh how I wish it could be this way forever.
Another friend once said that a child is a chance for our happy ending. I certainly see so much of that in myself. My singing and dance dreams I'm trying to make happen for Eliza, whether she wants them or not. I have to step back sometimes and remind myself that it's her life, not mine and that it's up to her to choose her own course.
One thing I've really accomplished with my children is creating a world of magic. It's certainly not magical all the time. Today, the girls spent much of the day together in the playroom with Eliza's iPad or running around with lalaloopsies while I wasted a little too much time scrolling down my iPhone and fiendishly erasing emails. But still, we've had a wonderful summer. Wonderful days at amusement parks, water parks, dinner at our local hibachi grill where we watch the chef light a "volcano" (tower of onions) on fire. I put together a little play starring a group of Eliza's friends and turned it into one of the best parties Eliza's ever had. I took the girls to Storybook Land and surprised them with a hotel in Atlantic City and dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, a place they loved so much in San Francisco.
I've loved reading children's books so much with Eliza because we can open a book and enter into another world with a bake shop ghost, a sandcastle that turns into a real castle, a bed that flies over the hills of Tuscany. Reading those books with Eliza made me feel reborn into a world where anything was possible. That's childhood. The days are long but your imagination is the world. YOur body is quick and free and full of energy.
When C and I split up, I had no plan. I looked at the apartment we've happily lived in since 2009 and liked it so I took it. The landlady mentioned turning the den type room off the kitchen into a playroom and I took that idea and went with it. Painting a bright splashy pink that Eliza picked out that looks kind of like a bottle of Mr. Bubble, I'll never forget how happy Eliza was the first time afternoon she spent in there. We didn't have much furniture other then our beds and her plastic red table and chairs from Ikea but I'll never forget cooking our first dinner (pasta primavera) while Eliza sat on that red table and colored, humming happily. I stood over that stove listening to how happy she sounded and felt so relieved and powerful that I had been able to do this, get out of a bad relationship and give her another home that would make her happy. I don't remember where Elena was at this moment because she wasn't sleeping in a crib yet. Maybe she was asleep in the car seat on the floor somewhere or in the bassinet in my bedroom, but I'll never, ever forget standing over the stove as the fresh tomatoes cooked, listening to her hum in her happy little pink playroom, feeling like I was the best mom in the world.
Best mom, no, but I type this seated on the couch surrounded by Elena's little happy light up wands. That's all it takes to make her four year old body happy, light up wands. When they're happy, I feel so supremely content, like I've just scaled Mount Everest and found it to be easier then I thought. Elena is already four and Eliza is about to enter third grade--this world of magic is about to disappear and my ability to keep them as happy as they are will go away. But for now, the world is magic, just the spin of a music box at bedtime, a chocolate cake baked on a rainy day, these things are all they need to feel joy. Oh how I wish it could be this way forever.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Mama Summer Love
Oh how lovely to look back two months ago when the summer was wide in front of us. Now I've got just two more weeks left at home with my girls before I start a new show. There will still be a few weekends left of summer but it's been so wonderful to be home for almost all of it. What a blessing to be offered a job at the end of June that didn't start until late August.
The days just stretched out in front of us and we have greatly enjoyed them. I signed Eliza up for multiple day camps and was able to be the one to take her to and from every one of them. I picked her up on the day she caught her first fish at marine science camp, I got to watch her at her music theater camp showcase, I got to watch her really bloom as a little dancer in her various week long dance camps.
We traveled only to Pittsburgh to visit Kennywood, the amusement park of my childhood, and place my mother's ashes in the grave of my grandparents. Because things don't often happen as planned, we didn't get to bury my mom during our trip but we did visit the grave and that seemed to comfort Eliza. Getting together with family in Pittsburgh and showing Eliza my grandparents' house and the park of my childhood made her very happy. The girls loved Kennywood and it was a sweet reunion with my college friend Sam and her daughter who we hadn't seen for two years.
And my mother's ashes, which had been misplaced during shipping, were finally recovered and resent to Pittsburgh. She will be buried this upcoming Wednesday. I won't be there to see it but my cousin and a friend of my mother's will be there. It only gets bigger, how much I miss my mom, but there is some comfort in laying her to rest with my grandparents. Eliza loved seeing what little family we have in Pittsburgh so we will return there, perhaps once a year or at least every other year. It was a good feeling, knowing the place that I'd visited so much during my childhood, would still remain something of a home for us even though my grandparents are gone and I only have two aging family members left there to visit. The history that was born there still continues and Kennywood still charms for the girls. And my college friend with her daughter who is only a year older than Eliza still lives two hours west of Pittsburgh and will come in to see us. So the trip was good on so many levels.
Life with my little Lena Loo has been more challenging. She is a delightful, funny, spirited child but she requires more patience. Sometimes I wonder if I just don't have as much patience as I once did or if she really is a more difficult child but there are entire days that are a wash because Elena doesn't want to do something. If she doesn't want to go to the beach, she won't allow us (us being me and Eliza) to put on her swimsuit, if she wants dessert she will throw one hell of a tantrum. It's often just easier to stay home and plop her in front of the TV because I don't feel like fighting with her.
I read something a woman read yesterday, about how she rarely goes out with her two year old and baby alone because it's so hard and I won't lie, I read it beaming with pride because that's all I've done. I moved into an apartment on my own when Elena was only three months old and Eliza was 3 1/2. And we went out every day, we did stuff all the time. We even went to the beach a few times which I'll admit was pretty tough with a baby that young. I remember nights on the beach with Elena strapped in the bjorn while Eliza and I waded at the ocean's edge. We'd then sit on the sand and Eliza would splash in the shallow water while Elena pushed up from her stomach on the sand, her eyes blazing as she looked at the ocean.
When I first realized I would leave C, a few people said they didn't think I could do it, be on my own with two small children. It has been extremely difficult and yet not nearly as hard as people thought. But I did it and would do it again in a heart beat. Moving here has given my girls a life at the beach, a great life that we'll sorely miss when we leave here. We've had summers of small parades through town, kid races at the beach, dance recitals right down the street, Christmas tree lightings across the street and movies on the beach.
Now it's time to start a new adventure. I signed my lease for one more year here but my rent has gone way up since we first moved in. Working in New York and living here without my mom has just proven too difficult. I'm so glad we moved here, so my girls could have those three years with my mother that we wouldn't have had if we lived two hours away from her. I am so grateful for those three years, especially for year 2010 which was the one year my mother was the most healthy. I couldn't quite move away this year, so I'm giving myself one more year before I start to look way out in Queens for a new place to call home.
But for now, I've got two more weeks with these wonderful, amazing and somewhat challenging girls. Today we're going to a nearby waterpark for a day of fun. I'm broke since I've not worked in so long but at least there's work looming. And life is good and I'm so lucky to have this life with my little girls. There are moments when I just don't think I can do this again but at the end of the day, every night I am filled with so much gratitude and love for these two wonderful girls and my happy little family.
The days just stretched out in front of us and we have greatly enjoyed them. I signed Eliza up for multiple day camps and was able to be the one to take her to and from every one of them. I picked her up on the day she caught her first fish at marine science camp, I got to watch her at her music theater camp showcase, I got to watch her really bloom as a little dancer in her various week long dance camps.
