EveryCookieCrumbles

I was in 8^th grade when I first thought about suicide. At that time that’s all it was, just a thought. A wondering of what it would be like if I was no longer alive. There was no substance behind it, no thoughts of acting on it. I didn’t say anything out loud, kept all of my thoughts to myself. Went on with my day to day but somewhere in the back of my mind it was still there.

Nothing catastrophic happened to me to make me think about it. I was in junior high and I think this is when I first started to feel lost. In elementary school I had my core group of friends and I knew most of the other students in my grade. A lot of us were in the same class for years. But when junior high came that’s when you get separated more by your intelligence. And so, I was in a lower class then most of my closest friends. And for the most part I was ok with that. I made new friends but it wasn’t the same. Things had changed and nobody told me they would.

I was starting high school soon and that scared the shit out of me. Really terrified me. I knew I was different from most people, especially the girls. I was nothing like them. Didn’t give a shit about makeup or even having a boyfriend yet. The problem with that is, if you’re not like everyone else then who are you? I didn’t have an answer to that when it seemed like everyone else did. I had no idea who I was, and what I did know about myself, I didn’t like. I thought for sure I wasn’t going to make it past my freshman year. I had no desire to be there, no desire to make new friends. I had no ambition. I didn’t think anyone would want to be friends with me so why bother trying?

But life is funny sometimes and you meet the people you’re supposed to meet and some change your life for the better. At the time I don’t think I realized this because I was constantly in my head. And every so often I would think about leaving this world. If I’m being honest, I faked my way through high school. I faked a lot of laughs; I faked the smiles and I faked being ok. I wasn’t ok. I hated myself. I couldn’t stand who I was. I was a fantastic bullshitter, a liar, pretending that everything in my life was perfect. I showed people only what they wanted to see, which was never really my true self. Probably only two people in high school knew the real me and thankfully they are both still in my life today. I made up things about myself so that I would seem normal to everyone else. And I know that everyone does this at some point in their life, especially high school. You just want to fit in and not seem like such an outsider. But it made me hate who I was even more. And then it made me wonder who my friends really cared about, the parts of me I made up or the real parts I let them peek at?

Back then I’m sure no one would think that I ever had suicidal thoughts. Even now, as people read this, I’m sure some of them will be shocked. And I completely understand that. Growing up I had a good life. I had parents who loved me, a sister who was always there for me, a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food on the table. I had a huge family filled with people who loved me. If you saw all that I had you would think I was crazy to want to give that up and leave it all behind. But it was never about other people. It was about my demons and the thoughts that filled my head. I think that when someone is thinking about suicide it has very little to do with anyone else and has everything to do with the battle they are fighting within themselves. Did I have people who loved me? Absolutely. Did I believe that they did? No. And that has nothing to do with anything they did or said but has everything to do with me and the toxic thoughts that were in my head. My demons. The darkness that I crawled into all of the time. And the thing about darkness is that no one ever really sees you.

I was my own worst enemy. No one had to say negative things to me, I said them to myself. I convinced myself that I was worthless, that I was nothing and that no one would care if I was gone. Being alone with your thoughts is a scary thing. And when these thoughts are on a constant loop in your brain, they are ingrained into you until you get to the point where you believe nothing else but what the voices in your head are telling you. And when you hear the same things over and over, when they drive you crazy, when you can’t make them stop, you just want to silence them. And killing yourself feels like the only answer, the only way you will find peace. I battled with this for years and no one really knew. And if someone did find out we’d talk about it, and I’d bullshit my way out of the conversation just to make it stop. And I would pretend I was ok, and maybe at times I was, but I was just finding better ways to hide myself. I was surrounded by people but felt so lonely.

The darkness can suck you in. It takes you to a place you don’t think you’ll ever be able to get out of. It consumes your every thought. No matter what good things are going on around you, you can’t see them. You know that they’re there but you can’t let go of the pain enough to enjoy them. You hurt all the time. Physically, mentally and emotionally and you don’t know why. I can’t sit here and give a reason for why I was this way, why I battled with it for years. I don’t know. Am I wired differently? Maybe. Did I not see anything in myself that I liked? Anything that was worth living for? Probably. But I still can’t give a definitive answer as to why I thought these things. It’s just who I was back then. I was lost. Inside the darkness, inside myself, inside my toxic thoughts.

I battled these thoughts, and myself, for 5 or 6 years. It wasn’t a constant thing. I’d have periods in my life when I thought I was better, when I was over these thoughts, and then something would happen to trigger them again. The reality was that I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to live this life either. And so where did that leave me? I can see myself in my room one day sitting on the floor. There’s a piece of glass in my hand, but for the life of me I don’t know why there would be glass, so maybe it was a small mirror. Whatever it was I took it and scraped it across my wrist, obviously not deep. I guess I just wanted to do the motion of it, I honestly have no idea what I was thinking. But I gave myself a scratch that bled slightly and when I saw the small dots of blood, I freaked out inside. I knew I didn’t do anything harmful but I still freaked out. That’s how I knew I didn’t want to die, but I still didn’t know how to stop the thoughts. I couldn’t shut that part of my brain off.

So, what turned it all around for me? What got me to stop thinking this way? My best friend. She saved me. It’s that simple. That is a day I will never forget. My parents were away and she slept over, which she  hardly ever did, but she did on that night because she was really worried about me. I was probably in the worst mind space I had ever been in and she was afraid of what I might do. So, she sat me down to talk to me but instead she just cried. Really cried. Deep sobs, ugly tears. I had never seen her cry like that before. And in that moment, I realized how much I was hurting her and I felt like the worst person in the world. I hadn’t realized what I was putting her through by being the way I was, but seeing her cry like that made it all hit me in the face. We talked but I couldn’t tell you what was said, until she was about to leave.

We were on my front porch and she said, ‘I don’t know what to do for you anymore. You have to want to live for yourself. But I know you can’t think like that right now. So, live for me. Promise me you won’t leave me here. Promise me you won’t do anything to yourself’. Promise me, those were the words she said. Anyone that knows me well knows that I don’t break my promises. Ever. I don’t throw the word promise around lightly. I don’t say it unless I absolutely, 1,000% mean it and know I can keep that promise. She knew what she was doing. She knew that if I made that promise then she could breathe again and know that I wouldn’t leave her. I didn’t respond right away. There was silence between us while my emotions fought with each other. After what felt like forever, I whispered, ‘I promise’. No other person, in no other moment, could have gotten me to say that. But she did, and I am beyond thankful for her every day of my life.

It wasn’t over just like that, but that was the last day I ever thought about suicide. It was also the day the fight within myself began. I had to fight my thoughts, fight my demons, fight the parts of me that still wanted to give up. I had to become a different person, which was fine with me because I hated who I was, I didn’t want that girl in my life anymore. And it wasn’t easy, but I don’t think it was supposed to be. I had to find my way out of the darkness. And it was scary, and it made me angry and sad and everything else. But I found my way. I found the light. I was lucky.

I try not to think about that time of my life too much. That girl I once was left over 25 years ago and she’s never coming back. But sometimes there are triggers in life that put you back in that place. I don’t go there in anger or to relive anything. But I do go back sometimes to see how far I have come. I had no intention of writing about this but yesterday I read about a college softball player who took her own life. I’ve seen her on tv, I watched her play. And when I heard the news I cried, just like I always do whenever I hear about someone who killed themselves. I remember last year reading about a female college lacrosse player and about a young boy who did it because he was bullied. I read an article that said 3 college athletes have committed suicide in the past 30 days. It makes me sad for so many reasons.

