My dad is dying.

I hope she takes him soon.

The hospital bed was brought in today, we had to lift him onto it. He slept and barely spoke and swallowed down spoonfuls of ice cream while we all sat around him. It is just past midnight now and I can hear his gentle snoring from where I sit on the kitchen floor. Since I was a little kid I've loved this spot---right next to the floor heater; right next to my mom's seat at the kitchen table.

This is a very strange movie. And yet I've seen it before.

I will keep you all posted as best I can. I know his loved ones are checking in.

Sweet, sweet dreams to you all.

Based on the true story

...of the events that transpired in the 36 hours that fell between last Thursday morning and Friday night. Also, it's not so much "based" on truth as it is entirely factual.

Thursday 8am

Guys...guys... I thought I was passed these mini little break-ups. I thought I had changed and would do better this time and become a man and not run away from love or my commitments or any of the other werewolves that are chasing me. But there’s been some runnin’ and some hidin’ from this blog going on. And more than even that, there’s been some straight-up not carin’, which is much more worrisome.

Let me clarify: It’s not that I don’t care ABOUT YOU GUYS---I like you all very much and, as always, am so grateful that you have been here to snuggle up with through all of this. But there’s an apathy sitting in my chest right now and it is weightless and it is dangerous. Although I joke about my “writer’s disposition,” there’s a difference between resting your body during times of stress and saying, “Fuck it. Looks like I’m riding this life out from bed.” And I’ve been a little too close to “It’s just you and me now, MTV” than I am comfortable with.

I am desperately reaching for my health in all the natural ways---rest, movement, flax seed---both ground and oil, Oprah---both TV and magazine. Since returning from Miami I’ve given up gluten, given up drinking(!), started walking again, and still I’ve been battling deep despair. One of the lowest point occurred at a movie theater when Dan and I were seeing Friends With Kids---a fine movie, though not so much a tearjerker. I sat in the darkness crying through the whole film, submerged in sorrow and anxiety and worry that had nothing to do with the movie. At home afterwards I had the deepest, longest, breathless, moaning, keening cry that I’ve had in months and Dan just lay beside me on the bed, handing me fresh tissues and tucking my hair behind my ear like my mom used to do. (He knows she used to do that. He is a love.)

I’ve even taken to praying.

Though I’ve dabbled in God for most of my 30 years, we never hang out as much as I’d like. I recently read that writer Anne Lamott says she uses three main prayers:

Help me.

Thank you.

Wow.

Cutting through all the pretext with that kind of naked sincerity make me feel like I have the best shot at getting through, so I’m going with it. And God doesn’t seem mad that I only call at night when I’m alone and can’t sleep. She’s cool with being my Booty Call. (God is my Booty Call. There’s a bumper sticker.) (Though it does sound kind of churchy and anti-boomboom, doesn’t it?)

The situation has gotten rough and it feels good to hand some of it off, but I’m not going all “Found the Lord” on you so don’t go Googling “money shots” just to get the Jesus off; this is not going to be a blog entry about how I prayed the depression away.

I’ve started messing with my meds too. Well, my therapist and I have. (My therapist needs a blog handle. Should we call her the Spew Tamer? Thoughts?) I try not to mess around with medication on my own because I like my brain and hope it will someday like me back (in the form of performing at its maximum ability and not being such a douche). Although I’ve come a long way in therapy---I swear to Booty Call that I have---we’ve never been able to touch my depression in any consistent way. I want some of these “happy pills” I keep hearing about. All the meds I’ve tried---years’ worth of trying---I’ve never found anything that makes me feel all that much better, let alone happy. There’s gotta be something out there that I’ve missed. I’ll take whatever all the overmedicated kids are getting. Cut me in, School Nurse!

I’m envious of others’ successes with medication. Remember how I was talking the other day about Alice Bradley ---that writer whom I sort of adore and wish I could chat with over falafel? Well, there I was loving her and then I read this about her first experience taking anti-depressants:

“A few days after I began the Prozac, I woke up one morning, and I felt fine.

Here's the thing: up until that day, I had never felt fine. Not ever. I didn't know what ‘fine’ was. I thought I did; I thought there were periods when I thought I was doing quite well. I thought the Prozac was treating a relatively recent development in my emotional state. And then I woke up that day, and I realized that this was normal, and this was how I was supposed to feel all the time.”