We traveled only to Pittsburgh to visit Kennywood, the amusement park of my childhood, and place my mother's ashes in the grave of my grandparents. Because things don't often happen as planned, we didn't get to bury my mom during our trip but we did visit the grave and that seemed to comfort Eliza. Getting together with family in Pittsburgh and showing Eliza my grandparents' house and the park of my childhood made her very happy. The girls loved Kennywood and it was a sweet reunion with my college friend Sam and her daughter who we hadn't seen for two years.
And my mother's ashes, which had been misplaced during shipping, were finally recovered and resent to Pittsburgh. She will be buried this upcoming Wednesday. I won't be there to see it but my cousin and a friend of my mother's will be there. It only gets bigger, how much I miss my mom, but there is some comfort in laying her to rest with my grandparents. Eliza loved seeing what little family we have in Pittsburgh so we will return there, perhaps once a year or at least every other year. It was a good feeling, knowing the place that I'd visited so much during my childhood, would still remain something of a home for us even though my grandparents are gone and I only have two aging family members left there to visit. The history that was born there still continues and Kennywood still charms for the girls. And my college friend with her daughter who is only a year older than Eliza still lives two hours west of Pittsburgh and will come in to see us. So the trip was good on so many levels.
Life with my little Lena Loo has been more challenging. She is a delightful, funny, spirited child but she requires more patience. Sometimes I wonder if I just don't have as much patience as I once did or if she really is a more difficult child but there are entire days that are a wash because Elena doesn't want to do something. If she doesn't want to go to the beach, she won't allow us (us being me and Eliza) to put on her swimsuit, if she wants dessert she will throw one hell of a tantrum. It's often just easier to stay home and plop her in front of the TV because I don't feel like fighting with her.
I read something a woman read yesterday, about how she rarely goes out with her two year old and baby alone because it's so hard and I won't lie, I read it beaming with pride because that's all I've done. I moved into an apartment on my own when Elena was only three months old and Eliza was 3 1/2. And we went out every day, we did stuff all the time. We even went to the beach a few times which I'll admit was pretty tough with a baby that young. I remember nights on the beach with Elena strapped in the bjorn while Eliza and I waded at the ocean's edge. We'd then sit on the sand and Eliza would splash in the shallow water while Elena pushed up from her stomach on the sand, her eyes blazing as she looked at the ocean.
When I first realized I would leave C, a few people said they didn't think I could do it, be on my own with two small children. It has been extremely difficult and yet not nearly as hard as people thought. But I did it and would do it again in a heart beat. Moving here has given my girls a life at the beach, a great life that we'll sorely miss when we leave here. We've had summers of small parades through town, kid races at the beach, dance recitals right down the street, Christmas tree lightings across the street and movies on the beach.
Now it's time to start a new adventure. I signed my lease for one more year here but my rent has gone way up since we first moved in. Working in New York and living here without my mom has just proven too difficult. I'm so glad we moved here, so my girls could have those three years with my mother that we wouldn't have had if we lived two hours away from her. I am so grateful for those three years, especially for year 2010 which was the one year my mother was the most healthy. I couldn't quite move away this year, so I'm giving myself one more year before I start to look way out in Queens for a new place to call home.
But for now, I've got two more weeks with these wonderful, amazing and somewhat challenging girls. Today we're going to a nearby waterpark for a day of fun. I'm broke since I've not worked in so long but at least there's work looming. And life is good and I'm so lucky to have this life with my little girls. There are moments when I just don't think I can do this again but at the end of the day, every night I am filled with so much gratitude and love for these two wonderful girls and my happy little family.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Recital days
Here are some photos from Eliza's fourth dance recital and Elena's first. This was our first time having to attend all four recitals, with Eliza drawing the Friday night, Saturday day slot and Elena pulling the Saturday night/Sunday matinee slot. I still have to upload more of Elena's photos from that wonderful weekend but here's what I have so far. Eliza's recital experience was stressful with a lot of quick costume and tight changes. But even with all the stress, she still got up on stage and performed with a huge smile on her face. She has really grown up. After a near meltdown, referring to herself as a failure because she couldn't change her tights fast enough, Eliza went back onstage and performed flawlessly. Elena's was just more fun. Elena didn't do much during any of the rehearsals but some how on stage she actually felt compelled to do the little steps. I'm not going to say she actually knew her dances or did more than half the steps but sitting in the audience with Eliza at my side, watching Elena's little white tights with white tap shoes and big yellow ribbons go up in the air when she did her little kicks was absolutely thrilling. It was truly wonderful to experience that first recital with my precious Eliza there to see it too. She was so excited to see her sister not just stand there I can't describe how it felt to share that joy with her. I am so in love with these girls.
Keeping today forever
I was never one of those live in the moment kind of people. Did I say the wrong thing to some one today? Did I make a big mistake at work? Would I be able to pay the rent on time? The only time I lived in the moment was the first 2-3 years of college and my first year or maybe three of motherhood.
It was wonderful, so many afternoons passed lying in my bed with a tiny, sleeping baby across my chest. I read short stories, New Yorker articles, anything I could easily hold and finish in the time of her naps. I have so many fond memories of those early few months with the satellite radio in the background and me and my girl, just chilling together alone.
I also cherished my weekly Mom and me meeting and the subsequent playgroup that grew from that. Friends I'd had prebaby shuffled to the background as my newfound love of Eliza tied me to other new mothers like superglue. Did you see she sat up today? Can you hear she's singing a song? Her first word was star. I swear, she said a whole sentence but the only word I could clearly make out was star.
Last night, out of the blue, I decided to read some of the old posts here and I couldn't believe how many things I could not recall at all. I'd completely forgotten about Eliza and her pretend lemonade. How one time she's happily told her father that she and I spent the day "cuddling" and "kissing ourselves." In the blur and intensity of that great first love, that real first love that I had for my firstborn, I really thought I'd managed to retain it all but I didn't. Had I not written these little things down, I'd still be left with those afternoons against the backdrop of satellite radio, but I wouldn't have had so many other things.
I often feel my little Elena gets the short end of the stick. It's not that I love her less than Eliza, but it wasn't the first time so it's a little less intense, a little more mellow, a little less devoured. I have no desire to sit on the floor and play games with her. At the playground, I get kind of bored and don't really want to play lemonade stand. I often get very frustrated by the fact that I often must beg Elena to come down the steps so we can get Eliza to school or dance class or piano lessons on time.
She often chooses those moments when it's time to go to play cute little games, to hide back at the top of the stairs and pretend she can't find her sweater. Another cute little trick is that she'll lie on the floor and start to snore so I'll think she's asleep. She's even got a smile on her face while she makes her little snoring noises. It's so cute and yet I don't have time for it. All she wants is to get some recognition for how clever she's being and I just want to scream at her to get down the steps. Her life has passed by in such a ridiculous blur, without those long afternoons of short stories and satellite radio and dance parties.
It was nice to read how bored I got with Eliza's lemonade parties because I realize it wasn't so much the difference between kids but how I approach parenting. While Eliza's first few years were spent largely with people around me, many of whom were sharing this great ride of being a new Mama to one child, most of my time spent with Elena was in isolation. There were no playgroups or gymnastic classes or music classes in her first three years. The first three years of Elena's life have been spent as the shadow child, the one who gets dragged to all the fun stuff her sister does while she crawls around on the floor in the background. A fantastic napper, Elena spent much of our solo time sleeping while I worked or dealt with other things. The solo trips to museums and parks just didn't happen with Elena as they had with Eliza. Some of that is just how it goes with the second kid. And some of it was my own response to so much isolation. While I often had friends to share my time with Eliza, with Elena I've been very lonely. I wonder if this happens frequently with the second kid as well. You are isolated by the fact that you're simply busier now and many of those people who surrounded you with the first kid are now juggling two and maybe three and just don't have the kind of time you had.
