Happily Exhausted

To say that this has been a long three weeks would be an extraordinary understatement.  It has been packed to the brim with some, wonderful moments and also some doozies.  So far this fall has been full of family, back to school routines, and the beginning of extracurricular activities.  It brought me to some old friends that made my heart feel full and me feel old.  There has been equal parts snuggles and battles between the little lady and me.  We have been busy to the point of pure exhaustion- I can feel it in my bones- but taking a look back at it, it's all been worth it.

Getting Kennedy back to school has had its challenges.  She loves school, adores her teacher and the routines they have, and can’t wait to see her friends each day she goes.  We are up to three days a week this year, which is great but this mama has always struggled with morning-time-management.  It doesn’t matter how much I get prepped the night before, come morning I am always running around, losing my patience and swearing, mostly in my head but I’m admittedly imperfect and so there is an occasional “$h*t” thrown out here and there.  The complicating factor this year is getting Kennedy ready as I simultaneously stumble through my own routine.  More than that: The kid is insistent on choosing her clothes.  Which is fine, since she picks out everything she owns in the stores for the most part, except that after we choose her outfit the night before, come morning it’s never right.  She doesn’t like the color, the fit, the pattern, you name it.  There are usually tears from one of us while the other one is trying to stand their ground.  I’ll be honest-she usually wins and I threaten things, emptily, like giving away the things she wants to wear over and over, like her Princess Elena tee-shirt.  I'm sure the clothes thing will get easier as she gets older, right?

We’ve started dance too.  So, now we have a dancing hockey player.  We are working on being well rounded.  Kennedy doesn't seem to see much of a difference in the two; she transitions from one to the other seamlessly.  She loves them both and so when I’m exhausted from being out all day by the time hockey practice ends and I’d rather be sleeping in on Saturday morning than watching dance class- it's all beyond worth it when she smiles as she twirls or sticks the landing as she jumps over her hockey stick.

We made a trip down to Long Island for my mother’s best friend’s son, my childhood buddy’s wedding reception.  Time and distance has kept us from seeing each other for years but when he gave me a big’ole bear hug the second I saw him, it was like no time had passed.  Spending time with him, my parents, a few of my siblings, and some family and friends did me good.

 Photo credit: Brianne Wakefield 

Photo credit: Brianne Wakefield 

The following weekend was a working one for me and so even though it was cut a little short, Sunday was a day filled with fun and family time.  We went antiquing, where it made me laugh to see my little lady tickled by all of the “old stuff,” as she kept shouting out.  After a few good finds we met my sister and her boys at a local Fall park-type-place with all kids of fun!  It was a day filled with fun and laughing, fighting and tears, but as is always the way in my family, we make it work.  Love can be a sticky thing but it's what holds us all together.

Photo credit: Sara DeSanctis 

Photo credit: Sara DeSanctis 

Photo credit: Sara DeSanctis

Photo credit: Sara DeSanctis

Monday, September 26th, Sean and I brought over the first donation to the Labor and Delivery Unit’s Bereavement committee at Albany Medical Center on behalf of Jack’s Herd.  The amount of love and outpouring of support has been nothing short of amazing.  To supply the materials to give grieving mommies and daddies the same kinds of things Sean and I cherish so much, all we have of our sweet baby Jack, moved me in a way I can’t put into words.  Part of me sobbed when it was done because in order for it to be used someone else’s life has to come apart, and yet the other part of me felt an overwhelming joy that my baby boy is still able to carve out a place in this world.   You are all helping us do this for him and I love you for it.

The end of one month and the beginning of a new one brought us back down to the Island for another wedding.  It was for my best friend from high school’s little sister.  These are two girls that are in most of the best memories I have from my teenaged years.  My fondest memories are of sitting around their big wooden farm table with them and their mom talking and laughing into the early hours of the morning.  I hadn’t seen any of them since Jack had died and my heart has ached for them all of these months.  There isn’t a good reason for letting so much time go by but I can only explain it as the girl they had known all of these years has just been buried so deep by heartache and life that I didn't know if I fit with them anymore.  Going to the wedding and seeing the beautiful little girl that I loved like my little sister as a gorgeous bride and my best friend standing with her, so proud of her too and their mama calling out my name like I was sixteen back in her kitchen proved my doubts wrong.  If anything, seeing them, hugging them, and more than anything laughing with them showed me that that girl is still in here, and every once in a while, more often than I’ve been, I need to dust her off and let her out for a visit.

