Last night, at midnight, I could be found sitting up in my pretty new bed, eating ice cream and watching my wedding video. Don't cry for me Argentina, because the first song I heard today was "Hold On" (you know, Wilson Phillips) AND it's Friday AND that means I pick up the boys after work. I don't anticipate today having an ice-cream-in-bed-nostalgia-sentenced end to it. As my Dad says, some days you're the bug and some days you're the windshield, and while I am not certain which one you're supposed to prefer, I think it's safe to assume that one is better than the other. Either way the bug is dead. All this to say that I let myself have the bad days, because I am always at least positive that tomorrow could be better.
It's hard to describe, going through your day as a highly-functioning person to be staggeringly and very unexpectedly halted by desperation. I have no idea what the triggers are. I am beginning to believe there are none. I'm at work, adjusting to the changes and responding to people's needs. I'm leaving the grocery store having spent an astronomical amount of money on fresh food that will go back in the fridge when I cannot commit to using it. I've just put the boys in the tub, walked the dog or laughed at a crude comedian on TV. Emotional health evaporates and I'm stunned into sadness that I'm without him, fear that I'll remain without him, desperation for the next time I'll touch or smell him, disbelief that this is really happening, anger that my 7-year-old and 9-year-old haven't felt the embrace of their dad in six weeks and that they will only know their mother from memory.
It's like running into a wall, being kicked in the stomach and finding an earring that does not belong to you in your boyfriend's car all at the same time. (That just happened to Donna on a 90210 rerun on SoapNet recently.) I can't say this experience is fleeting, but it thankfully doesn't hover. I just sit into it, like they tell you to do to a body cramp, and wait for it to pass. I'm pretty sure it will continue to pass, and somebody will call you and let you know if it ever doesn't.
I'm long overdue to post. I've actually been writing. I just have not been completing. And therefore not posting. The easiest way for me to update is to start with now and work backwards, from me being alone in my bed with only the ice cream I bought for the boys to comfort me. We started the summer schedule with the boys. They are with their grandparents during the week. This keeps my working ass from having to put them in camps they hate and for which their psychologist thinks they are not ready. She does encourage lots of activities, so Mawmaw has a summer chock full of adventures and outings for them - karate, swim lessons, library activities, field trips, summer vacation trip. I pick them up on Friday afternoons and we spend the weekend swimming, swimming, swimming and whatever other shenanigans I have come up with that week.
Jake is having a little more trouble adjusting to these life changes than Landen is. We started the summer having trouble with impulse control and the appropriate communication of feelings (i.e. you don't smack the hell out of your brother when he does something you do not like) but among the qualified health professionals and loving adults who care for him, and with credit to the guiding light from his mama above, he's had a much better week this week. He's content to shut himself in and entertain himself, so sometimes you really have to draw him out and engage him.
Landen seems more aware of the absence of both his parents since school let out, but he's doing very well with expressing that in healthy ways, so we just listen when he has something to say. You have to be very careful what you say to him, or around him, because that crafty little firecracker sniffs out the most adult aspects of life and asks 1,000 questions about that. His dad is going to have a hard time with him as a teenager. I'm quite certain I will develop an impressive drinking problem interest in some new hobby or craft for those high school years.
Corey is doing his thing. He's hot. Check the weather in Baghdad on any given day and whimper in pity for him. I do. They make them wear pants, long sleeves and undershirts in 120-degree heat. His roommate is back in Louisiana on R&R, so he's all by his little punkin self in his room for another week. They're getting ready to move, but I do not know when or why or where. This is apparently part of the drawdown in Iraq that is supposed to be finished by the end of summer. I'm assured that Corey will not be one of the 40,000+ soldiers who will get to come home early, so do not get your hopes up that Jake and Landen's father will be returned to them any sooner than is absolutely excrutiating.
If you don't like bad words, hide your eyes, but then you'll miss my super handsome GI Joe.
This weekend I'll try to finish and give you:
- Jake and Landen's Awards Days
- Swimming!
- I wrecked my f#*^ing car
- Crap I've been working on around the house
- A post devoted to my love of and dependence on music
- A post devoted to Glee
- My roadtrip
.....
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