Or is it that you lose yourself in that first one, almost like you're drowning, but with the second you start to surface. Friends you adored before children start to move back into the foreground. Work or hobbies you had before children start to find their way back into your daily life. I know going back to work full time when Elena was only two felt awful, but then when I was at work, it was almost like I'd woken up from a kind of isolated slumber. I was suddenly around adults again, having conversations that didn't segue into Elmo's theme song. Going to the theater to see a play was suddenly so much more wonderful then I remembered. Spending time with a friend over a beer eating french fries without kids tugging on my sleeve was the best thing in the world.
I wondered, had I fallen out of love with my kids? I realize now I was simply struggling to find some kind of place to be me again. A new me with a life outside my kids, but still loving my kids.
Sadly, I still spend way too much time with the kids alone. I so wish I had some one, anyone, to share this journey with me because a less lonely me is a better mama. But even in that isolation and the depression that's set in since the onset of my mom's illness, I still manage to make at least a few great moments of each day with the kids.
Yesterday, I played little red riding hood with Elena. She strolled through the apartment clutching a tiny toy school filled with more toys and found me lying in bed, depressed again. "Grandma," she said, throwing her arms around me. "I'm little red riding hood."
And I went with it. Pretended to eat the food she'd brought in her little toy school house. Her face lit up, like watching me mime eating plastic carrots had to be better than Disney World. I was only half with her, still drifting back to the newspaper article I'd been reading when she found me but my half assed effort still pleased her. She says adorable things a lot of the time. I'm going to list a few now, just so I "keep" them.
"I'm building a new mama out of legos because Eliza gets all the love."
"I'm lonely. Come sit with me." At the lunch table. She has lunch before she goes to school and I tend to eat later and spend the time that she's eating lunch packing up her stuff for school but she has not problem telling me to join her.
"Can I have a butsy sandwich?"
"Mama! I pooped on the potty! Oh, what's that toothbrush doing in there?" yes, in her haste to get to the potty, Elena had some how managed to dislodge my expensive electric toothbrush from it's stand and it fell into the toilet. Sorry if this is TMI but it was funny.
There's so many more things but suddenly I can't remember them. I've spent a lot of time whining about what I've lost and I realized that this blog was always about writing down what I had.
And what I have is a lovely little family. At the end of the day, I am so very grateful.
It was wonderful, so many afternoons passed lying in my bed with a tiny, sleeping baby across my chest. I read short stories, New Yorker articles, anything I could easily hold and finish in the time of her naps. I have so many fond memories of those early few months with the satellite radio in the background and me and my girl, just chilling together alone.
I also cherished my weekly Mom and me meeting and the subsequent playgroup that grew from that. Friends I'd had prebaby shuffled to the background as my newfound love of Eliza tied me to other new mothers like superglue. Did you see she sat up today? Can you hear she's singing a song? Her first word was star. I swear, she said a whole sentence but the only word I could clearly make out was star.
Last night, out of the blue, I decided to read some of the old posts here and I couldn't believe how many things I could not recall at all. I'd completely forgotten about Eliza and her pretend lemonade. How one time she's happily told her father that she and I spent the day "cuddling" and "kissing ourselves." In the blur and intensity of that great first love, that real first love that I had for my firstborn, I really thought I'd managed to retain it all but I didn't. Had I not written these little things down, I'd still be left with those afternoons against the backdrop of satellite radio, but I wouldn't have had so many other things.
I often feel my little Elena gets the short end of the stick. It's not that I love her less than Eliza, but it wasn't the first time so it's a little less intense, a little more mellow, a little less devoured. I have no desire to sit on the floor and play games with her. At the playground, I get kind of bored and don't really want to play lemonade stand. I often get very frustrated by the fact that I often must beg Elena to come down the steps so we can get Eliza to school or dance class or piano lessons on time.
She often chooses those moments when it's time to go to play cute little games, to hide back at the top of the stairs and pretend she can't find her sweater. Another cute little trick is that she'll lie on the floor and start to snore so I'll think she's asleep. She's even got a smile on her face while she makes her little snoring noises. It's so cute and yet I don't have time for it. All she wants is to get some recognition for how clever she's being and I just want to scream at her to get down the steps. Her life has passed by in such a ridiculous blur, without those long afternoons of short stories and satellite radio and dance parties.
It was nice to read how bored I got with Eliza's lemonade parties because I realize it wasn't so much the difference between kids but how I approach parenting. While Eliza's first few years were spent largely with people around me, many of whom were sharing this great ride of being a new Mama to one child, most of my time spent with Elena was in isolation. There were no playgroups or gymnastic classes or music classes in her first three years. The first three years of Elena's life have been spent as the shadow child, the one who gets dragged to all the fun stuff her sister does while she crawls around on the floor in the background. A fantastic napper, Elena spent much of our solo time sleeping while I worked or dealt with other things. The solo trips to museums and parks just didn't happen with Elena as they had with Eliza. Some of that is just how it goes with the second kid. And some of it was my own response to so much isolation. While I often had friends to share my time with Eliza, with Elena I've been very lonely. I wonder if this happens frequently with the second kid as well. You are isolated by the fact that you're simply busier now and many of those people who surrounded you with the first kid are now juggling two and maybe three and just don't have the kind of time you had.
Or is it that you lose yourself in that first one, almost like you're drowning, but with the second you start to surface. Friends you adored before children start to move back into the foreground. Work or hobbies you had before children start to find their way back into your daily life. I know going back to work full time when Elena was only two felt awful, but then when I was at work, it was almost like I'd woken up from a kind of isolated slumber. I was suddenly around adults again, having conversations that didn't segue into Elmo's theme song. Going to the theater to see a play was suddenly so much more wonderful then I remembered. Spending time with a friend over a beer eating french fries without kids tugging on my sleeve was the best thing in the world.
I wondered, had I fallen out of love with my kids? I realize now I was simply struggling to find some kind of place to be me again. A new me with a life outside my kids, but still loving my kids.
Sadly, I still spend way too much time with the kids alone. I so wish I had some one, anyone, to share this journey with me because a less lonely me is a better mama. But even in that isolation and the depression that's set in since the onset of my mom's illness, I still manage to make at least a few great moments of each day with the kids.
Yesterday, I played little red riding hood with Elena. She strolled through the apartment clutching a tiny toy school filled with more toys and found me lying in bed, depressed again. "Grandma," she said, throwing her arms around me. "I'm little red riding hood."
And I went with it. Pretended to eat the food she'd brought in her little toy school house. Her face lit up, like watching me mime eating plastic carrots had to be better than Disney World. I was only half with her, still drifting back to the newspaper article I'd been reading when she found me but my half assed effort still pleased her. She says adorable things a lot of the time. I'm going to list a few now, just so I "keep" them.
"I'm building a new mama out of legos because Eliza gets all the love."
"I'm lonely. Come sit with me." At the lunch table. She has lunch before she goes to school and I tend to eat later and spend the time that she's eating lunch packing up her stuff for school but she has not problem telling me to join her.