I cannot begin to express the longing and frustration that came over me when I read this except to say: TANTRUM! MOTHER FUCKING TANTRUM!

I want to feel fine.

I waaaaaant to feel fine.

The first (and second and third and fourth through tenth) time I tried a new med it went like this:

I’m not sure if this drug is doing anything.
I did go on a walk the other day, so maybe it’s working!
But I didn’t leave the house for three days in a row, so maybe it’s not.
I did get ten pages written, so maybe it’s working!
But I did screen out every single phone call last week, so maybe it’s not.

Never did I wake up fine. I’ve woken up feeling like I was going to faint. I’ve woken up drenched in my own sweat. I’ve woken up completely incapable of urinating because my brain couldn’t communicate effectively with my hooty-hoo.

But never fine.

And I understand that I am not currently living in an environment that is any way hospitable to fine. I know that trying to lift my depression in the midst of this brutal one-two parent-cancer death punch, is like trying to light a match while under water. But I don’t expect for it to be lifted entirely. What I want is someone in the boat to strike the match, light up a spliff and, as I fight to swim toward the sun, to hold the joint to my little surface-breaking lips.

I can take the grief. I can do the sadness. But it’s the tiredness that kills me. The inability to focus. The feeling that I can’t get anything done. I need to feel better so I can do better even just for a little bit. Or maybe it’s that I need to do better so that I can feel better. I just need to know that I still have it in me---that I can write and finish a few pieces and just gather up my self worth again into a little ember that I can hold in my palm for later on.

“But, Lola,” you might say to yourself. “You just wrote quite a bit---quite a bit!---telling us how you are too miserable to write.”

And you’d be right. And I will now tell you how I did this.

I’m high as a fucking kite.

How’s that for payoff? I bet you’re glad you stuck with me through the Lola for the Lord chapter. God found me a drug. God is My Dealer. (That’s a much better bumper sticker.) I’m jacked way the hell up and now I got some ‘splaining to do.

I had a therapy session the other day where I delivered some version of what I’ve just written here. I used the word desperate, which I’ve never used before because I’ve never felt it. Not like this.

And the Spew Tamer heard me.

We decided to try one last thing in combination with my current med---we decided to add a little Kahlua to my milk. (For the record, I had already tried getting off my current med since it seemed to not be serving me, but as soon I started weaning down I realized that there is a lower to this low so I quickly crept back up to my usual dose.) Now, normally I leave the names of medications out of my entries because I just think every brain is different and I can’t go trumpeting my prescription drug successes (or lack thereof) like some endorsement for a cleaning product that you really must try! (Also, I feel strangely private about it.) But I think omitting the name of the drug at this point---when it’s clearly a main character---would just detract from the story. Plus, I may sound a little loopty loo right now so this might not be an endorsement as much as it is a buyer beware.

Adderall. I’m trying a smidge of Adderall. While it’s not an anti-depressant and is usually prescribed to people with ADHD, it is also used for treatment-resistant depression, which is what we’re doing here.

One other thing. Adderall is kind of, well, speed. The chemicals are a little different---the potency is a lot different (speed being the big guns)---but they work the same way. I’m taking a drug that has street value.

AND IT’S FABULOUS!

I wish you could see me typing. I’m like a crazed typing phenom! I am Lola, Queen of the Keyboard. Dan and I just spoke on the phone and he told me to take a breath. High, high, high. Not stoned. High.

You have to understand where I started this day. Where I started this blog entry. My head was on the laptop. I titled this document “Apathy Blog.” How’s that for flavor? The plan today was to write a few quick sentences explaining why I’ve been gone and that was going to be it. But I can’t stop typing and I can’t take my eyes off the screen because I am Super Lola, an extraordinarily capable version of the Spew’s bungling birthmother! I started this day as a pile of bathrobe and now I feel drag-queen fabulous! This whole entry is born of manic typing that has grown steadily faster since about a half hour after I swallowed down my first pill.

I had to share this news.

Thursday 11:30am

To: Dan
From: Lola

This medicine is awesome so far.  I have been writing all morning and staying on task and I feel like a real human. Actually, I feel like Superman! Did I tell you that this drug is essentially speed?  Whatever...it's helping.

