What does that even look like right now, being ok. In our house, we’re still home all the time. Probably if things were lighter for my kids, without anxiety, things would be a bit different, we’d be out more, walking. But where we live in Waterloo, there isn’t much to do in walking distance and where I’d love to walk the trails behind our home, no one else is up for it.
So we put in time. Yesterday things were desperate enough to let them tell me an alphabet of all the dirty words they knew, they are 12 and 15 and nothing shocks me anymore, well, not those words anyway. They’ve got some ways to go and as I’d guessed, it sounded more like a healthy sex ed class. And although it definitely did not result in me winning any parenting awards, they did laugh their guts out for almost an hour, so that’s something.
We’re in that weird place where we all stay up too late and don’t get up early enough in the morning. Each day I imagine waking up early and writing on my deck, but when I wake up my leg hurts so much still from stupid sciatica than another half an hour sleeping feels like a better choice. Anxiety makes sleep very difficult to come by for my oldest, and they’re too old to start going to bed very early and then the hours get lost. It’s funny how often motherhood falls into old patterns, memories stirred up, days and nights mixed up.
But at the same time, we’re incredibly spoiled. We ordered soaps and bath bombs from a local company for a treat, and I can’t even tell you the amount of books I have rolling in these days, by Black authors, to read and talk about and learn from. I ask the kids – because I know the answer – if the news makes things harder for them, they say no and it wouldn’t matter if it did. We are talking and learning together, in and around the video games.
I’m doing ok, as long as I stop floating around and above everyone here, making sure they’re ok. School lost momentum a while ago. It’s the guilt I’m struggling with, pushing harder but not too hard, too much screen, too much licorice, too many chips (that’s me). Our tiny worries and struggles which amount to nothing the minute you think past your home. But then there’s the new little bits that creep into your day and darken things, like Rowling – the one news story we’re not ready to share with the boys. There was huge article about it in the Star this morning, I saw the headline and picture just as Rory grabbed for the comics on the next page. I made up some stupid excuse and grabbed it back and he said I was being weird. He just finished reading all the books again, for the seventh time, for comfort. I’ve got a word document collecting the essays I’ve read this week that might help later on.
We’re ok, of course we are. The ups and downs can be intense and in the paper today Scott’s horoscope did say a family member could move out tonight, but we’re not too worried.
Pink Fish Reads 