"Can I have a butsy sandwich?"
"Mama! I pooped on the potty! Oh, what's that toothbrush doing in there?" yes, in her haste to get to the potty, Elena had some how managed to dislodge my expensive electric toothbrush from it's stand and it fell into the toilet. Sorry if this is TMI but it was funny.
There's so many more things but suddenly I can't remember them. I've spent a lot of time whining about what I've lost and I realized that this blog was always about writing down what I had.
And what I have is a lovely little family. At the end of the day, I am so very grateful.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Triplets
Yesterday morning was a glorious beach day. I went with my darling Elena before school, before it got too hot. I think my back got a tiny bit burned as this happens when you're a single mom, on the beach with an adorable four year old.
It was a busy day because both girls had tech rehearsal for the recital tonight. I ended up showering Elena at the beach, dropping her off at school, having lunch and then picking Elena up early for rehearsal. With no time to shower or change myself, I spent the day in my blue bathing suit with a dress overtop of it.
When rehearsal for both girls finally ended around 5:30, I peeled off my sweaty dress to cook dinner in my swimsuit. Eliza, still dressed in her light blue leotard, leaped around the house, excited for her recital the following night. I pointed to her leotard and then to my swimsuit and said, "Twins."
"Huh?" Eliza looked at me confused.
"We're twins." I pointed again to her blue leotard and to my swimsuit. My swimsuit is more of a bright turquoise and her leotard is more of a powder baby blue but here we both were, going about our business at home in our blue one pieces. In my world, that makes us twins.
Eliza grinned broadly. "Twins, I get it!" And we grabbed each other's hands.
Suddenly Elena barreled, grabbing at each of our hands.
"What about me?" she growled. "Not twins," she said, busting up our hands and demanding a circle. "Triplets."
I didn't even know that she was aware of that concept but there she was, my little one, demanding to be part of the pack. It's so fitting. There we were, the three of us, in our own little circle.
Triplets.
It was a busy day because both girls had tech rehearsal for the recital tonight. I ended up showering Elena at the beach, dropping her off at school, having lunch and then picking Elena up early for rehearsal. With no time to shower or change myself, I spent the day in my blue bathing suit with a dress overtop of it.
When rehearsal for both girls finally ended around 5:30, I peeled off my sweaty dress to cook dinner in my swimsuit. Eliza, still dressed in her light blue leotard, leaped around the house, excited for her recital the following night. I pointed to her leotard and then to my swimsuit and said, "Twins."
"Huh?" Eliza looked at me confused.
"We're twins." I pointed again to her blue leotard and to my swimsuit. My swimsuit is more of a bright turquoise and her leotard is more of a powder baby blue but here we both were, going about our business at home in our blue one pieces. In my world, that makes us twins.
Eliza grinned broadly. "Twins, I get it!" And we grabbed each other's hands.
Suddenly Elena barreled, grabbing at each of our hands.
"What about me?" she growled. "Not twins," she said, busting up our hands and demanding a circle. "Triplets."
I didn't even know that she was aware of that concept but there she was, my little one, demanding to be part of the pack. It's so fitting. There we were, the three of us, in our own little circle.
Triplets.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Trying
It's been a while. I don't really have much to say. Girls are great, most of the time. They fight a lot, sometimes to the point of driving me crazy. I don't have a lot of patience for the fighting. The loneliness of life without my mom and without work is often overwhelming.
Smash was officially axed on May 10th. We all guessed when we finished shooting in mid-March that we would not be back but it was still somewhat crushing to know we're really finished. That crew, in its entirety, will never be together again. From the director of photography to the second assistant camera to the first assistant director to the editors I will never work with a group I like as much as them again. I might work with some of them again but to have all of us, the entire band back together, it's not going to happen. Since Smash was not a success, the idea of a musical TV series is probably dead as well. So I'll probably never get to work that closely with a Broadway choreographer and composer again and let me tell you, it sucks.
I wish the job hadn't come at one of the hardest times in my life but then again, I'm grateful that it came when it did. Smash kept me going and when it ended I went to bed and really didn't want to get out of it. I spent my first weekend at home, lying in bed, hoping for the strength to get out. I took care of my girls and found joy in being with them but it was very difficult to get up each morning knowing that my mom was gone and my adult time was over.
I've gotten more into my routine at home with the girls and I've really enjoyed so many great times with them since Smash wrapped. But I'm sad in ways that aren't easily conveyed and a hypochondriac, not so much for myself but for everyone around me. Eliza had a headache yesterday and I was ready to rush to the emergency room. I saw my brother on Sunday and he was visibly uncomfortable due to stomach issues. Watching him grimace and suffer cramps made me wonder if I was destined to watch another loved one suffer the way I watched my mom.
When my grandmother's brother died, she said, "I don't have any family left." I assured Grams he had me, my cousins, her niece Patty, her husband. Now I completely understand what she meant. In a little over a year, I lost so many of the core people for my family that all that's left is my brother. I have my kids, I have my dad but my real family, the people I grew up loving and being shaped by, they're gone.
Today, I tried to take a nap while the girls were in school. I set my alarm to wake up at pickup time. But I couldn't sleep. Instead I lay there, trying to tell myself what my life was. I validated my life so much by telling myself how important I was to my mother. She wouldn't want to live without me. Without her, my life is a lot less valuable. Unemployed, unable to write much, what exactly is my life these days?
The kids need me and I'm good at taking care of them. So I lay in bed and told myself that this is my life now, to raise the girls, to be there for them, to do everything I can to shape them into fine, well-adjusted, hard working adults. Since I've been done with work, Eliza has started piano lessons and I've started to work with her more to improve her dancing and singing. I have tried to spend more fun time with Elena in the mornings before she goes to school, visiting the park, cuddling on the couch or reading books. This is important work and I'm happy to do it but it's so very lonely. My kids need me, they love me and caring for them refuels me but it doesn't buoy me the way my mother's voice did. A huge part of me is missing and probably always will be.
Smash was officially axed on May 10th. We all guessed when we finished shooting in mid-March that we would not be back but it was still somewhat crushing to know we're really finished. That crew, in its entirety, will never be together again. From the director of photography to the second assistant camera to the first assistant director to the editors I will never work with a group I like as much as them again. I might work with some of them again but to have all of us, the entire band back together, it's not going to happen. Since Smash was not a success, the idea of a musical TV series is probably dead as well. So I'll probably never get to work that closely with a Broadway choreographer and composer again and let me tell you, it sucks.
I wish the job hadn't come at one of the hardest times in my life but then again, I'm grateful that it came when it did. Smash kept me going and when it ended I went to bed and really didn't want to get out of it. I spent my first weekend at home, lying in bed, hoping for the strength to get out. I took care of my girls and found joy in being with them but it was very difficult to get up each morning knowing that my mom was gone and my adult time was over.
I've gotten more into my routine at home with the girls and I've really enjoyed so many great times with them since Smash wrapped. But I'm sad in ways that aren't easily conveyed and a hypochondriac, not so much for myself but for everyone around me. Eliza had a headache yesterday and I was ready to rush to the emergency room. I saw my brother on Sunday and he was visibly uncomfortable due to stomach issues. Watching him grimace and suffer cramps made me wonder if I was destined to watch another loved one suffer the way I watched my mom.