Thursday 11:31am

To: Dan
From: Lola

I'm trying to keep up with myself.  I don't want to waste it!  I'm so scared it's going to run out and I'm going to be me again.  I feel like I have Star Power from Super Mario Brothers.

[Note: “I’m so scared it’s going to run out and I’m going to be me again.” That’s sad, isn’t it? I deserve this, don’t I?]

Then I sent Dan this link.

And he sent me this.

He’s been checking in all day to make sure my heart hasn’t exploded. Isn’t that sweet? He doesn’t want to come home to find me drowned in the tub. Such a lover! Wait ‘til I tell him that one of the side effects is increased arousal. He’ll be all, “You know the heart is a very resilient organ.”

He really is thrilled that I feel so good. He said he couldn’t believe that the person sending him these e-mails was the same sad mess he left this morning. (He didn’t say “sad mess” because he likes being married as opposed to, say, being stabbed 76 times in the chest.) He and I sat on the bed before he left for work today discussing this new drug because I was worried about how I would feel and just wasn’t sure what to expect.

You have to understand that I was raised by my doctor father and nurse mother to be extremely averse to all medication. When I was a kid I used to joke with my mom that I could bring any ailment to her---”I could be telling you I have cancer, Ma,”---and she’d tell me to take a dip in the river because the salt water was good for it. As a result, Dan will often take Tylenol and put it in my hand after listening to me complain about a headache because he knows I’ll never reach for it myself. So I’ve always been deeply ambivalent about taking medication and this morning I was also filled with the requisite shame that comes with taking “mood-altering” meds as well two nagging fears.

1)That it wouldn’t work.
2)That it would.

If it didn’t work it would be just another win for depression and another failure to add to the pile of futile efforts I’ve made to stave it off. But if it did work, I knew I would be saddled with a new set of dilemmas. Am I really going to officially be on another medication? For how long? To what end?

But let’s not talk about any of that now because I’m hiiiiiiiigh! I’m hiiiiigh! Don’t be such a downer, yo! It’s working! Probably a bit better than it was supposed to, but it’s working! This is all very fun! Am I using a lot of exclamation points? I am! I totally am! I’ve not felt remotely exclamation pointy lately so this is fun! I’ve been way too heavy on the forlorn and drifting ellipses...NOT TODAY!

My hands are trying to keep up with my brain. Usually my brain is the slacker and my hands have to pretend to look busy---typing my name over and over again---to cover my dopey brain’s ass. I’m too focused to even take a bathroom break where as normally I‘m waiting for the faintest urge to urinate solely to have a reason to get out of my chair. This is true for most writers, by the way, not just the ones dealing with depression or ADD or any of the others on the list of maladies that could thwart someone’s motivation or concentration (like, say, the internet). “Butt in chair”---the writer’s credo. When asked to offer guidance about how to succeed as a writer, almost every author I’ve ever heard offers some version of “Butt in chair.”

My point? I think I’m juicing. Will there be an asterisk next to my name on my first book cover?

Thursday 7pm

“I get it, I so get it!” I keep saying to Dan, whose home from work now, about writers and cocaine binges.

I’m still sitting here typing away. Did I tell you Adderall is in the Urban Dictionary? They call it Addie. Addie! It sounds like someone’s beautiful, doe-eyed freshman girlfriend.

I mean, ahem, it sounds like a highly addictive medication that needs to be handled with serious care.

I totally don’t have a drug problem. No, really! The reason this is so funny---and this is SO FUNNY! Dan’s laughing now too!---is because I don’t do drugs. I’ve never done anything other than smoke pot and, you know, cuddle with my wine bottle. Okay, I tried shrooms twice in my late teens but that’s it! No cocaine, no acid, no ecstasy, no anything else. You see, that’s why it’s a little bit funny that I’ve been speedballing alone in my apartment all day. Because I’ve never felt like this before and I’m such a dorky straight-edge that even my attempt to look cooler by throwing the word speedball in there---which has nothing to do with Adderall ---reveals my squareness.

So, since it’s a fluke thing, I get to just enjoy it. Tonight when I go to bed I will be saying the prayer of thank you. Thank you and good night to my sweet, sweet Addie.