So, I cry for every one of them. I cry for their family; I cry for their friends. I cry for the pain I know they were in. I cry because they couldn’t see their story ending any other way. I truly believe that you can’t understand what someone is going through unless you’ve been there yourself. As a society it’s very easy for people to look down on others instead of trying to understand. It’s said they took the easy way out, they gave up, they should have gone on meds, they should have fought harder or talked more or asked for help. It’s easy to stand on the outside and say these things. But when you’re on the inside, when you live in a constant state of pain and depression, it’s not an easy thing to escape. It’s very easy to get lost within that darkness and convince yourself that the only way out is to end your life. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. The world needs to do better, to have more compassion and understanding. Check on the people in your life. Even the ones who act like everything is great. We are all battling something.

I try not to question how or why I made it to the other side of it all. I only try my best to be grateful that I did. I look at my life now and see all of the things I would have missed. All of the friends I wouldn’t have made, all of the memories I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t know how it feels to have a man love me the way my husband loves me. I would have missed out on knowing my niece and nephew, who are two of the brightest lights in my life. I wouldn’t know what it’s like to have the bond I do with my niece, I wouldn’t know the genius of a boy my nephew is, I would have missed all of the laughter I get to share with the two of them. If I wasn’t here today, I wouldn’t be a mom. My daughter wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t know her kindness, her sadness, her laughter or her smile. If I was not here, she wouldn’t be here, and that is the saddest thought to me because she is the best little girl in the world, who brings so much kindness and love to everyone she meets, which is what the world needs right now.

I wish everyone had a crystal ball. And when the despair got to be too much and we felt like giving in, we could look into that crystal ball and see just a tiny glimpse of the good we could have in the future. If everyone could just see something, one good thing, then maybe they could hold on a little longer and not give in to their pain. I didn’t see it for many years, but somewhere deep inside I had faith that it was there. My life is not perfect, I am not perfect. I still have days of sadness, depression, anger and anxiety. I don’t think that will ever go away completely, I’m not sure it’s supposed to, these things make us human. I am not completely where or who I want to be, but I know I’m so far from where and who I once was, and I will never go back there. And right now, that’s enough.

I am not the best mother in the world and I don’t pretend to be. Most days I fall very short of being a great mother. I don’t say this to get sympathy or for people to tell me that I’m wrong. I say this because it’s a fact, a fact I can admit easily. At best, I’m a good mother and some days that’s even a stretch. But every day, good or bad, I do the best that I can. I might be a better wife than I am a mother but even that’s debatable. I have my faults and there are times I wonder how my husband deals with me but nobody is perfect and we choose the people we choose, for better or for worse. Again, I do the best that I can every day, which is all I can do. I’d like to think I’m a good daughter, a good sister (not as good as my own), a good niece, cousin and aunt. But what I can absolutely say I thrive at is being a friend. Now, I’m not trying to brag, or inflate my own ego, or act like I’m the greatest, but being a good friend is the one thing I can be proud of, it’s the one thing I know I’m really good at. The problem with that is, I give so much more than I get from some people.

This is purely a venting post; I’m not going to try to hide that. I’ve felt certain ways for a long time and these things tend to resurface every now and then. Many times, I have thought about writing it down and putting it out there but I always stopped myself. Mainly because I didn’t want to say certain things or piss people off by what I did say. But I think I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t give a shit anymore. If someone reads this and thinks it’s about them then they’re probably right. My theory has always been this. If I write the statement ‘people are assholes’ and someone thinks I’m writing about them that’s probably because they did something to me or someone else that makes them look like an asshole. That’s their own guilt eating at them for something they did or said, and that’s not on me. My statement is vague, it doesn’t call any one person out, but if the shoe fits, then wear it. Same thing goes for this post. I’m not talking about one person in my life, sadly a few people come to mind. Now, I think I know who reads my blog and who doesn’t. And the people that do will know that this isn’t about them. It’s for the people that don’t read my posts. Ironic and funny? Probably, but not in a rolling on the floor laughing kind of way. Proves a point? Absolutely.

I think some of these feelings have been bubbling in me for a long time and over the past few weeks they started boiling. And the other day I just exploded and started venting to my husband after getting another text that pissed me off. So, I got all crazy in the car and he just listened as he drove, saying the appropriate things to calm me down. But he knew that I was upset. I feel bad that he’s the one who always gets this side of me, but that’s what he signed up for 25 years ago. I feel that maybe if I channel my inner Elsa and let it go on paper it will help to shed some of this weight I carry around.

What pissed me off about the text was that someone was asking me something about a subject I know we had a conversation about recently. I am so sure about this conversation that I can sit here right now and recite it word for word, but I won’t. Now, could this person have forgotten what I said? Maybe. But instead of admitting that they blatantly said I never told them anything and that’s bullshit. Maybe they just didn’t hear me. Maybe when I talk, I feel that the other person isn’t listening. Whether I’m on the phone, or in person, whenever I start talking the other person somehow gets distracted. And it’s obvious because I just get a lot of ‘uh-huh’ responses or I catch them glancing at their phone. I’m sorry, am I fucking boring you? Are the words that I say less important than the shit that comes out of your mouth? Must be, because that’s the vibe that some people give off.

I sit there and listen to whoever I’m talking to, I really listen. I give advice when it’s needed, I give my opinion when asked, I’m really invested in what they are saying. But 80% of the time I don’t get the same respect back. Why the fuck not? Do people really think that their life is more important than mine? That their problems are worse than any that I might have? Oh wait, I forgot, I don’t have any problems. I have a husband, a daughter and a house; my life is perfect. There’s no way I could ever be depressed. There’s no reason for me to have anxiety or to not be 100% happy with my life. How dare I even think that? I have nothing to complain about and even if I did, it would be pretty ballsy of me to do so when I have so much. That’s their thinking. So, most of the time they don’t even ask about me because they assume there’s nothing to tell. And I admit that part of that is on me. I don’t open up easily, I don’t want to bother anyone with my issues. But to just assume that I don’t have any, to assume that I’m ok all of the time isn’t fair either.

I’m always the one to check up on everyone. I’m the one texting to see how someone is doing, especially if I realize that I haven’t heard from them in a while. If I randomly think of someone, I take that as a sign to check in with that person and see how they’re doing. A simple text, takes maybe a minute of my time, but sometimes means a lot to the other person. But why is it always up to me to be the better person? Why does no one feel the need to check on me? And I know how whiny that sounds and I’m not sitting here feeling ‘woe is me’, it’s actually sickening to even think that, but sometimes, just sometimes, I want to feel like I matter to people. I want to know that someone is thinking of me for a change. But it goes back to what I previously said, no one thinks I need that. No one thinks that matters to me. Relationships, any relationship, needs two people in order for it to work. And when you’re the one putting in 80% and hardly even getting the other 20% back it gets draining.

I remember everyone‘s birthday, even their kid’s birthdays, and I send texts to all on their special day. I don’t always get it back and it’s understandable if someone forgets mine. But when it’s people who have been in your life for 10, 20 or more years, and they genuinely don’t remember what day it is, then that’s a little hurtful. Especially when there are people who I’ve known for less time who remember every year. If you tell me you’re having surgery, or your parent is sick, or I find out your kid hasn’t been in school I’m definitely checking in to make sure everyone and everything is ok. Do I not deserve the same respect and consideration? Maybe I don’t, who the fuck knows anymore? When my Grandmother died a friend of mine and my sister’s texted us both on the day of the burial just to say she was thinking of us and sending us love. I have known this woman for less than 4 years. I didn’t get that love from people who are supposed to be the closest to me. I think that’s fucked up.

I know that I’m not like other people, I don’t try to be. I can only be me and I know not everyone is the same. Maybe I expect too much from others. Maybe it’s just not in their DNA to be the kind of person to me that I am to them. Maybe that’s just something I have to accept. And I try to be different, try to back off a little, take less shit from people. But then the minute I do they get pissed off. Why am I always the one who has to initiate a get together? After a certain number of tries I start to feel like a needy bitch and I hate that feeling. Why am I always expected to be available when someone needs me, or they want me to come to a party they’re having? How is it right for someone to not call/text/check in for months and then out of the blue they ask you to come for a visit and expect you to go running? And that shit is mostly from family. You don’t care how me, my husband or my daughter are doing for months but then decide you want to see us? It’s finally convenient for us to be a part of your life? Fuck no! That’s one thing I am done with. We are not here for your convenience, especially not my daughter. I have been treated like shit by many people but I will not allow the same thing to happen to my daughter. No fucking way!