When my grandmother's brother died, she said, "I don't have any family left." I assured Grams he had me, my cousins, her niece Patty, her husband. Now I completely understand what she meant. In a little over a year, I lost so many of the core people for my family that all that's left is my brother. I have my kids, I have my dad but my real family, the people I grew up loving and being shaped by, they're gone.
Today, I tried to take a nap while the girls were in school. I set my alarm to wake up at pickup time. But I couldn't sleep. Instead I lay there, trying to tell myself what my life was. I validated my life so much by telling myself how important I was to my mother. She wouldn't want to live without me. Without her, my life is a lot less valuable. Unemployed, unable to write much, what exactly is my life these days?
The kids need me and I'm good at taking care of them. So I lay in bed and told myself that this is my life now, to raise the girls, to be there for them, to do everything I can to shape them into fine, well-adjusted, hard working adults. Since I've been done with work, Eliza has started piano lessons and I've started to work with her more to improve her dancing and singing. I have tried to spend more fun time with Elena in the mornings before she goes to school, visiting the park, cuddling on the couch or reading books. This is important work and I'm happy to do it but it's so very lonely. My kids need me, they love me and caring for them refuels me but it doesn't buoy me the way my mother's voice did. A huge part of me is missing and probably always will be.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Despair
I'm okay, as they say, hanging in there. But I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. Trying to keep it all together and get everything that needs to get done is becoming too difficult for me. And trust me, I've cut myself a lot of slack. I don't care if my home is vacuumed or if every table surface is free of tiny piles of paper. I clean the bathroom as minimally as I can.
Being a working single mother is frying me. An actor I worked with on "Fringe" was raised by a single mother. She visited set when I was pregnant with Elena and I asked her what it was like being a single mother. Her children were both adults at the time and she said she was still recovering from her time as a single mom, that's how hard it was. I knew my relationship with C had headed south long ago, I knew what I probably faced. Believe me when I say I did everything, everything to avoid life as a single mother.
And still, here I am, not sure how I'm going to limp to the finish line on "Smash." And when "Smash" ends, how will I handle being home full-time? Completely isolated from my co-workers who've kept me going, who make me laugh, who make me feel like a person instead of just a mother. One one hand, I will finally be able to relax with the kids and fall into a comfortable routine. The mess that is my mother's estate can maybe begin to be sorted out.
But who's gonna take care of me? How will I face life now, completely alone?
Being a working single mother is frying me. An actor I worked with on "Fringe" was raised by a single mother. She visited set when I was pregnant with Elena and I asked her what it was like being a single mother. Her children were both adults at the time and she said she was still recovering from her time as a single mom, that's how hard it was. I knew my relationship with C had headed south long ago, I knew what I probably faced. Believe me when I say I did everything, everything to avoid life as a single mother.
And still, here I am, not sure how I'm going to limp to the finish line on "Smash." And when "Smash" ends, how will I handle being home full-time? Completely isolated from my co-workers who've kept me going, who make me laugh, who make me feel like a person instead of just a mother. One one hand, I will finally be able to relax with the kids and fall into a comfortable routine. The mess that is my mother's estate can maybe begin to be sorted out.
But who's gonna take care of me? How will I face life now, completely alone?
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Maybe Mama Reads This Blog
I can try to write this as I would write to my Mom but the thing is, my mother didn't read this blog when she was alive, she's certainly not going to read it now. My mother always said close friends should not discuss religion or politics because "I'm not going to change your mind and you're not going to change mine." I believe this to be true. When it comes to faith, to Heaven, we believe what we believe and while some one else's mind might be malleable, mine is not right now.
I would love to believe in an afterlife, in a place where my mother can see me and watch over us, enjoying our day to day lives. But in the words of a close friend, what kind of Heaven would that be, a place where we could see our loved ones and never be able to be with them? I'd never thought of it that way but I agree with this philosophy. My mother would be tortured to watch us and incapable of touching us. If she was so miserable in her last days on that hospital bed because she suddenly lacked the power to speak to me, she wouldn't be happy to watch her beloved granddaughter cry and ask for her and not be able to answer her back.
Maybe there's a place where all the pain my mother felt is gone and she's happily in a new body, running and skipping and enjoying a sudden ability to do deep knee bends. She could skitter across a flowery meadows drenched with sunlight beside her beloved Uncle Joe, her brother, her parents who she loved so much. She can't see us, no, but she'd be with people she loved so earnestly and desperately that she's happy. I want to believe this for her, I wish I completely believed this for her but I don't. I don't know where she is, if she's anywhere or if she's just left the world and all that remains of her are the ashes in a little box I keep under my bed until I make the trek to Pittsburgh to bury her ashes in the grave with my grandparents.
My friend Paula lost her mom suddenly when a passing truck mowed down her mother's car as she backed out of her driveway. A religious person, Paula waited for telltale signs that her mother watched her from "somewhere" and could still communicate with her. As time passed and nothing happened, Paula increasingly became angered by what she refers to as an "absolute silence." There was no communication, no coincidental signs that indicated her mother was still "with her." Her ability to be with her mom ended the day her mother died and there's been no connection since.
Paula wrote a spectacular essay about her mother's death entitled "Absolute Silence." It is hands down the best writing I've ever read on grief, and that includes the much praised book by Joan Didion. Right now, I'm right there with Paula, feeling nothing but sadness and an almost crushing hopelessness by my own absolute silence.
I certainly don't want to offend anyone who believes in Heaven or say "I'm right and you're not." That's not what this is about at all. I won't say I wish more than anything that I did believe in heaven because what I wish for more than anything is my mother, here with me. But I can't describe how much I would love to believe in a Heaven, in a world where my mother lives without pain, happily looking out for me and protecting me from unseen terrible forces. In her last days, as she was so visibly saddened by the realization that she was in fact leaving us, I tried to comfort her by saying, maybe there really was a Heaven and she'd get to be with the people she'd lost and missed so very much.
And maybe, I told her, since my mother always wanted to right any wrong she saw in my brother's and my own life, maybe she'd be able to do more for us in Heaven. Maybe from there she'd have an ability to really protect me and Billy in a way she couldn't from here on Earth. She always felt that her brother, shortly after he died, "told" her to get the mammogram that would detect her cancer while it was still stage one.
I want to believe all this, I really do. I want to feel that now her arms are around me, gripping me in a hug that will never fade. But thinking about this makes me cry. I now feel her weak right arm around me for the last hug she gave me, on my birthday. I sat on her hospital bed and lay my head against her chest and she managed to get that arm around me, an ability I didn't think she had anymore. The day before, they told me she would not open her eyes again but not only did she do that, there she was, putting her arm around me, hugging me. She couldn't really speak but I could feel it, running all the way through me, her love for me.
I can't feel it now. Some one said to me shortly before she died that love was stronger than death and that the love would always be there even if she didn't survive this. On my birthday, with her arm around me, with her eyes on me, I felt that love vibrate down my limbs like a pulse.
I don't feel it now and I want to, I want to so much.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
another boxed up Xmas
I'm too exhausted to write much. I ended up getting very sick with the flu or bronchitis or something that's made me pretty weak over much of the holidays. I managed to stumble through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day without canceling plans but a few days later had to beg their father to come get the girls because I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed. We did have as good a holiday as we could, considering I'm pretty depressed about my mother's death. My father stepped up to the plate and my brother seemed to have a very happy Christmas. Although I'm glad he was absolutely giddy with happiness, it would have been nice to see him at least ask about my mother.