That is, if I ever go to bed.


Friday 3:30am

I never went to bed.

After two PBS documentaries---one on Fenway Park, the other on Steve Jobs---an episode of the Colbert Report and an article about “fullness” from my Oprah mag, I am now mesmerized by a show about whales.

Did you know that right whales have nine-foot weenies? Can’t call that a weenie now can you? It’s a thick, albino flagellum of a thing. Just sort of swings in the tide. Nine feet. Picture it. It’s taller than you, this dick. Also, their testicles are twenty times that of blue whales despite the fact that blue whales are twice their size. Apparently, blue whales are the Irishmen of the sea. Scientists wonder if the reason right whales are such sexually active animals is because of their gigantic balls. Their nads weigh a ton! Literally! But the ladies are no slouches either. These gals take multiple partners, one after another---the whole football team, even. I guess nine-feet of whale cock will do that to a girl. They also mate belly-to-belly; they must be into eye contact.

It is 3:30am and I am watching whale porn.

Friday 8am

I cobbled together 22 minutes of sleep last night and have been writing for hours! When Dan woke up this morning I gave him all my whale facts. I retained all of it!

“Look how smart Addie makes me!” I told him. “I think it’s still working!”

“You think?” he said, noting how quickly I was speaking.

Needless to say, I did not take another dose this morning as was planned. Maybe I did need to say that; I do seem to be enjoying myself, don’t I? I also left a message for the Spew Tamer first thing this morning to let her know how this has all gone. I really am quite responsible. (She had me check in with her yesterday too. She’s also quite responsible.)

“Did you know that right whales have nine-foot schlongs?” I said to her voicemail. Of course I didn’t say that, but I did say that I’ve been up for 24 hours and loving it and that I know all sorts of new things about whales and that I wrote all day yesterday and I feel like it’s magic and do you think I should take another one today?

Friday 11am

The Spew Tamer called back.

“I don’t think is the drug for you,” she said.

I gasped. “It’s not?”

She actually laughed at me. She said she’s never seen---never even read about---someone having this kind of reaction to such a low dose. See, you guys, Addie and I have something special.

“Well, what about half? Can I take half? What about as needed? Can I just take it as needed?”

“Laura, you’re begging.”

She really said that.

I really was.

She asked about my heart. Fine, fine, fine. She told me to drink a lot of water. She said something else but now I can’t remember what it was. My genius for retention is failing! Quick, ask me a whale fact!

One theory on how right whales got their name is that their slowness and thick blubber---which makes them float---made them an easy catch and thus the “right whale” to hunt.

Phew! As long as I’ve got my whale facts I’ll know this whole thing really happened.


Friday 1pm

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! I’m crashing, folks! I’m crashing hard! I’m becoming a robe monster again. I’m melting...I’m melting...


Friday 1:10pm

To: Dan
From: Lola

I am out of star power. And I am sad.


Friday 4pm

It’s dark in this bedroom. Thank God.


Friday 8pm

It’s me again, guys. Super Lola is dead, I haven’t napped, and there are pages and pages here that I’m not quite certain can really be called a piece of writing. The whale hours were weird, right? I really went on about that dong. It was like a separate animal. Like a freakishly long and discolored tongue. Make it stop. Please make it stop...

Oh no, ellipses.

Those swampy, ambivalent ellipses. I can’t even end a sentence definitively in this state.

But I was in there. For a minute---for those hours---I reached in and grabbed myself. It may have been an enhanced superhero version, but I taught her all her tricks. (Note: I really do know I am one person; this is not drug-induced psychosis.)

All I wanted was to care about writing again. So even if it was all whale dicks and exclamation points (a duo whose pairing is really akin to peanut butter and jelly's) at least I was putting my mind to something. It’s truly a relief just knowing I can do that.

P.S. The Spew Tamer did say that tomorrow I could try a quarter of the dose I originally took to see how I do. I wouldn’t say that I’m looking forward to it per se, but I do want to point out that tomorrow morning is only 12 hours away.

Thank you, Mattie

I've been listening to this song nonstop since Wednesday when Mattie (friend since we were but wee 15-year-old babes) told me about it. Right now it is my prozac drip. I have great dreams of organizing a flashmob where everyone dances and marches---kids on shoulders, drummers, bright sun---through the center of downtown Portsmouth (NH). Throw it on your iPod and rock out in your car or your kitchen or down a bustling street.