I’m so tired of people telling me that they miss me, always saying that we really need to get together, but never making the plans, never taking the steps to do what they say. Without action, words are just words. Stop telling me these things and actually do something about it. Show me you miss me. Maybe I just have to accept that some people say the things they think you want to hear. Some people talk with no intention. Some people mean more to me than I mean to them. Sad, but true. I have an aunt, one of many, who I’m very close to, my sister is too. This aunt loves us and our children to no end. During Covid she would send us texts and tell us the number of days that passed since we saw each other. She would tell us how sad she was. When we finally got to see her after so many months apart, she started to cry as she got closer to our houses. She cried when she saw us and our kids. Now, we don’t let a lot of time go by between visits. As she’s walking out the door from one visit, we are planning the next. She always texts us to see how we’re doing. When my sister and her family were sick, she offered to drive an hour to put food on their doorstep. She is there for us whenever we need her for whatever we need. We know how much she loves us and our kids because, more than anything, she shows us all the time. And I am eternally grateful for her. Other people should really take a lesson from her.

I’m turning 46 soon and I think I’ve gotten to the point where I am emotionally exhausted. Keeping everything in for the sake of everyone else tires my soul. So many times I feel like I’m being taken for granted because people know that I will be there for them no matter what. So, they can toss me aside for a little while and come back to me when they need me again. And I’m aware that I let certain things happen, that it’s my fault. That I should say no more often, I shouldn’t be so available. Growing up my mother would always tell me that I gravitated to the people who needed me the most. And I gave them my all, but in the end, I was always the one who got hurt. This has happened in my life more than once. Old habits die hard, I guess.

After listening to my rant my husband told me I had two choices. I can stop letting these things bother me so much. I can learn not to care and just take things for what they are, see people for who they are and accept it all. I’m not sure I know how to do that completely. I have at least gotten better with some things. And there are things that I don’t tolerate anymore. But to stop caring completely is something I don’t think I can do. His other option was for me to stop being so available to everyone. For me to stop giving more than I get. In essence, he’s saying I should stop being me, so I should change who I am. My response was ‘why should I lower who I am for everyone else? Why can’t people just be better?’. And again, I realize that’s asking for too much.

I refuse to change this part of me, it might be the only part of me that I actually like. I like that I care about people, that I love deeply and fiercely. That the people that are closest to me know that I am there for them for whatever they need and I will always do whatever I can to help them. I want them to know that if everyone else in their life turns their back on them, I will still be here. That, if nothing else, they have at least one person who cares about them and loves them. I am not fake, anyone who knows me knows exactly what they get with me. If I don’t like you, believe me, you’ll know it. And if I love you, you will never question that. There are many things I would like to change about myself but this isn’t one of them. So, I guess my option is to not let it bother me as much, or at least to not let it consume me. I have to lower the expectations I have for some people. I have to accept that this is just how some people are and I can’t change them, they have to do that themselves.

Writing all of this has helped, it always does. I have released these little demons that have lived in my mind and heart for too long. They’re out there in the universe and I don’t regret anything I said here. Hopefully I’ll start feeling lighter. If anyone gets mad at anything I wrote, sorry but I really don’t care. Deal with your own shit and figure out which part really got you mad. I can probably guarantee it’s not me. Can I really get over certain things? Can I really let some of this shit go? It’s easy for me to say yes, I definitely can, but only time will tell if it really happens. I’ll just have to wait and see.

I’m not really into Thanksgiving, probably haven’t been since I was a kid and even then, I don’t think it mattered too much. Thanksgiving is all about the meal and honestly, I’m not really a fan of the turkey. Give me the sides and pies and I’ll be fine. But those are things that I can have any time. Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks, that’s the point of it, but why should I feel any more thankful on a Thursday in November than I do on any other given day? It never made sense to me. Shouldn’t we be thankful every day of our lives for all that we have? That’s like saying your spouse or significant other should love you more on Valentine’s Day than any other day of the year. I call bullshit. I have never believed in that crap and I never will. I don’t need my husband showing me extra love on that day because he feels like he has to, because the world says he should. I want him to show me he loves me every day because he wants to. Most holidays don’t matter too much to me, I could take them or leave them. If we didn’t celebrate Easter or Halloween, I would be okay with that. But when it comes to Christmas, I’m all in.

There’s just something about Christmas. Yes, it can be stressful and hectic and crazy but there has never been a time when I didn’t want to celebrate this holiday. Not even in years past when circumstances could have easily crushed my spirit. My best friend’s mom passed away in early December 2010. Her health started to decline around Thanksgiving and everyone knew it was only a matter of time. I was there the day she died, and for two weeks after I stayed with my best friend to make sure she was okay. I was with her every minute of every day for those two weeks. I hardly saw my husband who was very understanding of the situation and knew where I needed to be. Not many men would be okay with their wife not being home all that time, no matter the reason. And he probably wasn’t totally okay with the situation but he respected my feelings and was supportive and I will always love him for that. It wasn’t easy for either of us to be away from each other. I would go home for a little while some days to make sure he had everything he needed for the week and to spend some time with him but it wasn’t always enough, and I didn’t realize that right away.

Until the middle of December snuck up on me and we were scrambling to get a tree and decorate the apartment so that it at least looked like Christmas, even though it didn’t feel like it because of everything we had been through in the previous weeks. I remember my husband saying that since it was so late, we shouldn’t even bother with a tree or decorations. I saw the defeat in his eyes and it got me so upset. I felt like I failed him in some way, like I pushed him to the side and forgot about us and our traditions and all the things we did together to get ready for Christmas. My tears weren’t just for the tree or lack of decorations, they were for us and the fact that I felt like I let us down. I remember saying we had to have a tree, we had to decorate and do our Christmas the way we always did. After all of the sadness we had been through we needed something good to look forward to. After talking about it and crying about it we got our tree that year, and we decorated and made that Christmas as special as we could. I can’t remember what we got each other that year, no idea what was under the tree, but I can say that Christmas was special in its own way.

In 2012 our living situation got turned upside down for reasons I don’t need to get into now. We were living in a basement apartment, much smaller than what we were used to. We had our bed, kitchen table and a futon as a sofa. Our living room furniture was in New Jersey at my parent’s house along with many of our possessions that we had to put into boxes and store at my parent’s and my sister’s houses. Life was a mess that year to say the least. But when December came around, I was determined to still have our Christmas the way we always did, or as much as we could with the space we had. There was no debate about a tree that year, we were definitely getting one, even if it had to be a Charlie Brown tree. After all we had been through that year, no one was going to take our Christmas away. We didn’t have the space for our decorations and I honestly can’t remember if we put anything else up besides a tree. It wasn’t the size we normally got and we probably didn’t put all of our ornaments up but it was there and it was beautiful and it made me happier than I had been in months. And we had our usual Christmas morning, we opened gifts and I think both of us could feel deep inside that this was the start of something better for us, and that alone made it a great Christmas.

When Christmas came in 2013 our life had once again been turned upside down, but this time it was in a good way. I got pregnant in the beginning of the year and our daughter was due in October but she decided to come two months early and be born in August. At that time, we were still in the basement trying to figure out our next move before she was born. That didn’t happen as planned so when she finally got out of the hospital, we packed up our stuff and moved to New Jersey to live with my parents. We had no idea what Christmas was going to look like and, it being our daughter’s 1^st, we wanted it to be special. I will always be thankful to my parents for opening their home to us, for turning their lives upside down to give us a place to live for the first year of our daughter’s life until we found a home of our own. And I will always be extra thankful for what they did for us that Christmas. My mother decorated the house with all of her stuff but instead of putting up their tree, they let us get our own and put our ornaments on it. I can still remember holding my daughter and having her little hand touch an ornament as she helped me put it on a branch. I know it’s just a tree, but they will never know how much it meant to me and my husband. It made us feel like it really was our Christmas instead of making us feel like a part of theirs. They gave us our own time on Christmas morning to open gifts with our daughter, to be a family, and a gift like that is priceless. That Christmas will probably forever be my favorite.