It's all too much to talk about and after I spent the day saying goodbye to the Christmas season with our annual Three Kings Day celebration, I'm so spent after putting away all the Christmas decorations, I've no energy to write. My health has improved but I'm much weaker than I'm used to feeling. Some one told me that's normal, a person's immune system takes a big hit when they lose some one they're very close to. I spent a day or two in bed while the girls had fun at their dad's, wondering if I would live and if it even mattered. Without my mother, I felt like if something happened to me, it wouldn't really matter much to anyone. It's sad but true. Sure I have the girls and I have some good friends but let's face it, I'm pretty expendable to everyone but my kids and my mother.
It's a sobering reality but one I won't focus on too much. I just hope to continue to improve. I wonder if I'll ever feel like I used to healthwise or if this is my new normal. Tomorrow's my last day at home before I return to work. It was good to be home for two weeks.
I sure do miss my mom.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Girl talk
So I was having a pity party the other day and I told the girls how now that my mother is gone, no one loves me but them. This is not entirely true but it's close. Though there are plenty of friends and extended family who love me from afar, they are not day to day like my mother. My mother was my best friend and almost like my partner in life. I could call her most nights before bed and we would laugh and cheer each other up after a tough day or share each other's happiness on a good day.
"No one loves mama but you guys," I said as Eliza hugged me tightly.
"But Mama," Elena said, spoon in hand. We were in the middle of our dinner of leftover ziti and embellished lipton soup. "You're the greatest."
I laughed. Elena says many things to me, not all of them kind. She can also be a very tough children, she screams, hits and often shoves me pretty hard when she's not getting her own way. A lot of the time, when I don't give her what she wants or I correct an inappropriate behavior, she says "I don't like Mama anymore. I don't want Mama." Eliza often gets offended when Elena says such things, jumping to my defense. I mediate by telling Eliza that her sister is only three, she doesn't know half of what she's saying.
So considering the source, I'm not exactly walking around patting myself on the back and feeling like I'm the greatest. It was a nice moment, a cute moment, worth recording here. It did the trick of making me feel loved. But the loneliness is starting to expand.
Thanksgiving weekend was a tough weekend. I spent some of it dealing with the business aspect of losing my mom. I met with the realtor who, if I use her, plans to list the house a full $50,000 less than what's owed to the bank. My mother lived in her house for 20 years and was a bit of a pack rat so poking around there, figuring out how to clear it out is horrifying. I can get a dumpster, have a sale, host a cleaning out mom's house party but still the clean up can take months.
And then there's her mail, the ominous stack of bills with no funds to back them up. I addressed one letter after another notifying bill collectors of her death. This process took about two hours. All but two bills were medically related, some from collection agencies for amounts as low as $40. I felt an overwhelming sadness as I went through these bills realizing this had been her life for so many years, a struggle to pay out money that few people would have to every lab, doctor's office, medical facility and collection agency. Even a wealthy person would find themselves financially challenged and this was my mother's life, sending money she didn't have for "supply fees", "lab copay."
And she still met my phone calls with enthusiasm, happy to listen to me whine or giggle over my latest escapade.
My poor mama, how she deserved so much better. I miss her and I ache for her now. I should have been there for her more, should have helped her write those bills, just been at her side, letting her know she wasn't in this alone.
"No one loves mama but you guys," I said as Eliza hugged me tightly.
"But Mama," Elena said, spoon in hand. We were in the middle of our dinner of leftover ziti and embellished lipton soup. "You're the greatest."
I laughed. Elena says many things to me, not all of them kind. She can also be a very tough children, she screams, hits and often shoves me pretty hard when she's not getting her own way. A lot of the time, when I don't give her what she wants or I correct an inappropriate behavior, she says "I don't like Mama anymore. I don't want Mama." Eliza often gets offended when Elena says such things, jumping to my defense. I mediate by telling Eliza that her sister is only three, she doesn't know half of what she's saying.
So considering the source, I'm not exactly walking around patting myself on the back and feeling like I'm the greatest. It was a nice moment, a cute moment, worth recording here. It did the trick of making me feel loved. But the loneliness is starting to expand.
Thanksgiving weekend was a tough weekend. I spent some of it dealing with the business aspect of losing my mom. I met with the realtor who, if I use her, plans to list the house a full $50,000 less than what's owed to the bank. My mother lived in her house for 20 years and was a bit of a pack rat so poking around there, figuring out how to clear it out is horrifying. I can get a dumpster, have a sale, host a cleaning out mom's house party but still the clean up can take months.
And then there's her mail, the ominous stack of bills with no funds to back them up. I addressed one letter after another notifying bill collectors of her death. This process took about two hours. All but two bills were medically related, some from collection agencies for amounts as low as $40. I felt an overwhelming sadness as I went through these bills realizing this had been her life for so many years, a struggle to pay out money that few people would have to every lab, doctor's office, medical facility and collection agency. Even a wealthy person would find themselves financially challenged and this was my mother's life, sending money she didn't have for "supply fees", "lab copay."
And she still met my phone calls with enthusiasm, happy to listen to me whine or giggle over my latest escapade.
My poor mama, how she deserved so much better. I miss her and I ache for her now. I should have been there for her more, should have helped her write those bills, just been at her side, letting her know she wasn't in this alone.
Friday, November 16, 2012
The Orphan
From the children's book, "The Orphan: A Cinderella Story from Greece."
My mother lost her long fight for her life around 2:30a Wednesday, November 14. I was with her, timing a Smash script when she left me. I sat on the floor about two feet away from her bed, my back to her, acting out the end of Act IV. As I whispered the last of Ivy Lynn's lines, I suddenly realized that the horrific gurgle of her breath had silenced. I looked at her, saw her chest rise and then spread out and stop, and rushed out of the room shouting "She's quiet!" Three nurses marched in, brandishing stethoscopes. One picked up her right arm which was pressed against the edge of the bed and rested in gently on her stomach. I slid down against the wall and sat on the floor.
"I'm sorry for your loss," the first nurse out of the room said. I stayed on the floor, refusing their offer of a chair, not wanting to be far from my mom as I waited for the undertaker type to arrive an hour later. I didn't watch as he went into the room but the sound of a long zipper rising will never leave me.
I am not young and I still have a father but I feel like an orphan. There are no words. Eliza's birthday is next week so this weekend is filled with activities to celebrate her birthday. She knows of my mother's death but is quietly mourning in her own way. I don't know that the reality of forever is quite as accessible to her yet. Frankly, I don't know that I realize it now. I am going through the motions. Sometimes when I'm giggle with my girls, I see Mom's face as she gasped on that hospital bed and I feel terrible that life continues, often joyously, for us when hers has stopped. I will never stop feeling her weak arm around me for the last hug I will ever get from my mother. It's like she willed herself to make it to my birthday and then let go. After that, it was relatively quick.
In mid-October, the facility called to say she might code that night and what should they do about a DNR. The nurse called to ask if she should bother to send my mother to the hospital or just let it go. While I knew she had a terminal illness, I didn't know what was wrong with her and it was hard for me to believe that this was it. So I told her she absolutely did not have my permission to just let my mother stay there without getting checked out. It turned out she had a UTI which in the elderly or the very sick can render the sufferer delusional. I met her at the hospital and watched as she screamed repeatedly that she had to move her bowels. Two nurses pushed her onto a bedpan as she raised her arms touchdown style and grimaced but nothing happened. I saw her naked that night, clawing at the hospital gown and the bedsheets. My mother would not want me to see her naked but there I stood, staring at her mutilated body, the flat right breast from her mastectomy with it's useless nipple recreated by a plastic surgeon. The long train tracks of a scar that ran down her abdomen from either her colon resection or the whipple. Her wide fishbelly white butt as she writhed on the hospital bed. the bruises that ran down her left arm from everyone trying to unsuccessfully extract blood from her collapsing veins. I looked at this body, realizing it had no business being alive.