In the wink of a young girl's bloodshot eye

Tina (our sista from anotha motha), GiG and Lola, age 17, (when, incidentally, I learned the truth). (Did that joke land?)

‘Sup?

Something is off right now, kids. I don’t know what to write about, that’s why I’ve been away. Usually I have some sense that I’m hiding from my computer because the subject that wishes to be penned feels too emotionally daunting to take on but I at least know what it is that wants to be written. Sometimes I recognize early on that the project I want to embark on requires too much work to see it to fruition---and have it turn out with the level of quality that it deserves---so, again, I hide. (I’m not proud of those days, but they happen.)

But today, I am just not certain where my mind is. There were points back in my high school days where I wanted so badly to escape that stale, brick building and run out into the sun that I nearly cried with longing. That’s where I am now. My head half in the game, half in the sun.

I would like to take this time to thank our Heavenly Mama for making this winter the most mild and bearable I’ve ever lived through. Maybe global warming played a part, maybe this means an early end to civilization--I am thankful just the same. I knew back in October---staring down at my already dry and cracking hands---that I would not be able to endure a doozie of a winter. I felt brittle before the leaves finished dropping. The fact that we were spared the 12-degree days and the icy winds that cut through our coats and slash at our cheeks---well, I’m kissing the crocuses with gratitude about it.

But none of this is particularly interesting, is it? Ultimately, this is really just a conversation about the weather and can I really write that kind of crap and feel like I’ve done my job?

No. No, I can’t.

And yet...it seems to be all I’ve got. I’m spacey with spring fever and am staring out the window just like I did in Trigonometry class all those years ago. I got caught once playing Tetris on my graphing calculator during that class---a pretty mathematical game, if you ask me---and got it taken away. It wasn’t my graphing calculator so I ended up pleading with the teacher to give it back to its rightful owner. Later in the year, this teacher---who was really a very nice woman---insinuated that I cheated on the final because not only did I get a high B (after performing somewhat meh all year) but I also got the same exact score as my then boyfriend who sat right behind me. I would like to go on record here as saying: I DID NOT CHEAT ON THAT TEST! (Nor did he...just in case his mom happens to read this blog---or was actually the one who pushed me to start it---and is wondering.) I don’t blame the teacher for thinking I cheated (I was as surprised as any by that B) but I didn’t. I really didn’t.

I was usually okay with earning an honest F or getting out of the test/paper another way---usually in the form of skipping class but other times more creatively. I took Anthropology my senior year and the teacher, a good guy, was a bit of a talker. On days that we were supposed to have exams I would start asking questions at the beginning of class---prompting his long explanations--- until enough time had passed that he couldn’t possibly administer the test. I want to say that I’m not proud of this, but I am. If someday little Lola Jr. comes home and tells me she did the same thing, I think I’ll give her a cupcake.

I’m doing the same thing right now. Filling the time so that you’ll get to the end of this entry thinking we accomplished something here. I might as well write: I am very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very unsure about what to write.

All of this glory days talk probably makes me seem like a worse kid than I was. I hate to paint myself as a leather jacket-wearing teen with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth when that wasn’t the case. Though, I did wear a black leather jacket (see above) and I did smoke cigarettes. And I drank and smoked pot (as did everyone). But I did a million and one extracurricular activities---student council, school newspaper, drama club---so I was definitely part do-gooder. I was the homecoming queen for fuck's sake.

So although I did sometimes fail tests and the occasional class---gym, for one---I was a pretty solid student until about 11th grade. If you were to look at my report cards from that time you would see the gradual eroding of my GPA. And, yes, budding young psych students, your inference that perhaps outside circumstances were affecting my school performance would be spot on. And though I don’t wish to be cryptic, it’s a long story. I can tell you that this is when I experienced my first real bout of depression (the pot didn’t help though I rejected the theory at the time) and it’s also when I went to my first therapist. ‘Notha story, ‘notha day.