This past Christmas was all kinds of crazy. My sister and her whole family were sick which meant we couldn’t be together on Christmas Eve. This was the first time in my 45 years of life that I wouldn’t be with my family. To say it was hard is an understatement. We prayed and crossed all of our fingers and toes hoping that they would be better in time but it wasn’t meant to be. We were all angry at the situation and extremely disappointed. Tears were shed but we all knew that their health was more important and we would just celebrate on a different day when we could all be together. I made my fried shrimp on Christmas Eve, even made extra and brought it to my sister’s house, just so we all had a little piece of our Christmas Eve. But it wasn’t the same, how could it be? I made the best of it with my husband and my daughter and Christmas Day was just the three of us and it was actually very nice. We had quality family time together and it was great. We were all able to get together on New Year’s Eve and we celebrated Christmas and New Year’s together with everyone safe and healthy and that’s all that matters.

What makes Christmas so special? Is it the fact that the season lasts a whole month so the Christmas spirit is with us a long time? Is it buying special gifts for the ones we love? Is it the food we have once a year at this time? Is it the cookies and the baking we do together? I think it’s all of these things and so much more. But for me, the most important part of Christmas is the people you spend it with. It’s the laughter you share, the memories you make and the love that you feel being surrounded by those that matter most to you. And as I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately here’s what I’ve come to realize. The feeling I have on Christmas Eve with my family, the feeling I have on Christmas morning with my husband and daughter are the same feelings I have with them all of the time. When we are together, we are always laughing, there’s no drama or stress. Every time we are together, we are making a new memory. We choose to be together so much because of the love we feel when we are in each other’s presence. That’s how life is meant to be. Each new day with my husband and daughter is a blessing. Each new day with my family is a gift. And following this thinking it becomes clear to me; it’s always Christmas when you’re with the right people.

“Who are we after we’re gone?……We’re our children. Our grandchildren. Our great-grandchildren. We’re all the people who will go on to live, because we lived. We are our wisdom, our intellect, our beauty, filtered through generations, continuing to spill into the world and make a difference.”

I read this in a book recently and I thought of you. Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Some days that’s good, other days not so much. And I don’t say that in a mean way. It’s just that some days I think of you and smile, remembering some good time we shared. And other days I cry, missing you so much it physically hurts. But when I read this, I thought of you in a good way.

We had a family wedding back in June and it was the first time most of us had seen each other in over a year, which is not normal for our family. So, when we saw each other there were tears of joy at finally being reunited. And over the course of the evening, I found myself looking, really looking, at my family. More so my aunts, your daughters, then my uncles. And everywhere I looked I saw you. In their smiles, in their mannerisms, in the shapes of their hands or the lines on their faces. In the way they spoke, in the way they laughed, even in the way they cried. You were everywhere. And it was proof that you are all around us, you are a part of every one of us. In your 11 children, in your 30+ grandchildren and your 20+ great-grandchildren. We are you. And as I realized this it brought me great comfort.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t think I would need or want to write to you again. I thought the last time I did I said all I needed to say, and some things I didn’t know I needed to say. But life is funny that way. Things happen, memories creep up on you, and you just want to call that person but you can’t. So, I write about it because if I don’t, it never leaves my mind. I wanted to write to you back in March but I kept putting it off and maybe that’s a good thing because now I had more to say then I did then.

Your anniversary was in March and I have to admit that I forgot. Weeks before I knew it was coming, probably even days before I remembered, but on that day, I just forgot, until I saw someone else mention it on social media, and then I felt so bad. I don’t want you to think I would ever forget you or an important day of yours. Back in March my mind was very scattered, as it has been for a while. Someone could have told me it was July and I might have believed them. Skylar was finally back to in person school and I felt a little lost. Like I couldn’t get a grip on things. One day turned into three and I felt like I was walking around in a fog. And March 3^rd came and I didn’t think twice. I didn’t even look at the calendar that day otherwise I would have been reminded. But I didn’t, and I wasn’t and I’m not looking to make excuses and to most people this wouldn’t even be a big deal, but I’m not most people and it has bothered me. So, I’m sorry, Gram. You probably don’t need to hear that but I need to say it.

A few weeks after your anniversary Pat’s aunt passed away. She was buried at the same cemetery you are in and whenever we go to the cemetery, we make our rounds. Sad to say but Pat has lost a lot of family in his life and they are all buried in Long Island so when we make the trip, we go to two cemeteries and visit ten graves. It’s draining when we do it, both physically and emotionally. And I know our family doesn’t really believe in cemetery visits but his does and so I’ve gotten used to it. So, we made stops by Grandma Cookie, Aunt Mary and then came to you and Grandpa. At first, I couldn’t find you. I had to search for a good 5-10 minutes, getting frustrated and angry at myself. Turns out we were just parked by the wrong tree and you were further away then we thought. Or maybe my mind was just giving me extra time because right before I found your spot, I realized your name would now be there, it wasn’t there the last time I had visited. And it hit me like a fierce punch to the gut.

Seeing your name on the headstone made everything so much more real. Not that I’ve been living in a fantasy world where you’re still here but to actually see your name there was a new level of reality. So of course, I cried because I needed to. And I flashed back to the day of your burial and how numb I felt through the whole ceremony. I remember walking away in a daze, tears clouding my vision, and Tiffer hugging me saying it was ok and that you were with Grandpa now. But that didn’t help because I wanted to be selfish and have you still here with us. I never told anyone this but as we drove away after everything, I looked in my rearview mirror and your coffin was just there, by itself, nothing or no one around it and I started to freak out in the car. I didn’t want to just leave you there; it didn’t feel right. It was the worst feeling in the world to think you were all alone and we just left you there by yourself. Pat had to calm me down and remind me that this is what always happens, we leave, and that you were ok and after a while I relaxed and came back to reality. But I still remember that day, still remember that horrible feeling inside of me. I can still see your coffin there and it’s still the saddest thing in the world.

The last time I wrote to you I told you all of the things I wish I had done with you or said to you. And while all of that is still true, I’ve come to realize that my biggest regret is not talking to you about being a mother. Yes, we talked about the little things like potty training, which was a nightmare for me. Your advice for that was always, ‘give it time, no one ever started school in diapers’, and you were right. Skylar did it in her own time, on her own terms. But I wish we would have talked about the bigger things, the important things. Gram, I swear I struggle so much sometimes. I feel like I’m failing at the one job I’ve been given. And I only have one child. I can’t imagine how you did it all and got through it all with eleven. I could say things were easier back then but that’s bullshit. Things for you were just as hard as they are now, just in a different way. My problems are no bigger than any you might have had. How did you get through it all? Did you ever struggle with anything? Did you ever doubt yourself? I think with eleven kids you didn’t have the time to dwell on nonsense. You didn’t have the time to worry about the little things when you had so many other things to do. Were you ever stressed, anxious or depressed? Just because they didn’t label things back then doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. There are so many times I wish I had your wisdom on things. If I knew then what I know now I would have talked to you so much more. I would’ve had the deep conversations that I long for now. I would’ve gotten the best advice from the greatest mom I know. And I know that would have made me better than what I am right now.

I can hear all of the stories in the world from your children, but I’d probably get eleven different versions of the same one. I wish I could hear them from you. I hope you had a great life, Gram. I hope you felt, deep in your soul, how loved you were by everyone, not just family, but everyone who ever knew you. I hope you know that you were an amazing wife to Grandpa, an amazing mother to all of your children, and the absolute best grandma and great-grandma to all of us. I hope you had your dreams come true. I hope your life was everything you wanted it to be and so much more than you ever thought possible. I hope you are happy wherever you are right now. So long for now, Gram. Love ya, babe!