So now I sit, snuggled in my bed on a chilly fall afternoon, still slightly hung-over and reminded that I'm not nearly as young as I used to be, I am tired.  But, and this is where it all counts, I am happy.  I haven't felt genuinely happy in a while.  So if it takes a bit of exhaustion to be happy every so often, I’ll pay that price.

 I may just have to throw a three-hour nap in here or there along the way.

Rejection-once-removed

I can remember as a kid having a conflict with a friend or group of friends from time to time.  It wasn't very often and it was never anything too serious.  I think I always assumed my mom never had a clue as to what was going on.  She’d ask from time to time if I had seen or talked to so-and-so lately and I’d give her a vague response, hoping she wouldn't press for more dirt, not wanting her to know I was feeling sad or rejected by kids I was friends with, or thought I was.  And when the friends started popping up in my tales of school again, or I'd start asking to have them over to our house or go to theirs, she never made a big deal of it.  As the mama of an almost four-year-old that attends pre-school two days a week, I am learning this acquired art form of dealing with rejection-once-removed  and, trust me, it is not nearly easy as she made it look.

Back before our preschool days, Kennedy’s friends consisted of my friends children.  We knew almost everything about them, and their parents, and generally how they are being raised.  They were the kids she spent time with, but it was always with us.

Kennedy is a talker.  She started talking late but once she started, she's never stopped.  She’ll talk to anyone; during hockey practice, in the grocery store, in the dentist’s chair, Target, anywhere. So, when she started school and came home the very first day talking all about the kids and her new friends, we laughed and imagined her bossing everyone around in her helpful little way.  When I’d call on my way home from work so see how school was each Tuesday and Thursday, she’d always talk about the same little girl, how they played together, and ate snack together and played on the seahorse outside (don’t ask me what that is-I have zero clue). “She’s my best friend,” Kennedy would tell anyone that asked.  I loved that; that she, so early, could distinguish a closeness with one person over others.

And then, one afternoon about two weeks ago, she told me she felt sad.  I asked why and she said, “I wasn’t allowed to play with so-and-so because she has a new friend and they told me I couldn't play with them.”  It crushed me, breaking my already fragile heart a little more.  How could they say that to her, to my little girl, who at almost-four is clearly as loyal as they come to her people? Who the f#&! did these little brats think they were?! I was livid, but my mama instincts kicked in and I didn’t tip my hand to Kennedy.  Instead, I calmly said, “I’m sorry baby, why don't you ask them if you can play with them on Thursday?”  She told me it was ok because a little boy in the class asked her to play with him and the new girl and they had fun.  But when I got home Thursday and asked how things went, she told me her friend wouldn't let her talk to her, that she kept running away. 

I was beside myself, thinking that I couldn't believe this kind of shit happens this young-I mean they are practically still babies for goodness-sake.  I asked Sean what we should do, should I call the school?  He, as he always does, calmed me down and told me we couldn't be sure that Kennedy was interpreting what was happening the right way.  It went on like this for another week and I tried to keep reinforcing that it was so nice that she was playing with new friends and that she could tell her teacher if she was feeling sad in school and they would help her.  But would they?  Could I be sure of that?

This past Tuesday, I’d convinced myself that, if she came home from school that day and said it was still going on, I would call and ask what was going on.  It was Pajama Day and she wore her new jammies and armed herself with a big smile.  I worried all day at work how she did, knowing full well (being that I work in a middle school as a counselor) this is how so many kids go through their days at school.  I wondered how their parents feel when I call to let them know that their child is struggling socially.  I dreaded even asking how the day went as I came in the door; I couldn’t bear to see her look anything but happy.  I didn't have to ask though because she came flying at me, yelling, “Mommy they played with me today! We’re friends again!”

You know what I thought: Well the hell with both of them! You don't need a friend that is such a follower; that would treat her friend badly just because someone else tells her to! But instead, swallowing my rejection-once-removed, I said, “Oh lovey, that's such good news! How was pajama day?”

That's the thing about being a parent, you have this crazed urge to slap the face of anyone that wrongs your baby, but you don't.  You model for your kids how to absorb a little disappointment and teach them how to ask for help.  You don't push too hard, and you don't solve every problem for them.  And after all, it could be awkward when the kid whose face you slapped just a week before shows up to play at your house with their best friend!