Mostly I was just all over the place. A’s and B’s when I wanted ‘em. C’s when I was phoning it in. D’s and F’s when I chose not to study or turn in papers. I just looked at one of my old report cards and the comments from my 11th grade English teacher went from “Shows sincere effort” to “Inconsistent in class work” to---and this quarter he offered two comments--- “Projects not completed” and “Excels in writing skills.” I got a D that quarter because I didn’t turn in a research paper. The kindness in the combination of the guy’s last two comments kills me. It’s like he would have written “She’s not a complete schmuck per se” were he not confined to the standard comments the computerized grading system offered.

There was also a lot of “Does not work to potential” scattered about. Were I being graded on life, this would probably be the comment that would show up now too.

I am still not working to potential. Projects are still not completed.

But this just might be who I am for now. Or who I was then. I was being graded on my school work then, not my coping skills. Maybe I was doing okay in that regard. Maybe I am now.

If I was to give myself a report card now, the comments would be as follows:

“Behaves appropriately given the suck-ass circumstances and the student’s wackjob disposition.”

“Excels at drinking.”

“Stares out windows.”

How would you grade yourselves?

What comments would you give?


P.S. I have to give credit where credit is due. This entry was born (somewhat unconsciously; I really didn’t know I was headed down memory lane) from a project writer Alice Bradley is doing on her blog Finslippy . Her blog is so fantastic and funny that I almost didn’t want to share it here because it will show how paltry mine is in comparison. But that seems awfully shitty and plus it was a reader here, Marianne, who turned me on to it so it seems only right to pay it forward (especially since I'm borrowing her idea). Anyway, Bradley is participating in the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge . DonorsChoose is a charity which raises money for classroom teachers and when you enter the code FINSLIPPY at checkout any donation you make up to $100 will be matched. She’s posting funny school-related stories for the next two weeks while participating in the challenge and reading her tales of woe got me in touch with mine. Normally, I wouldn’t copy someone else’s idea---I DID NOT CHEAT ON THAT TEST!---because as a general rule, writers don’t like when you copy their ideas. Apparently, this is frowned upon. But I was reading through some of the comments on Finslippy and one of her readers--- “Alexandra/Empress”--- said she wanted to copy the idea to which Alice replied, “You must!” Now, assuming Alice Bradley and Alexander/Empress are not besties, the conclusion I drew was that she’d be cool with anyone playing around with the idea. So that’s where this came from.

But because I lack discipline---”Projects not completed” remember?---and am still waaaay all over the place, I am not sure I will continue writing about all these memories of yesteryear. Still, I would love for my one day of semi-pirating another’s idea to go to good use. Donate if you can!

I noticed

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” Alice Walker, The Color Purple

And a donor has been found!

I know I've written about Jodi ---Goddess of Midwives and Lord of my Ladybits---here before but I have yet to mention what's been going on with her as of late. While I'll likely update you with news about fundraisers, etc., for now I will just post a couple of articles which have been written in recent months regarding Jodi's need for a liver transplant after over 20 years of living with an autoimmune disease called primary biliary cirrhosis. With ten years of under-the-hood inspections under our belts (my belt; it would be weird if it were both of our belts)---and you can be sure that Jodi is the only mechanic I've ever seen---I learned at my last visit that she is taking the year off from work to build up her strength before the transplant (which will likely happen this spring) and to recuperate afterwards. I feel so much for Jodi and her family but the lot of them seems to be brimming with fortitude and humor and what more could a family need to endure such hardship? A liver donor perhaps? Well, now they've got that too!

The most recent article.

The original story which ran in January.

And here is a link to a Facebook page created by her family to keep all of us---Jodi's concerned public (you know I wanted to write pubic)---posted on her status. Obviously, this latest news means that things are looking way up.

Suffice it to say that Dan and I will not even entertain the thought of baby-making until she gets back to the midwifery bid-ness.

In other words, we're saving ourselves for Jodi.

P.S. Save the date! April 6th will be the first of three Full Moon Madness events at Margaritas Restaurant in Portsmouth, NH from which a percentage of the evening's bar and restaurant sales will go towards Jodi's Liver Team. (The other dates are May 3rd and June 4th.) Margaritas is not only home to the delicious Tomato Garlic Nacho but it's also the site at which Dan and Lola's courtship began. Perhaps you will be enticed by a historic tour of the restaurant, including a viewing of the juke box that a drunken Dan struck with his elbow in an attempt to change the song a la Fonzie. I was defenseless against his charms.