There was a cardinal in our backyard yesterday and my daughter asked me who I thought it was that was coming to visit us because she knows that we believe cardinals represent our loved ones who have passed away. I told her I thought it was Kari because yesterday was the anniversary of the day he died six years ago. We saw one again this morning and she said that Kari was back and I told her that today it was probably Pop, my grandfather, her great-grandfather. When she asked why it would be him, I told her that today is his anniversary of the day he died six years ago. My daughter is very smart for her age and in the silence that followed I knew what she was thinking. She said, ‘Pop died the day after Kari?’. I could only nod as I saw a little sadness on her face. I could only nod because I didn’t want to start crying myself. I felt off yesterday but it wasn’t my anxiety and there was nothing wrong that I could blame it on. I was just blah. And as much as I tried not to think about my little cousin or my Grandfather, my heart just felt heavy, just felt sad. And it continues today. And on Sunday I’ll be missing my Grandmother and wishing I could call her for Mother’s Day. This week in May is a tough one for my family. But we get through it and look for better days.

I wonder who came up with the whole cardinal thing. Did it come from some ancient myth a thousand years ago? Or did someone realize that you don’t see cardinals every day so they decided to make them a symbol for our loved ones? I’ve heard the same thing said about butterflies. I don’t think it matters where it came from. I think those of us left behind after we lose a loved one need something to cling to, something to believe in, some kind of sign to make us feel better, to let us know they are ok, even for a moment. We want to believe that our loved ones are visiting us in some way. It brings us peace. When we see them in our dreams, we need to believe that they came to visit us for a reason. When we find a penny randomly in our house, we want to believe that they left it for us. If my husband finds a dollar on the street, he always says it’s from his Dad, and it doesn’t matter whether or not it is, it’s just what he believes and it makes him feel good. If I hear a certain song that reminds me of someone, I think it’s their way of saying hello, because out of thousands of songs that could be playing, it’s a particular one out of the blue. I especially believe this when the day has meaning, like their birthday or anniversary. It makes me think of them which makes me happy.

When we lose a loved one, we just feel empty. We need something to fill that void. Seeing a cardinal is one of my favorite things and it has become something my daughter looks forward to, she looks for them all of the time. And when we’re lucky enough to see two together she always says they are her great-grandparents. And for those few moments we watch them fly around, chasing each other and we think about Gigi and Pop up in heaven, having fun together. And it makes missing them not hurt as much.

Six years ago, my daughter wasn’t even two yet so we didn’t have to explain death to her. Now that she’s older, and unfortunately, she has experienced loss more than once, she knows about death, or as much as she can understand. As parents we walk a fine line between saying too much and not saying enough. We want to explain things enough so that our kids understand, but not so much that they obsess over everything. We just never know if we are doing it right. And as our children get older the questions multiply and get more intense. And sometimes I just don’t know what to say out of fear of saying the wrong thing.

My daughter questions everything, she always has. I always ask, ‘why do you ask so many questions?’, and her answer is simple, ‘because I’m a kid and I want to know things’. And I can’t argue with that. Kids are curious and the only way they are going to learn about things is if someone tells them. I just wish they didn’t have to know about things so young. Her big question about death has always been ‘why?’. Why do people have to die? And I wish I had a better answer then ‘it’s just the way life is’, because that answer sucks, even for me. But it is the reality we have to live with every day. It just happens. And when we lose someone, she’ll always ask how they died. I remember one time when she asked, I just said that they were sick and she got such a scared look on her face as she said, ‘did they have a cold like I did that one time?’, and that led me to explain about cancer which I wish she didn’t have to learn about so young. When I was her age, I didn’t need to know about death because I didn’t lose anyone close to me until I was 14, and I could understand things better at that age. But my daughter has had to learn so much and deal with so much at such an earlier age. She’s been to more funerals in her seven years of life than I did in my first twenty years of life and it just sucks. There’s nothing else to say about it, it just fucking sucks.

And I’m sure there are times that she worries. She asked once if me and her Dad are going to die and we told her the truth, that everyone dies, but hopefully it won’t happen for many, many, many years. But the truth is that nobody knows, no one can predict that sort of thing, but I don’t think she needs to know that right now. So, I battle with the question of, am I lying to her or protecting her? And as much as I hate lying, I would rather protect her from some truths and just deal with things as they come. I don’t need her worrying about these things. I don’t want her getting caught in the trap of wondering ‘what if?’ all of her life. I want her to be happy and not worry about adult things until she absolutely has to. Many years ago, one of my aunts said to me, ‘if you worry about death all of the time, you’re going to miss out on life’. I still remember that and I say it to myself all of the time. I don’t want my daughter to have to think like that. At seven she should be thinking about unicorns and rainbows, not worrying about what might happen to the people she loves. And it’s my job to help her do that.

It’s my job to make things easier for her. To help her get through the shitty times in life, to help her find the best answers to the toughest questions. So far, I think I’ve done a decent job. But I know it will only get harder from here. She will get older, I will get older, and there will be a new set of questions with each passing year. And when those questions come, I will give her the best answers that I can, I will always speak from my heart, try not to sugar coat things too much and help her through whatever life throws at her. And in the meantime, we will look for our cardinals and know that our loved ones are all around us helping us get through the day.

Last Friday at my daughter’s school it was ‘hat day’. The PTA organizes this and, on most Fridays, they have some kind of theme to promote school spirit. Most of the time the kids just wear blue, the school color, but other times it will be pajama day, crazy sock day and other things. They posted the list of the next 7 or 8 Fridays on social media so people would know. I saw it and told my daughter what was coming up. Two weeks ago, she wore blue and last Wednesday we talked about hat day coming up so we knew about it. Until Friday came and I completely forgot. She did too, but she’s 7 and I’m the Mom so of course it’s on me. I realized I forgot when I got back into the house after putting her on the bus and I went on my phone and there it was, the first post on my Instagram feed and all I could do was sit there and yell ‘FUCK!!!’.

I couldn’t believe I forgot. We had just talked about it, maybe even the night before. And I sat there trying to figure out how it slipped my mind. And I could probably give a list of reasons but tops on that list would be my brain is fried and I have no idea what day it is from one day to the next. There was probably at least a minute or two that morning where I had no idea that it was even Friday. That’s the state of mush my brain is in, but of course the reasons or excuses I could come up with didn’t matter, I forgot and my daughter was going to school hatless, and I felt like a terrible mother.

When my husband called, I told him what happened and as usual he had his laid-back attitude and said ‘it’s no big deal, it happens. I’m sure she won’t be the only one, she’ll be fine’, which is infuriating sometimes because things that I see as huge are so minor to him, and I know he’s right, and I really wish I could be that relaxed about things, but that’s another story. As I vented to him and put myself down as being a shit mother and whatever other insults I could think of, which he absolutely hates that I do, I could feel the tears start to well in my eyes. I hung up the phone and cried. And I pictured my daughter in school being the only one without a hat, feeling left out or embarrassed, possibly crying herself, and my whole mind and body filled up with a huge amount of guilt. I felt guilty for forgetting, guilty for not being a better mom, guilty for letting the world around me totally mess with my head. Guilty for everything. And I wondered, does it ever stop? Do we ever not have Mom guilt? Or does it just start the day our child is born and go on until the day we die??

I told my husband he didn’t understand because he doesn’t feel bad about things the way I do and he doesn’t feel guilty about the things he does or doesn’t do and he said I was wrong. And maybe I am because I’m sure Dads feel guilty too sometimes but it’s nowhere near the level of what Moms go through. That’s just a fact. And as I’ve been thinking about this over the past few days, I’ve come to realize that I don’t think it starts the day we become Moms, it starts the day we are born as females. I’m sure plenty of women without children feel guilt about just as many things that have nothing to do with kids. So, is it really something we are born with? We’re girls so we automatically feel bad or guilty all of our lives?

