Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me

"There's just me. One is the magic number."

Jill Scott

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 5:57 a.m. and under normal circumstances, I would just be getting out of bed at this time, but my asthma's been kicking my ass all night so I've been up, and uncomfortable, for the past few hours. Amira's still sound asleep and the entire house is still dark and quiet so I figured this would be the perfect time to write.

Since you've been gone I've done my best to make up for what our daughter has lost. It isn't possible to replace you of course, but I've done everything I can to lessen her pain. We talk about you as much, or as little, as she needs in any given moment. When she wants to be distracted I take her to the movies, museums, or play dates at the park. When she wants to feel her sadness, I hold her in my arms and let her cry. Nighttime is still rough. Afraid to be alone in the dark, she sleeps in my bed with me. On weekends, before we've made our plans for the day, while I'm still cleaning the kitchen or doing the laundry or on the ellliptical, she follows me from room to room, not letting me out of her sight. She is aware of her anxieties and she hates them. She's in therapy and has learned to journal her feelings or to talk to me whenever the need to vent arises. I spend a lot of time telling her that her feelings, her fears, are perfectly normal and that she is going to continue to heal. I do everything that I can to make her feel safe.

I spend a lot of time being her mom.

There is no one or nothing on this planet that I love more than my child but...

It is exhausting.

I am exhausted.

Writing replenishes me.

Always has.

I've written my way through the hardest periods of my life. M.S., losing my dad, new motherhood, and now losing you.

I know that I have to start taking care of myself again. I have to care for myself as diligently as I care for our daughter. I have to write and get some form of exercise daily. I have to take a multivitamin and my MS drugs, daily. I have to reach out to friends and family, meditate, eat and sleep well, DAILY. Not just when I remember. Not just when I feel like it, or when I'm in a good mood. I have to take care of myself every fucking day. I can't continue to come last on my own list.

If I do not take care of myself, I will not be able to take care of our daughter and that is NOT an option for me.

So babe, I'm committing to you, to Amira and to myself that I will make my own well-being a priority in my life again. I will do my best to get enough sleep at night. I will continue to work out and write. I will keep binge-inducing junk food out of the house and instead keep the fridge and pantry stocked with the fruits, veggies and healthier treats that I love and can eat moderately.

I will cut way back on alcohol and join Amira in her nighttime meditation.

I will do my best from here on out to take care of me again.

ALL The Crazy

Dear Lorenzo,

Right now it's 2:10 a.m. and I'm wide awake, watching tv and feeling my feelings so...here goes nothing.

I just finished giving Amira a nebulizer treatment because she woke up coughing and even though she's stopped now and has returned to sleeping peacefully, even though she still has one day of prednisone left to take, I'm worried that it's my fault she's still sick because I sent her back to school today and then let her stay at the park for a little while with her friends before we went to both Jewel and Whole Foods and maybe that was too much for her and I am the worst mother alive.

I have an open house at Northwestern in a few weeks where I will learn more about their Masters in Creative Writing program and I don't even know why I'm wasting my time (even though it's probably only a 20 minute trip to Evanston) because there's no way in hell I'm going to get into Northwestern.

We leave for New Orleans in five days to accept your diploma from EDI and even though I'm looking forward to the trip, after paying for Barbados and camp and now this, I am so frigging poor right now that a part of me doesn't even want to go to Boston in August and would rather stay home where I don't have to spend any additional money but I can't do to that my mother or my daughter and so I'm going home even if it's only for a week.

Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives is on and I'm watching a brotha make peas and rice, plantain and red snapper and the meal looks so pretty and like home to me but it still isn't something that I would ever eat, not even when we were in Barbados, and I'm wondering about the last non-salad meal that I ate at any restaurant and the only thing that comes to mind is the risotto that I had last summer in Boston and I'm wondering if the reason that I prefer raw foods like salad isn't only because of the crunchy texture but because after YEARS of dieting I'm completely fucked up now and I'm grateful that my daughter has both your confidence and appetite and I will do everything in my power to keep her that way.

Amira just woke herself up coughing and briefly climbed into my lap and I wish I hadn't told her about Indian Boundary Park tomorrow because if she keeps coughing I'm keeping her home and I worry that both she and our friends will be disappointed and that once again, I'm the worst mother/friend alive.

I miss Maggie a lot. I haven't talked to her in months and I don't know if she's grieving or pissed at me or a combination of both but I'm sad and mad and miss the shit out of my best friend.

And...there you have it. All the feels, ALL the crazy, which I'm kind of glad I got off of my chest. THIS is what I've been trying to keep at bay, to drown out with food or alcohol for the past two years.

Me.

And you know what? It wasn't even that bad. The world didn't come to an end because of my neuroses. I don't fantasize about kicking puppies or shoplifting. I'm just a relatively normal human being with my own unique set of fuckedupness. And maybe that's okay because I bet everyone has their own unique set of fuckedupness too. And after writing all of this down, I actually feel better than I have in a really long time.

Like maybe me and all of my crazy are going to be okay after all.