Category Archives: Venting

Unsent

Dear ____,
I was thinking of you today, and thinking of myself, too, in that sort of unattractive, self-pitying way I sometimes do. Don’t you just want your life back? I want my life back so desperately today. I realized something recently: spontaneous acts of affection are slipping away from me. Not all intimacy, that’s not what I mean. But the little things, the things that feel much bigger once they’re gone. To stride across a room and embrace someone just home from a trip. To reach out and squeeze someone’s hand, a quiet connection. Even to completely and totally invade someone else’s personal space while you’re watching television, so that for the duration of the show, you’re not quite sure where you end and the other person begins, and you start breathing at the same pace because it’s just easier that way.

If I could have full command of my body again, I would positively spin across the floor when the front door opened. I would take a bath, my toes flexed and my hair spreading out behind me like a mermaid’s. I would stand in my closet getting dressed, and I would pile my wet hair on top of my head in a bun, and I would pour two glasses of wine.

I miss my life. You know what I’m talking about, ____. There’s plenty to be happy about still. We do make the best of things. But right now I’m tired of compromising. And you’ve been doing this for so long. How? How do you keep your frustration from spilling out, forcing the ones you love most to back away so they don’t drown in it?

I still have my little person. Read More>

|Categories: Life, Parenting, Progression, Relationships, Venting | Tags: | Permalink

Bad Behavior

Rob and I had an interesting interaction on Friday morning. It was a total ALS moment, where the frustration overtakes everything else and you realize that what is happening is real, and that you’re out there, traveling with no road map. It’s the definition of ALS: Good luck, keep driving.

Rob had returned from a trip to New York the night before. Our time without him had gone fine, thanks to help from my sister and my two assistants. On Friday morning, we were trying to get back into our routine. I couldn’t help but think about how simple it must have been for Rob that week. Getting himself—and only himself—ready to walk out the door. The luxury.

Some time ago, I decided to wear what is basically a uniform of maxi dresses, and I had recently purchased some new ones. So that morning, we tried on a new dress. Yep, I use the word “we” with zero irony here. It’s a group effort. Rob pulled the dress over my head. He adjusted the straps, kicked my footrest up and lifted me to allow the billowing material to fall towards the floor. “What do you think?” he asked. Read More>

|Categories: Life, Relationships, Vanity, Venting | Tags: , , | Permalink

There Will Be Blog

Scarlett is home sick today, so I won’t have time to blog intelligently. That is why I decided that Scarlett is going to be today’s guest blogger. But when I said that to her, she screamed NO at the top of her lungs and ran into the garage. So this might take some time.

My plan today was to blog about choices: why it’s good to have them, how we make them, how they empower us. I came up with this idea in the middle of the night when I found myself facing the decision of whether to ignore the discomfort in my legs or wake Rob up to roll me on my side. Lucky for me, after a few minutes of weighing the pros and cons of either choice, I heard Scarlett barreling towards our room, coughing and snorting like a troll with emphysema.

Rob took her back to bed, and when he returned, I casually asked him to flip me over. No biggie. We had about an hour more of silence before the little beast returned. She was taken away again, but it was hard for me to get back to sleep. When she finally showed up at a decent hour, everyone was exhausted, so we just laid there and she coughed in my face for a while. Read More>

|Categories: Life, Parenting, Relationships, Venting | Tags: , , , | Permalink