I think the words I have said most in my life aren’t ‘I love you’, they’re ‘I’m sorry’. And that has definitely been true over the past few years. I find myself apologizing all of the time, and most of the time I do it because I want to, not because I have to, but that’s not always the case. As women, we apologize for not doing enough. We apologize for not being able to go to a party we’re invited to, or out with our friends. We apologize for burning dinner. We apologize for not making dinner in the first place. We’re sorry for being tired, or moody, or late, or forgetful, or for anything and everything in between. And basically, what it really comes down to, is that we’re apologizing for being human. We’re apologizing for things everyone else does to us. We’re apologizing for all of the ‘I’m sorry’s’ we never get. We put this pressure on ourselves that we have to do it right all of the time, no matter what. It’s exhausting, it’s unhealthy and it’s unrealistic. But we do it anyway. And we carry the guilt around on our backs and it just weighs us down more and more each day.

And I have to wonder, who started this shit? What female was the one to say this is how it has to be? And more importantly, why hasn’t anyone put a stop to it? I’m not sure we can stop it, it’s just who we are, it’s in our DNA. Or maybe it’s not, and that’s the problem. Females have X, X while males have X, Y. We don’t have our Y which may be the reason we always question ourselves. Why did I do that? Why didn’t I do this instead? Why can’t I be better? Why am I unhappy? Why, why, why? Always questioning everything we do, every step we take, every little thing about ourselves. Forever in search of our ‘why’. That’s just the way of the world, I guess. It’s never going to end, but we can at least make it better. We can give ourselves a break sometimes, we can just let things go, which is the hardest thing to do. For me, I might be a hopeless case, but I’ll be damned if my daughter grows up the same way. Maybe I can’t change myself so easily, but I can make sure she doesn’t become like me. She will know she is better than that.

When she got off the bus on Friday, I was prepared to feel her wrath and hear how I screwed up. I asked how her day was and she said it was good. I said ‘I’m sorry I forgot hat day’. She said, ‘it’s ok, Mom. I was sad at first but most of the other kids forgot too so not many kids had hats on’. And that was it, crisis averted. I laughed because at that point what else was there to do? I felt bad all day and it was forgotten about in less than a minute. I wrote down the next 6 Friday themes on the calendar so I’m prepared. This Friday is wear blue, next Friday is sunglasses day. It’s right there for me to see, I just have to remember to look at the calendar. And if I forget, I’ll have my apology all ready for when she gets home.

I read a book recently where the author, when describing a nurse that took care of her daughter, wrote ‘She wears heavy blue eye shadow and smells of Jean Nate perfume’. I sat in bed caught between smiling and having tears well in my eyes. This sentence is you and I couldn’t believe that it was there in print, in a book I had just gotten for Christmas. As I read that sentence over and over again, I saw a picture of you in my mind. You’re sitting on the couch in my Grandmother’s house, I think it was my Christening Day, not entirely sure, but you’re holding me and you’re wearing a blue floral blouse and your blue eye shadow is shining bright in the picture. And there’s no doubt in my mind that you were wearing Jean Nate as that was always your favorite.

That one sentence in that book was the last sign I needed to tell me it was time to write to you. I’ve put it off long enough and I can’t keep it in any longer. The truth is, it’s blocking me from other things because thoughts of you are front and center in my mind and they’re not leaving. So, it’s time. People always ask the question ‘If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?’ and for the longest time my answer would be you, my dear Godmother. And I wouldn’t need a whole night, probably not even an hour, because once I saw you, I think the words would spew from my mouth like a bad taste I’ve been holding in for way too long.

So here it goes. The words I haven’t been able to admit until recently. The words I didn’t want to say for so many reasons. I fucked up. It really is that simple. I. Fucked. Up. I let my pride, my stubbornness, my selfishness, my bitchiness, myself come between making things right with you. I let the anger win. I put up a wall that had no business being there. I felt I was right and that you weren’t taking my feelings into consideration so why should I try to understand you? That was the stupidity of me, the naivete, the bullshit I let win. I put up this facade of making people think I don’t care and nothing bothers me and the only person that really suffers from that is me. Because it’s 20 years later and I still feel so much pain and hurt and disappointment in myself. But one day, months ago, I finally admitted to myself that it’s on me, it was my own fault, and I took responsibility for our relationship crumbling. And that was my first step. And this is the next, and hopefully last.

As I sit here writing, the tears are coming on their own and that’s fine with me. I feel like it’s the cleanse that I need to get rid of the shit I’ve been carrying around. I can still remember the day you died. I remember that day so clearly. I can replay every moment. I heard the news and after that first moment of sadness, regret filled every piece of my heart and soul. You passed away in 2001, the year I was getting married and I told myself I had time to make things right with you before my wedding. Plenty of time to rebuild our relationship so you would be there when I got married. But I never got that chance. We had a memorial for you at my parent’s house and I can still see myself sitting on the couch, drowning my sorrows in raspberry vodka and 7-up, praying it would numb the pain. Cousin Patty and Diana were in chairs across from me and in my drunken stupor, with tears streaming down my face I remember saying, ‘I thought I had time. I was supposed to make things right’, almost pleading with them to give me an answer, to help me understand, but of course there is no answer. Shit happens when you least expect it, the train comes out of nowhere and knocks you on your ass, and you’re left here to wonder why. Why did I let it get so bad? Why did I let it go so far? Why, why, why? Only questions, never any answers, or at least none that are satisfying enough. You were just gone. No last goodbye, no final moment to say I was sorry or tell you I love you. Any hopes I had for a better future just disappeared.

I have so many fond memories of you. I used to love going to your house in Long Island. We’d take the train and as soon as we stepped off, I felt like we were in another world. Brooklyn is so crowded and everything is concrete but going to your house I saw nothing but grass and trees. Even the air smelled different and it seemed like the sun was always shining. I grew up in apartments so for me, as a little kid, your house was glamorous. My two cousins had their own big bedrooms, but the most glamorous part to me was your bathroom. I remember the big counter with the huge mirror. And laid out on the counter was your make-up and your Jean Nate powder, which was something I bought for you every Christmas. I loved that powder with the big pink puff to apply it with. I would go into your bathroom just to take a sniff. I would know that scent anywhere and I remember smelling it once in a store and it stopped me in my tracks. Just a tiny scent of it brought me back to you. I looked it up once and the powder is discontinued but you can still buy it for over $100, which is ridiculous. And it’s not even pink anymore, or maybe it never was and I just remember it that way. I thought about buying it but convinced myself that you’re not in the product and my memories of you wearing that scent are priceless. And it’s best when it hits me somewhere unexpectedly, those are the best moments. When just one scent, out of nowhere, can bring you back to a better place and time, can bring you back to me.

Christmas Eve has always been important to me but as a kid it was the best day. Everyone would crowd around two tables in a tiny apartment, and most of the adults sat together, but you and Uncle Tom always chose to sit with us kids. It always meant so much to me that you would rather be with us. That you preferred our company. And we would laugh with you and talk about crazy things. You would make fun of the other adults and treat us with respect, not just like we were kids. The truth is, both you and Uncle Tom were big kids yourselves. You never took life too seriously. You were always smiling and you would do anything you could to make us smile and laugh. No one else ever did that for us. Everyone else made it clear that we were the kids and they were the adults. But with you, we were equal, nothing separated us. And I don’t think you ever knew how much that meant to me, so thank you.

You had this beautiful presence and I remember that your laugh could light up the room. But as the years keep going by, I can’t remember the sound of your laugh. I can’t remember your voice. I search my memory for it but it’s always someone else’s voice I hear. I borrowed my sister’s wedding video just so I could hear your voice because I remember you spoke on it, but it still didn’t sound right. Something was off. And it makes me sad that I can’t hear it clearly in my mind. I hope there comes a day when I remember it again.