I stood over her, not knowing it was a UTI, thinking that this was it, she was leaving me. I patted her hair, touching the misshapen scar caused by a craniaotomy that removed a benign brain tumor six weeks before Elena was born.
"I see you," she said, not to me.
"Do you, mom? Do you see Pap Pap?" My beloved grandfather.
"No," she said, looking at me for the very first time. "I don't see him. I don't see Pap Pap. I don't want to die," she said and I understood.
"I don't want to die. I don't want to die."
I nodded.
"I don't want you to die." I said.
But you're gonna, I thought, staring at the scars, all that damage so immediately apparent.
She didn't die, not that week. It was a UTI and within hours of starting an antibiotic, she was greeting nurses and visitors with the words "I hear I was delirious. Sounds interesting."
We were separated by the storm and three days passed without my being able to check in on her because the phones and the power was out. So when I found her and I heard she was all right, that she was actually sitting up in a chair again, I became so hopeful. The storm had passed and we were okay and I would be home and she would be with me again.
But she wasn't. She was so very sick when we finally saw her on November 4th. But she held it together until November 7. She hugged me, she told me she loved me. She went under the next day, babbling and gyrating with discomfort for two days and then comatose for the next four. She didn't babble about seeing anyone who'd passed, it sounded more like she was somewhere else, reliving her youth. There was no talk of white lights or some one else in the room. Only of the steps she had to go down and the "practice" she had to do.
I think of her that night in the ER and all those battle scars. How much that body had been through just so she could stay with us. Before she went into the hospital never to return, she could barely get up from her chair but yet she hid how badly she felt so I'd let my kids stay with her when I went back to work for two weeks in the summer. My babysitter tells me now how my mother told her not to tell me that she had pain. I don't know if she didn't want me to worry or if she was afraid I'd take the kids away. What I do know is how little she told me about what she was going through. How little she wanted me know.
Her sad, weak, almost useless naked body with all those scars. I stood beside her that night, not able to hold her hand because she squirmed from one side of the bed to the other. I stared down at the jagged lines on her navel and I felt nothing but a hot, fierce, surging pride. I don't know that I will ever be prouder of anyone, not even my own kids, ever.
This was my mom at the end of her life but there's so much more to her, so much more. I don't know that I even love my kids as much as I love her.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Sandy Battered
So Sandy drove us from our home by the beach. I'm happy to say our apartment was unharmed and life is slowly returning to normal for us after being displaced for ten days. It was quite a ride and the landscape has changed in ways I couldn't have foreseen. Though we came through it all unscathed, I still feel like I've got some kind of post traumatic stress going on and we were hardly experienced the storm itself. It's the stories of others, the photos of so many places I loved, the shock of seeing the Mantoloking Bridge, a bridge that connected me to my Mom's house under water. Seeing that roadway severed is like cutting an artery off between me and her.
I was prepared to ride out the storm with the girls alone. This plan started to fall flat when I realized my next door neighbor was vacating and leaving us on our own. On Sunday, C came down and gently urged us to come to his place in Manhattan. I thought it weird for all of us to be staying under one roof, especially now that he's got a hot young girlfriend but he said it wouldn't be weird and I'm happy to say it wasn't. We drove back to his place on Sunday and functioned pretty well, even surviving the power outage Monday night with fun stories, candlelight and an early bedtime.
Tuesday saw things a little tenser. The power still hadn't returned and C was getting antsy. Brooklyn had power and I retain a small room there. C's brother lives there and he decided to go there. They only problem was getting there with no subways running and cabs a hotter commodity than they've ever been. We did eventually get a cab to take us to Williamsburg where my friends Melissa and Tim waited with open arms. C got a ride to his brothers and the girls and I embarked on our Brooklyn adventure with plenty of fine meals and fun and Melissa's.
The lack of power in Manhattan tunnel closings prevented us from returning to our area until the following weekend. The facility my mother is in lost phone service and I went out of my mind through the week wondering how she was. A friend was finally able to stop by on Thursday and gave me an emergency number. A nurse happily told me she was actually sitting up in a chair and had done fairly well that day. She'd not been in great shape over the weekend so I felt thrillingly hopeful to hear she'd been sitting up in a chair.
We came home to find our place in good shape but plenty of streets a mess. We took a long walk through town and along the beach to survey the damage. The boardwalk had been completely ripped from the foundation like it had never existed. Huge pieces of the boardwalk were everywhere. Memorial benches were stacked up in various places in varying states of ruin. I planned to get a memorial bench for my Mom for this boardwalk. Now this doesn't seem like such a good idea.
After decided that our home, while undamaged, was too cold to stay in with no electricity and heat, I packed the girls up again to head to my father's. On the way to his place, we stopped by to see my Mom. The Steeler game was on the TV but my mother was gyrating and grimacing in pain. Elena had one meltdown after another, eventually pooping in her pants. I'd not seen my mother for a week and in this moment, I was very frustrated with my kids for not allowing me some time with Mom. Finally, I stuck them in the hallway and the nurses chimed in with lollipops and paper and colored markers. I sat and held mom's hand but there wasn't much I could do. She was obviously in pain and couldn't even feign much interest when I told her about all the damage; about the friend currently staying in her house because she got flooded from her home, about the decimation of Sea Bright and Mantoloking, about the roller coaster in Seaside that was now lying in the Ocean.
She asked me to bring her a newspaper when I came back. I nodded and said I would. I did bring that paper a few days later but by this point, she was too out of it to even look at it.
My mother was in pain that night but she was still my mother. The following day, after a restless night on an air mattress at my father's, I signed her over to in-hospice care. The day after that the nurse told me Mom would not open her eyes again but the nurse was wrong. That night she opened her eyes and she nodded and communicated some what with us.
The following day was my birthday. I couldn't spend as much time with her as I wanted because of an incoming snow storm but it may have been the last day I spent with my mother as my mother. She couldn't really talk much but we could communicate with nods and gestures. I climbed onto the bed with her and she hugged me with her one good arm. Her left arm just drooped there, suddenly useless for reasons unknown.
A foot of snow kept me at my father's the following day longer than I wanted but we eventually made it out and came home to find that after ten days we had electricity. My babysitter met us at our place and I dropped Eliza off at dance (her first foray into her old life in close to two weeks as school was cancelled) and I rushed off to see Mom. Mom muttered and gyrated a lot, seemingly frustrated with her body's limitations. I couldn't understand most of what she said. She kept rambling about her salvation. This is not a word she used much in her life. I finally had to head home, to get some groceries for my family and settle in to my first night in my bed in close to two weeks.
Friday, my mom was awake and alert but not my mom. She kept muttering about her mom, her sister, how she had to get up and do her practice. She had to do the dishes and go down the steps. I thought she might be back in the house she grew up in with my grandparents but I really can't be sure. She was visibly uncomfortable and seemed frustrated by the fact that I couldn't help her. I didn't think she knew who I was but at one point, she asked that her diaper be changed and said she didn't want "lisa in the room." So she did know me and tears came to my eyes.
