Time Traveling The Easy Way

And in a flash, it's six years later.  I'm 44 years old, slathering enough retinol on my face each night to burn off the most amount of skin cell layers I can until I'm in danger of showing bone.  There's some hair dye involved, and my contact lenses are multi-focals.  That means that my eyes are more focalled than they were before, from near to intermediate to kind of far to way back in time to a less cruel decade.  Chris is doing fine, or at least that's what he likes to tell me in between back pain winces and handfuls of ibuprofen.  He's a reassuring sort, that Chris B.  Somebody has to be in a marriage. I'll flip out over the day to day snags and snarls along with the litany of things that could completely go wrong at any given moment and Chris, Chris will give a half shrug and go about his evening.

What have we done in the six years since I've given up blogging?  Well let's see.  There was a pandemic; that was kind of awful.  Millions of people died and, even worse, my kids couldn't go to school.  Emily started kindergarten on a goddamn laptop, playing Barbies just out of sight from her harried teacher's camera view.  Just so everyone knows, I take credit for everything she learned that year.  I taught her to read, I babysat her assignments, and guided her through online programs while she curled up next to me on the sofa and I stroked her hair.  It was a strange, divisive time, one that may require revisiting on a different blog post if I keep this up.  We wore masks outside like ding dongs, but some people refused to wear masks at all, also like ding dongs.

Completely realistic AI rendering of me

I had my first mammogram followed by my first biopsy followed by my first foray into anti-anxiety drugs.  Turning 40 was no joke.  One day I'm 115 pounds and feeling pretty vibrant as a 30 something year old, and then overnight I'm staring down the barrel of my own mortality and edging in on 140.  Oh yeah, the biopsy came back fine.  But every year, I go and it's something else.  A scary phone call followed by an expensive ultrasound I'll choose to pay off monthly for the next three years. Some mysterious, eye catching cysts.  Fun!  In between, I notice that my hair is thinner than I'd like and sometimes I wake up at 3 am feeling like someone poured tepid water from old soup into my bed.  That's not pee, in case you're wondering.  That's pre-menopausal night sweats, and they're gross.  But ain't nobody changing the sheets at 3 am; sometimes I don't even bother to change my pajamas.  I just roll over and will myself dry.

Maybe I'm putting too much out there right now.  It's been a long time since I've blogged; I've forgotten how to hold back.

I'm still driving the black minivan.  It's a 2016 and it's going strong except for its many, mostly cosmetic problems.  The parking lot designers at Goodwill put a pretty low barrier right by the drop off lane and I was so frustrated by the fact that I crunched into the barrier and completely dented my car that I almost didn't let them have my bag of old clothes.  That would have taught them a lesson!  The sliding doors don't really open and close on their own anymore, parts of the interior keep snapping off like Lego accessories, and there's a persistent layer of sand over the floor.  I don't know, I think it makes us look like carefree beach goers, not dirty, negligent assholes.

I'm working consistently part time.  The kids are off at school (in session since we've moved on from COVID and have gone back to completely disregarding headaches and swollen lymph nodes), and so I find myself with a desire to fill my days.  I keep waiting for Chris to tell me that I need to work full time, especially on days when he's working from home and I'm laying on the couch taking an only partially deserved nap.  But, I think if he did broach the topic and tell me to go make a little more money, I'd probably explode.  Do you know how much I do around here?  Without my constant attention, this house and everything in it would burn to the ground.  My employment status is something that I've made a shaky peace with over the years.  I am very, very lucky that Chris makes enough to support us and that I'm able to focus on our family as much as I am. What a gift it has been to lead this life.  But do I occasionally feel like a loser who can only handle 20 hours of work per week and basically just goes to hang out with my coworkers and maybe get some Chic-Fil-A?  Yes.  But just occasionally.  Luckiest loser alive!

Are you wondering about my children?  The whole reason I started this blog?  Well, they're getting pretty big!  Andy's a freshman, and I just couldn't be prouder of him.  When you're pregnant and they tell you it's a boy, your mind flashes forward and Andy is everything you hope your son will be.  No pressure, right?  Then there's Alex, who is not that child you picture when you're pregnant but is so surprising and unique in all the right, but sometimes questionable, ways.  He always makes me laugh and he has a heart of gold, even if you have to scratch around for it sometimes.  My sweet Emily is nine now, not at all a toddling baby like when we left this blog six years ago.  She is fashionable and smart and makes my heart swell.  Not like I have a medical condition, but like I'm in love.  And I am!  She can be bitchy and moody and impatient and all the things that I know I was at that age, but she is the love of my life.  Tied with everyone else in my life that is.

I've missed blogging.  I've missed having a place to keep my memories and observations.  More to come, maybe.