I still have the ring you gave me although I haven’t worn it in a very long time. I think a part of me feels that I don’t have the right to wear it, that I’m not worthy. But I’ll get there and wear it with pride as it is a piece of you I can carry with me. After Uncle Tom died, anytime we would play cards, you’d call yourself a ‘poor widow woman’, trying to get everyone to feel bad for you and let you win our money. Whenever I play any kind of cards, I think of you and smile. Any time I saw you, at some point, you would ask me to scratch your back. And not just a little spot, but your entire back. I would get so annoyed that I was the only one you asked. The funny thing is, I ask Pat to scratch my back all the time now. It’s as if that part of you got transferred to me, just like Uncle Tom’s love of 7-layer cookies, something I never liked as a kid, but years after he died, they became a favorite of mine. I feel the both of you with me at these times and it makes me happy.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of your passing. It’s been 20 years. I don’t know how that’s possible. Some days it feels like yesterday, some days it feels like a lifetime ago. Either way it’s been 20 years. And I think 20 years is long enough for me to be carrying around this weight of regret. I have to let it go. I know you would want me to, you would’ve wanted me to years ago. But I had to feel like I punished myself enough. I can’t do it anymore. There’s nothing I can do to change what did or didn’t happen. It’s been over a long time. The only thing I can do now is make sure I never feel this kind of regret with anyone else in my life. Make sure I do better and I think I’m doing that. I wish things had been different. I wish I knew certain things while you were still here. I wish I understood back then the way I understand things now. But all the wishes in the world won’t do me any good. I have to unhook myself from the anchor that has weighed me down for so long. I have to give myself permission to forgive myself, because I know you forgave me a long time ago. So I apologize to you and to myself. I am sorry for not doing better by you, I am sorry for any pain I ever caused you, I am sorry for not coming to your wedding, I am sorry I wasn’t a better Godchild to you. I am sorry I never told you or showed you how much you meant to me. I will still miss you more than you know and I will love you for the rest of my life.       

I have never been the type to rush the holidays. Don’t ask me in September what my daughter is going to be on Halloween, and don’t ask me if I’ve decorated for Christmas before I have taken a bite of turkey on Thanksgiving. If a Christmas song comes on the iPod before December 1^st it will be skipped over in our house. That has always been my opinion on these things. But then 2020 happened.

I was in Bath & Body Works a week or two ago with my daughter and my husband and as soon as we walked inside the store my mood shifted. The store was beautifully decorated, Christmas songs were pumping through the speakers and the smell all around can only be described as Christmas. Whether it was their Christmas Cookie candle, or the warm scents of soaps and lotions, it was Christmas everywhere. And I instantly felt happy. I looked at my daughter and her eyes were wide with amazement. She said ‘Mommy, can we stay here for a while?’, and I replied, ‘Baby, I want to live here right now!’.

And that was the truth. I wanted to stay in that moment of pure bliss for a lot longer than I needed to. I wanted the scents and the sounds to absorb into my skin and my soul and replace all of the negativity and shit that has been there for all of these months. And I truly believed it could do that. It was like a drug and I wanted to inhale as much as I could to keep that high for as long as I could. It really was magical. Stepping into that store was like stepping into another world where only happiness and sparkles were allowed. Who wouldn’t want to stay there for a while?

There’s so much negativity in the world right now. So much doom and gloom and I get it, I really do. Things just suck, it’s that simple. But we’ve gotten so accustomed to this shit that no one looks for the positive anymore. No one looks to find a bright spot. And with the stress of the holidays coming I fear it will only get worse. Birthday celebrations have been taken away from us, weddings have been postponed; it’s like we have nothing to look forward to anymore. Or we do but we’re afraid to get excited for fear of it being taken away. As an adult, I can deal with things. I don’t always do it well or in a positive way but I deal with it nonetheless. Kids can’t always do that. They don’t completely understand everything. All they know is that their routine, their little life, has changed in some ways, some bigger than others. As parents, we have tried to make their life as normal as we can, but it hasn’t always been easy.

At Easter no one knew if the Easter Bunny was going to come. We didn’t know if we could get to the store to buy the candy, or to decorate the eggs. In our house he came, I felt like he had to. I didn’t feel right taking that away from my daughter if I didn’t 1,000% have to, so we made it work. There’s not even talk about Santa not coming, about Christmas being cancelled. That is not an option, at least not in our house. Christmas beats out all of the other holidays and not just because of the gifts. My daughter even knows that’s not what it’s about. It’s not just one day, it truly is its own little season. It’s that time between fall and winter that has its own sights, sounds and smells. It’s magic and to see it through my daughter’s eyes gives it a new meaning to me. Kids just see the beauty in everything even when the rest of us can’t. We can complain about a million things and a child will counter that with at least one good thing and that is amazing. For just a second, if we all saw things through the vision of a child’s eyes, we would feel so much better.

When we left the store, I had come to a decision. Our Christmas season was going to start earlier than usual. Thanksgiving doesn’t even need to happen for me, let’s skip it and go straight to Christmas. Let Christmas be celebrated for an entire month. While I was cooking that night a Christmas song came on the iPod and we let it play. My daughter and I danced in the kitchen and now she can’t wait to hear her favorite Kelly Clarkson Christmas song. I also told her she could start watching Christmas movies and the happiness on her face made everything feel right in the world. Right now, she is watching The Santa Clause 3. And the TV has been on a constant loop of Curious George’s Christmas, House of Mouse, and Mickey’s Once & Twice Upon a Christmas, and I’ve never been happier to watch them with her. We told her we could decorate the house this weekend. The light in her eyes, the smile on her face, the happiness that pours out of her body is worth more than anything to me.

I don’t want to hear about numbers rising, I don’t want to talk about statistics, I just want to close the door on all of that. For my sanity, for my inner peace. I don’t know how things will be next month; a part of me doesn’t even care. If I’m locked inside on Christmas Day that would be fine with me. No stress, no drama, no negativity. Just me, my husband and my daughter. I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food on the table. I have everything I need. Blast some Christmas music in the background and it sounds perfect to me.   

I lost my shit tonight. Completely. Lost. It. Over tater tots. I got my pan out, put foil on it and sprayed it with olive oil. Put the tots on the pan and into the oven they went. No big deal. Halfway through, at the time you’re supposed to flip them, I took them out and it hit me. Tots don’t flip on foil. They stick and when you try to move them, they break apart and turn to crap on the pan. I realized this fact a long time ago after many attempts. Then I saw Rachel Ray put them on parchment paper and it changed my world. I’ve cooked them that way ever since. But tonight, because my mind is fried, because I don’t seem to know what I’m doing half the time, I automatically grabbed the foil and thought nothing of it until these little shits wouldn’t flip. And then I flipped out.

The curses flew, which is really nothing new in my house, especially since March. My daughter hardly flinches anymore, which I’m not proud of, but it is the reality right now. It wasn’t necessarily what I said, but how I said it, or more to the point, how I yelled it. It was primitive and I haven’t done that in years.

Imagine a tea kettle on the stove. When your water boils the kettle lets out its little siren letting you know it’s ready. And the longer you take to get it the louder and higher pitched that siren gets. And if you take a really long time that kettle sounds as if it’s about to jump off the stove itself and explode. That was me tonight. And after I screamed at the tater tots the next thing in my line of view was my husband and so I screamed at him. Not the right thing to do of course but he was there and I needed to yell some more. I won’t get into what was said and, while my points were valid, it still wasn’t the right way, time or place to address things.