Come join the fun, peeps, because it's basically a party in the bar and we're cooking up a lot of hoo-hoo themed fun. A "Placentarita" has been discussed.

Mwah.

Hanging in my Aunt Gail's kitchen.


Miami by the numbers:

Zero: The number of times I went swimming while I was down there.

Two: The number of Oprah magazines I made it through.

Way too many to count: The number of beers, glasses of wine, margaritas, mojitos, and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and vodkas I drank.

While the drinks were plenty and the food even plenty-er, we were most nourished by each other while down in the Miami sun. My aunt, Dan, two nieces, two bros-in-law and two sisters; it was a holiday without the pressure. Every minute was different---ten days of love and sadness, laughter and sobbing, deeply painful reality and momentary departures from hardship.

“We really are so lucky," my Aunt Gail said during our tearful goodbye, "to love each other so much that it's physically painful to say good bye."

I have never known harder days than these ones but I know what she meant. I've often felt lucky to have loved my mom so much that living without her is so awful. Even as I am fearful lately of loving anyone too much, even as the concept of gratitude isn't always in reach---I know somewhere that we really are lucky.

Still, the post-vacation blues have settled in. I haven't been able to stop crying since we've been back. I know I sound like a spoiled brat---Who mourns a vacation?---but it's the truth. I knew we were coming back to bleak realities and sure enough the sadness has enveloped me. My dad's tumor is back and growing and he has some swelling in his brain. I talked to him yesterday on the phone and he said how strange it is to know he’s dying but to not know how or when it will happen. His illness over the last year---the effects of the tumor, surgery and later the chemo--- brought an intense and often unnavigable tsunami of emotion; particularly due to its occurrence so quickly following my mom's passing. We've all dealt with her death differently---he much differently than any of his daughters---and this, too, has presented much anguish and pain. I've spent weeks in suspended shock due to all that has transpired which is part of why it’s been too difficult to broach here. Still, just as he is understanding now that he is going to die, I am understanding how much I will miss him.

I am trying to thank him for what he has given me; a love of books, an interest in music which spans all genres, limitless curiosity, the solid advice to "choose what is most fun" when faced with a difficult decision. My dad has never been like other dads and I am grateful for this in many ways.

During our phone call we talked about how appreciating the beauty of the snow on the ground---a sight I was grumpy about returning to---is the best way to live a life. Appreciating that damn snow allowed me to kiss my life. My mom had hoped to see one more snow and wasn't able to (though a fresh layer of powder came just a couple of days after she died; an unlikely sight for early November as if she brought it to us). So I know better than to take it for granted. (Though I do reserve the right to boo hoo again should I get cranky. And also, it’s much easier to kiss a life that brings the 60-degree weather that today is.)

I've been thinking about all of this so much lately. How this moment is my life. How who I am now is who I am, period. It doesn't mean there won't be growth and change, it just means that this version of me is not to be cast off as temporary. I look at pictures of my mom at my age---that person was who she was; those moments captured were her life. Sitting here at this table with my laptop is a snapshot of my life, just as a walk later today will be. As will my tears in between.

“I finally figured out that I had a choice: I could suffer a great deal, or not, or for a long time. Or I could have the combo platter: suffer, breathe, pray, play, cry, and try to help people.”---Anne Lamott from Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

I’m all up in that combo platter. Sorrow, anger, laughter, stillness, anguish, loathing, rage. It’s hard to fight to get back up knowing we will be knocked down again, so rather than fighting anymore I’m trying to wait myself out.

Maybe all things are occurring at just their right time. Maybe our trip to Miami was supposed to be in the weeks after my grandmother died rather than before so we could be there for my aunt rather than see my grandmother one last time. Maybe we needed to douse our cells with sunlight and our souls with energy so that we will have the strength for what’s to come.

Maybe it would have been too hard for my dad to have lived a long life after losing my mom.

Yesterday on my walk Ray Bolger’s version of “Once Upon a Time” came on and I cried right there on the sidewalk---grateful not just for the song’s beauty but more so for my dad who taught me to recognize it.

The fruits of the combo platter...