I was telling my therapist last week that I keep finding myself in this mortality spiral where I sit on the couch and my life flashes before my eyes like one of those stupid flip-page illustration books but it’s mostly my time as a mom, Chooch through the years, Bambi and then no more Bambi, and I start to panic about how time is just fucking Days of Our Lives’ing through my fingers and how much time do I have left with Henry and will Chooch have a happy life on his own without us and before I know it, I can’t breathe and I’m so sad that it’s crippling. Like right now I’m typing this and just flat out ugly-crying and choking on mucus, it’s fucking pathetic. I know that, to an extent, this is normal. It’s like a rite of passage for moms, right? I guess some of the more emotionally attuned dads too.

But I feel so stuck on a loop and like instead of enjoying whatever time I have left, I’m wasting it by wondering HOW MUCH TIME DO I HAVE LEFT.

The other day, I was looking out of the backporch windows at the crows and the squirrels and even though it’s so gross and cold out, there was some crazy split-second glimmer of a vibe, an essence in the air, that made the thought “spring will be here soon” ticker across my stupid brain, and then I BURST INTO TEARS. Thinking about a spring without Chooch. Opening up the backporch for just one cat, not two. Probably having even more gray hair. Henry limping. EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT. WE ARE ALL SO OLD.

(OMG if you could see how hard I am crying right now, I actually just took a step outside of my body and am cracking up at how fucking hysterical I am being. Do I need drugs?! WHAT DO I NEED.)

(THIS HAS GOT TO BE A MIDLIFE CRISIS.)

I just finished this one book that I had mixed feelings on for almost the whole thing until the very end when it just BLASTED me with grief and emotions, a mom at her son’s wedding, not knowing her husband would die in a handful of years, adjusting to life alone, etc etc and I was like SCREAMING INTERNALLY while giving my eyeballs full reign to just dump the tears out, who cares anymore. If you ever see me and I’m NOT crying at this point in my life, check my pulse because I might be dead.

I miss having Chooch around so much, yes we text every day and yes he still annoys me with his random displays of incompetency and his frustrating, surly one-word answers. But then he will open up about life in Philly and allow me tiny glimpses and I am like I LOVE HIM SO MUCH and then I feel so happy but also somehow more sad.

Yesterday in group chat, some people were sharing photos of their babies and grandbabies for Valentine’s Day and I was so bereft that I no longer fit into these conversations, being in some cold, parental limbo. I had nothing to contribute and then it made me remember this old Valentine’s picture of Chooch and I was too sad to share it then but I will share it now because I miss having a baby. I just miss HIM as a baby.

:( 2008

In an overwhelming fit of “I NEED TO DO SOMETHING TO SHOW HIM I LOVE HIM” I sent Chooch a Saxby gift card for Valentine’s Day, for which he thanked me (even used an exclamation mark!) and then promptly bought his coffee with Henry’s debit card, lol. Little signs of “some things will never change” and I am grateful for that.

I finished the aforementioned book this afternoon and left the house for the first time in over week, finally feeling better, to walk it back to the library. On my way there, the Las Palmas taco cart was BLASTING Alphaville’s “Forever Young” and I actually laughed out loud, more like a sarcastic bark though, at the universe’s sick, totally on-the-nose joke. Really? THAT song? I had to pause before entering the library because I could feel my eyes started to sear with sorrow AGAIN. I am basically just walking around like an unhinged woman on the edge these days, it’s so pathetic. Can I go one day without crying, please.

My therapist told me to start writing this stuff down and I guess that’s what this blog is now, a page for FEELINGS AND CHAOS. It’s so annoying. I’M so annoying. Hopefully one day I will reenter the land of the living. Because whatever this is, it AIN’T IT.