My daughter used to play with her blocks and stack them as high as she could to see how tall the tower could get before it came tumbling down, which was her favorite part. And who knows if it was the weight of the blocks, or the balance that made them fall. Whatever it was, it just got to be too much, and the tower collapsed. As women, we teach ourselves, or maybe we learn it from the women before us, to deal with it all. No questions asked, we just deal with it. And we take it all on, we add it to our lists, the lists that keep us up at night because they never seem to get done. We just keep taking everything on and by the time one thing gets done five more things have been added. And we tell ourselves that it’s our job as the wife and the mother. And we don’t ask for help because we don’t want to burden anyone else with what we feel is something we are supposed to do. And just like that tower of blocks, as we add more and more things to ourselves, maybe to see how much we can take, we lose our balance and we collapse. And instead of admitting that it’s just too much sometimes, and telling ourselves that we’re only human, we instead feel guilt and place blame and anger on ourselves. And the cycle continues, over and over. We rise, we weigh ourselves down, we collapse, we tell ourselves we should do better so we get up again. Isn’t insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? And we wonder why we feel like we’re losing our minds.

It’s only Wednesday but it’s already been a shitty week. Phase two for my daughter’s school was supposed to start on the 16^th. This meant that she could go back to school after being fully virtual all this time, our choice, and she was going to go four days a week. We were both excited, me more than her for many reasons, the top one being that she needs to be in school just so she can learn properly. But we got the call yesterday saying that date has been moved to the 30^th. And some moms are thinking that won’t even happen and we’re likely to stay virtual until the new year. And honestly, I don’t know if I will survive that, again for many reasons.

Then today during math her teacher was trying to teach a new lesson. And I could tell my daughter wasn’t completely understanding it, which upset her. And as I looked at the faces of the other students on screen, I saw the same puzzled look on most. And my heart just broke for them. And my daughter’s teacher is doing his best and you can hear the frustration, and almost sadness, in his voice because he knows this way of learning is hard for them and hard for him. And he knows that what he is teaching is something that should have been introduced to the kids last school year but it wasn’t because 2020 happened and they went remote in March and for the last three months of that school year they just did review work, not really learning anything new. And it hit me today how much it has affected these kids and no one can deny that their education has taken a huge step back.

And it’s so much more than that but these were the last two blocks to go on my tower before I collapsed. This was my last tea kettle warning before I exploded. I gathered myself together, I flipped the new batch of tater tots that were cooking properly on parchment paper, and I went upstairs to my bathroom and I cried. One of those really good cries into a towel so that I could let out some tiny screams too. It was the release I needed. We take everything in, we let it pile up within our heart and soul. And everything gets cramped up inside, all on top of each other, no room to move, no room to breathe. And our mind and our heart work on their own and they force us to let these things out. And it comes in the form of a scream, or a cry, or a string of curse words. It doesn’t matter what form it takes; the release is what matters most. It wasn’t the first time this happened, and it won’t be the last. Round and round we go.

When I went back downstairs the table was already set for dinner. My daughter said ‘me and Daddy wanted to help you’. My husband hugged me and apologized for not doing more, I apologized to him and my daughter for my outburst. I apologize when I’m wrong. I’m never too proud to say I’m sorry, especially to my daughter. She needs to know that grown-ups make mistakes too and her feelings are important. We had a family hug, which is my daughter’s favorite thing, and we moved on, because that’s what families do. Life is messy. It’s not all sunshine and roses. It’s laughter and tears, smiles and yelling, happiness and heartache. And this year has been extra crazy. More downs than ups but we make the best of every day and keep moving forward. It’s what we do; it’s how we deal. Tomorrow is a new day, and I’ll start at block one.

‘Look at me, Mom’, ‘Mom, watch me’. I hear you say these things to me so many times in one day. It feels like every minute you want me to turn my head to see what amazing thing you are doing at that moment. And you’ve always been like this, most kids are, but now that you’re older and doing more things, and learning new things, it definitely seems to happen more often. And every time you ask, I turn my head or look up from what I am doing and I watch you.

I watch you do the same dance for the 10^th time; I watch you jump rope, something you have gotten so good at recently, and count how many jumps you can do. I watch you do the hula hoop. I look at the outfit you have put together, the things you have your dolls do, your latest drawing. I look at it all. Even at times when I am in the middle of something. Even at times when I just watched you do the same thing five minutes before. Even at times when I don’t think I can look at the same thing one more time and act excited or amazed. And I try not to roll my eyes when you show me your 100^th drawing of a rainbow, and I try not to act annoyed when you ask me to watch you do something that isn’t new. And I fail at these things and I feel like a terrible Mom sometimes, but I’m only human and there’s only so much a person can take of the same thing.

I love everything you do and I am amazed each time you do something new. All through the summer I watched you grow into an amazing swimmer and every time I wondered how you did it and I felt such pride. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I am watching you all of the time. Even when you don’t know it, I am looking at you wondering what you’re going to do next. And these are the moments that I love the most. Every time you got into the pool you would call me so I could watch you jump in or go under. But I was also watching you as you gathered your breath and swam across the entire pool without lifting your head once. I watched your head come up out of the water as you reached the other side and I saw the pride you felt written all over your face. I felt that pride too. You didn’t need an audience, you did it for yourself.

I watch you through the rear-view mirror in the car as you sit in the backseat and sing along to the music that’s playing. I see the emotion in your face. I can imagine that, in your head, at that moment, you feel like you’re Elsa or Anna and you’re feeling how they felt in the movie. And you sing the words with the same emotion you hear them sing with. And I am in awe that at 7 you can have that moment with yourself. And I wish that I could go into your head and see what you’re thinking about as you stare out the window with such intensity. I see your emotional side in that moment.

I see you get so frustrated at times when things don’t go the way you think they should or you can’t figure something out. And that frustration brings you to tears sometimes which makes me sad because I think you put pressure on yourself that doesn’t need to be there. Nothing in life is perfect and no one is perfect either. And I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on yourself. And I tell you these things but the reality is that you need to figure this out for yourself. You need to learn that shit just happens sometimes and we just have to deal with it. And it’s not the end of the world if you get a math problem wrong or you pronounce a word incorrectly when you’re reading. I don’t care about these things. Making mistakes is how we learn.

The other side of that is I see how your face lights up when you do something you thought you couldn’t. You taught yourself how to jump rope in a matter of two days and now you can jump over 40 times in a row without stopping. I watch the smile form on your face as you count in your head and I know how proud you are of yourself. I see your creative side come out when you sit and draw. I watch you think of an idea and pause each time you’re not sure where you want to go next. I’ve been watching you grow as an artist for years. I saw your first little scribble and everything in between then and the amazing artist you are now. I see the fire in your eyes when you sit down with paper, whether it’s to draw or write your little stories. I know you don’t think I see you unless I’m right in front of you but I see the creativity you have all the time. I watch you from across the room as you dance to the music in your head and I know you are imagining yourself as the most beautiful ballerina on stage, dancing gracefully. And that view is magic to me.

I watch you play with Daddy and the love you have for him is written all over your face. It’s in the way you smile at him, it’s in the way only he can make you laugh. I see how you always want to be close to him, right by his side. I hear the little jokes the two of you share. I see all of the special moments you have together, I feel the bond you share.

I watch you play with your friends and I see how kind you are to everyone, always concerned about their happiness, never leaving anyone out. I see the way you look at your older cousin, wanting to do everything she does, trying to absorb all of her wisdom so that you can be just like her. I see how much you adore her and how you can’t wait to grow up so you can do the things she does. But I wish you would slow down and not want everything to go by so fast; things are already moving fast enough.

I see how much you care about your little cousins and how you want to teach them things. I watch you gently take their hands and lead them in the right direction. I see how patient you are when you don’t understand what they want or what they’re trying to say. I see the love and amazement in your eyes when you get to hold a new baby. I watch you softly touch their hand or stroke their cheek, being so careful not to hurt them in any way. I see you as the sweetest little girl in the world.

I have seen every smile on your face. I have seen every tear that you have cried. I’ve seen you at your best moments and your worst moments. I’ve seen every emotion written on your face and because of this I know how you’re feeling, sometimes even before you do. I see you baby girl, and I always will. Whenever you ask me to look at you or watch you do something I always will. But the moments I see you on my own, without you knowing, will always be my favorites.