A Before and After picture

I really haven’t seen many people since Jack died.  In two months, with the exception of family on a rare occasion, I had seen only one friend, my best friend Jen from graduate school and her husband, Andrew.  She is, honest to God the kind of friend you imagine yourself having as a grown up.  She’s like a warm blanket that you want to wrap yourself up in when you’re not feeling so great and still display over the back of your favorite couch or chair when you are, because she’s just that beautiful and inviting. The point I’m trying to make is, during a time when I felt the most unpredictable, and like I could barely hold it together, she was safe to me.  Protective even.  Other than that, I’d been shutting the world out. 

Jen and me last year at her bachelorette weekend on Martha's Vineyard

It’s tough.  It’s like I’m a different person.  It is pointless to try and ignore that going through this has highlighted that there is a Tricia before Jack died and a Tricia after.  Sometimes I look in the mirror and I hardly recognize the girl looking back at me.  Or I see a recent-enough “before” photo of me and it seems a lifetime ago.  A constant worry I battle is whether or not the people who knew and liked me (the two things are separate, trust me) "before" will still want to be around the “after”.

A little over a week ago I dipped my feet back into the socialization pool.  I've been petrified.  Going into it you’d think I never knew how to swim at all.  I made sure the water was warm and that I had something to keep my afloat just in case I got tired.  Okay, I’ll stop with the metaphors (sometimes I just cant help myself!).  And so, when a good friend I work with texted and asked when I’d be up for a visit, I took advantage of the fact I was in an okay place that day and told her to come that Saturday.  Instantly, I’d regretted it.  I thought about cancelling right up until she texted that she was on her way over, had I eaten lunch yet?  Sean kept saying it would be good for me to see her and that he’d be there too just in case I needed him.  She arrived and the moment she walked through the door and gave me a big, long hug, I was a mess.  We sat and talked for hours.  Not just about Jack but about work, traveling and, just for fun, some shallow obnoxious things.  We laughed; God, did we laugh. 

It was so good to see her and pretend, just for a bit, that nothing had changed; that I’d been able to go through this and remain the same, albeit a little sadder. But if I’m being honest, and that is what I am trying to make sure I do here, it’s that I was so exhausted when she left.  It was exhausting trying to be “before” Tricia.  To be able to focus on a conversation and laugh at the right times and respond at the right times was exhausting.  Texting with someone is easy.  The rules are different.  You don’t have to worry about how you look, or if you’re crying or in a bitchy mood, and if something said bothers you or you don’t want to answer you can just give a quick one word response or an “LOL” then just shut the text app down and walk away from your phone.  Face to face is not so easy.  There are a few more nuances to an exchange than that.  So choosing whom I could see first was hard.  I love my friends, really I do and every single one of them for different reasons.  But I knew I had to be careful who I let in first because of how fragile I am these days.  Jessalyn is brutally honest and makes me laugh yet is one of the kindest and most gentle people I know.  I knew she would place no expectations on me.  That I could be a mess and it wouldn’t make her uncomfortable.  She can sit in silence and not have to try to fill it with something she hopes would make you feel better, which is what I need lately.

Two of my closest girlfriends are having babies.  Actually, one already did, a beautiful little girl.  The other is expecting a baby boy any day, we shared the same due date, April 2^nd.  I love both of these girls.  Normally, they would be 2 of the people I would want around while feeling like this but it's just so complicated now.   The symmetry of our lives was so exciting “before” and so now that our paths diverged it’s excruciating.  I know in my heart, with some time, I will be able to make it to a place where I can watch them with their children and how they grow up and change but for now, I stay away.  In part because I don’t want to dampen such a happy time in their lives, for them to have to see what losing your baby looks like, and in part because, for me, it just hurts too damn bad and I try to protect what's left of my heart.

I miss my friends.  Some of them I miss so badly I worry that when I find my way to a comfortable “after” that I will have lost them too.  At a time when the thought of losing anyone else I love is unbearable, the idea that our friendships could die as well terrifies me.  What if a broken heart is not the only casualty of an already awful loss?  But the truth is, I'm still not there yet.  I’m still not in a place where I am able to straddle the before and after world I have to live in.  So when people ask me to let them know if there is anything they can do for me, I wish I had the courage to verbalize what I could use:  Patience.  Please be patient with me and my broken heart.  This didn’t come with a rulebook or an expiration date.  I wish I had a date for you when the hurt was going to fade away and the “before” Tricia will be back.  But the truth is, I don’t think she will.  I think I will get better at being the new me, the “after” me, and hopefully that will be enough.  So to my friends that may wonder if I think of you or if I realize you’re still there me: Always.  I do.   And thank you.