This day

This day is like a minefield for me. And I feel selfish even saying that. My mother is still alive and I choose to keep my distance. No, it's more than choice. I have to keep my distance. I have to. Because I have worked far too hard at putting myself back together again to let her come in and pull out my still healing stitches. And she would.

She sent me a letter a while ago. A handwritten note. I handed it to my therapist who read it with arched brow. And then went to photocopy it for my file and instructed me to go home and put it away and just not think about it anymore. Which is hilarious since a large part of my work now is to stay present in the moment and to feel my feelings when they happen. Because I learned to not be present on her watch. I learned that when someone was hurting me that the best thing was to just not feel it. I learned that I wasn't safe and that there was nothing I could do about it. There was no parent who was going to protect me. So I got very good at not feeling it. I got good at acting normal. I would crack a joke to hide my pain. I didn't dare show a vulnerability to be turned against me later. I learned that she could really give me something to cry about if she wanted, and sometimes she wanted. 

I had a nearly full on panic attack in session a few weeks ago and my therapist had no idea until I confessed the next week. We sat, 5 feet apart while I fell apart inside with my heart trying to race, the room spinning, my stomach churning, my mind racing. And I couldn't pipe up and say that I was not OK. To someone who is there to help me. Who isn't going to hurt me. And who is a clinician who deals with trauma and knows how to spot these things a mile away.

And that's why I have cut ties. I can see no version of my life at this time that includes being well and having a relationship with her. I can have one of those things. I picked me.

This year there is a new layer to the day. An emptiness that I haven't quite felt before. The kind that catches in my throat and makes it hurt to swallow a little bit. Because I am not a mother. And before I found out that was even remotely possible I was OK with it and I accepted it was part of the hand I was dealt. Sure getting wished a happy mother's day just because you look old enough to have kids has sucked pretty much every year for a decade. But by not being a mother I was also not going to risk becoming her, I was in control. It was my choice and now, it's not.

This year I am no longer childfree. For the first time in my life I am childless and so aware of it that sometimes it hurts. It hurts to breathe. My eyes sting with tears. My belly aches. I press on with the work I do in therapy, because forward has become the only acceptable direction for me to go. If the time comes, I cannot allow myself to be her. I don't want any child of mine to feel unsafe. To feel frightened of me. To feel so alone that it hurts. To be afraid to cry in front of me. To feel like I did.

Color by Numbers

392 days ago we bought this house.
We have painted 9 rooms (8 rooms, really, but one was done twice....in three days....)
We I have removed carpet or groaty linoleum from 7 rooms
We put a new floor down in 1 so far (hardwoods in the rest..rough hardwoods...but we can suck it up as long as it takes)
I spackled in and sanded smooth about 100 paneling grooves in the dining room to try and make the walls look like they were not paneling. It sort of worked.
The trim in the entry way took me 6 goddamn coats of white paint. Srsly.
My first heating season with oil heat cost about $2500 and that's WITH being a total miser with the thermostat.
20 is the number of cabinet doors and drawers I primed, painted and glazed.
20 is also the number of new cup pulls and knobs that I installed in those cabinets.
Jeff managed to spill 1 half gallon of paint in a box sitting on carpet that we had luckily planned to remove anway.
14 is the number of leaky, drafty, and amazing original wood 7 pane windows I need to put shrinky plastic on this winter to save myself some dough!
New gutters were the first major home project we had done here. being obsessed with running water away from the house we added 2 extra downspouts at the front where the house has sunk about 3 inches.
I lost count of my trips the the paint store, so I have no number for that, but Elliot at the Sherwin Williams around Capitol and 63rd is a delightful young man who is very patient, very knowledgeable and knows when it's just a good idea to give the lady one of the big ass paint decks to keep forever. We bought so much paint we now get their mailers for professionals.
There are still 4 rooms in the house that have not been touched by cuteness.
One of them has carpet that is old. I mean really old, like 1950s or 60s. When it gets to be over 100 up there in the summer it smells bad. Real bad. It's going to come out pretty soon. I have that room in my sights for the next project.
I have 2 boxes with light fixtures in them sitting in the junk room waiting for me to decide precisely which room to have them installed in.
There were more than a few nights when worry and insomnia were my companions and I watched every single episode of McLeod's Daughters on Netflix. Seriously. Every one. Do you know Australian series have like 32 episodes a year? That shit ran for like 9 years.
I have probably 5 gallons of paint in the basement for rooms yet to be painted. What? There was a 40% off sale. The good paint is nearly $60 a gallon.

Here are 6 pictures that show a little bit of what I have been up to:







And tomorrow is the first day of NaNoWriMo and last year I was too overwhelmed with projects and moving and still freaking out about the flood and everything and this year....I don't know. Maybe this is my year. Maybe I can both find a plot AND write 50,000 words. Who knows? I think I'm going to try.

Oh, and the number of water heaters I bought in in 392 days? Washers and dryers? Dehumidifiers? Furnaces? Shop vacs? Dirty water emergency pumps? None. And that might be my most favorite number of all.