I came home that evening, made dinner for my kids and then headed back. Mom was still agitated so they gave her more drugs. The drugs seemed to work and she conked out. But Saturday, the day they finally restored power to the area around her facilty, Mom's eyes didn't open. She moved around a bit, grumbling like she was trying to wake up but nothing happened. My Aunt Carm, my mother's sister, finally came after months of not bothering and threw a fit because she didn't know how bad it was. I felt like telling her pancreatic cancer is a horrible thing and she missed opportunities to see Mom left and right but there's no point in trying to deal with Mom's crazy sister. She came, she saw, she ran out in tears I'm sure never to return again. I can't even feel sorry for her because I'm way too busy feeling sorry for myself.
Tonight I sat there holding my Mom's hand, listening to her grunt. I tried to drip water into her mouth but she closed her mouth tightly. I talk to her and I think she hears me but honestly, it doesn't matter. It doesn't seem to be comforting to her. Sometimes touching her, rubbing her head or holding her hand seems to soothe her but often it seems to just agitate her.
The girls finally go back to school tomorrow. A guy I work with shot himself yesterday and the memorial is up in North Jersey on Tuesday. I'm supposed to return to work on Thursday but I just don't know how that's going to happen. My girls keep me going but at the same time, I feel myself unraveling. The train that connected my home to New York sustained serious damage so there's another artery that's been cut.
I look at that picture of that roller coaster in the Atlantic and I think, that's me. I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here and yet here I am, just bobbing above the surface, waiting for some one or something to take me to wear I belong.
I was prepared to ride out the storm with the girls alone. This plan started to fall flat when I realized my next door neighbor was vacating and leaving us on our own. On Sunday, C came down and gently urged us to come to his place in Manhattan. I thought it weird for all of us to be staying under one roof, especially now that he's got a hot young girlfriend but he said it wouldn't be weird and I'm happy to say it wasn't. We drove back to his place on Sunday and functioned pretty well, even surviving the power outage Monday night with fun stories, candlelight and an early bedtime.
Tuesday saw things a little tenser. The power still hadn't returned and C was getting antsy. Brooklyn had power and I retain a small room there. C's brother lives there and he decided to go there. They only problem was getting there with no subways running and cabs a hotter commodity than they've ever been. We did eventually get a cab to take us to Williamsburg where my friends Melissa and Tim waited with open arms. C got a ride to his brothers and the girls and I embarked on our Brooklyn adventure with plenty of fine meals and fun and Melissa's.
The lack of power in Manhattan tunnel closings prevented us from returning to our area until the following weekend. The facility my mother is in lost phone service and I went out of my mind through the week wondering how she was. A friend was finally able to stop by on Thursday and gave me an emergency number. A nurse happily told me she was actually sitting up in a chair and had done fairly well that day. She'd not been in great shape over the weekend so I felt thrillingly hopeful to hear she'd been sitting up in a chair.
We came home to find our place in good shape but plenty of streets a mess. We took a long walk through town and along the beach to survey the damage. The boardwalk had been completely ripped from the foundation like it had never existed. Huge pieces of the boardwalk were everywhere. Memorial benches were stacked up in various places in varying states of ruin. I planned to get a memorial bench for my Mom for this boardwalk. Now this doesn't seem like such a good idea.
After decided that our home, while undamaged, was too cold to stay in with no electricity and heat, I packed the girls up again to head to my father's. On the way to his place, we stopped by to see my Mom. The Steeler game was on the TV but my mother was gyrating and grimacing in pain. Elena had one meltdown after another, eventually pooping in her pants. I'd not seen my mother for a week and in this moment, I was very frustrated with my kids for not allowing me some time with Mom. Finally, I stuck them in the hallway and the nurses chimed in with lollipops and paper and colored markers. I sat and held mom's hand but there wasn't much I could do. She was obviously in pain and couldn't even feign much interest when I told her about all the damage; about the friend currently staying in her house because she got flooded from her home, about the decimation of Sea Bright and Mantoloking, about the roller coaster in Seaside that was now lying in the Ocean.
She asked me to bring her a newspaper when I came back. I nodded and said I would. I did bring that paper a few days later but by this point, she was too out of it to even look at it.
My mother was in pain that night but she was still my mother. The following day, after a restless night on an air mattress at my father's, I signed her over to in-hospice care. The day after that the nurse told me Mom would not open her eyes again but the nurse was wrong. That night she opened her eyes and she nodded and communicated some what with us.
The following day was my birthday. I couldn't spend as much time with her as I wanted because of an incoming snow storm but it may have been the last day I spent with my mother as my mother. She couldn't really talk much but we could communicate with nods and gestures. I climbed onto the bed with her and she hugged me with her one good arm. Her left arm just drooped there, suddenly useless for reasons unknown.
A foot of snow kept me at my father's the following day longer than I wanted but we eventually made it out and came home to find that after ten days we had electricity. My babysitter met us at our place and I dropped Eliza off at dance (her first foray into her old life in close to two weeks as school was cancelled) and I rushed off to see Mom. Mom muttered and gyrated a lot, seemingly frustrated with her body's limitations. I couldn't understand most of what she said. She kept rambling about her salvation. This is not a word she used much in her life. I finally had to head home, to get some groceries for my family and settle in to my first night in my bed in close to two weeks.
Friday, my mom was awake and alert but not my mom. She kept muttering about her mom, her sister, how she had to get up and do her practice. She had to do the dishes and go down the steps. I thought she might be back in the house she grew up in with my grandparents but I really can't be sure. She was visibly uncomfortable and seemed frustrated by the fact that I couldn't help her. I didn't think she knew who I was but at one point, she asked that her diaper be changed and said she didn't want "lisa in the room." So she did know me and tears came to my eyes.
I came home that evening, made dinner for my kids and then headed back. Mom was still agitated so they gave her more drugs. The drugs seemed to work and she conked out. But Saturday, the day they finally restored power to the area around her facilty, Mom's eyes didn't open. She moved around a bit, grumbling like she was trying to wake up but nothing happened. My Aunt Carm, my mother's sister, finally came after months of not bothering and threw a fit because she didn't know how bad it was. I felt like telling her pancreatic cancer is a horrible thing and she missed opportunities to see Mom left and right but there's no point in trying to deal with Mom's crazy sister. She came, she saw, she ran out in tears I'm sure never to return again. I can't even feel sorry for her because I'm way too busy feeling sorry for myself.
Tonight I sat there holding my Mom's hand, listening to her grunt. I tried to drip water into her mouth but she closed her mouth tightly. I talk to her and I think she hears me but honestly, it doesn't matter. It doesn't seem to be comforting to her. Sometimes touching her, rubbing her head or holding her hand seems to soothe her but often it seems to just agitate her.
The girls finally go back to school tomorrow. A guy I work with shot himself yesterday and the memorial is up in North Jersey on Tuesday. I'm supposed to return to work on Thursday but I just don't know how that's going to happen. My girls keep me going but at the same time, I feel myself unraveling. The train that connected my home to New York sustained serious damage so there's another artery that's been cut.
I look at that picture of that roller coaster in the Atlantic and I think, that's me. I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here and yet here I am, just bobbing above the surface, waiting for some one or something to take me to wear I belong.
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